SINGAPORE NAVAL BASE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 148, 23 June 1923, Page 5

SINGAPORE NAVAL BASE.

■ « c GUARDING THE PACIFIC. } DEBATE IN THE HOUSE. i i (From Our Own Naval Correspondent.) j"i LONDON, May 10. ( \ Never in all its previous history has r Singapore jumped so largely in the public 7 eye. All sorts and conditions of men, ] conic quick and some dead, are being t acclaimed as the first to perceive the 1 great possibilities of the Straits naval c base before, during and after the Great J War, ibut not one of the paeans or ■ praise has been rendered to Sir Stamford ' "Raffles, the great East Indian states- I man, who establiehed there a factory in J 1819, and which became the nucleus of the modern Singapore —then a collection | of miserable huts inhabited by about 150 ( people, half fishermen and half pirates. f In 1824, Mr. Crawford, for the East j India Company, purchased the soy- j reignty and fee simple of the island ( and in this simple way '"The Gateway of 1 the East" came into existence. t The spending of f 11,000,000 on Singa- 1 pore should make that place a safe 'base 1 for the heaviest battleship—and big 'bat- * tleships and battle-cruiecrs will bo part of the scheme of defence for Australia ' and New Zealand—-we 'have or are likely ] to have. Of course, the harbour is a 1 bit shallow in parts, but well directed ' dredging should obviate that difficulty. ' The existing fortifications, while good , enough for the old Singapore, will have to 'be increased and strengthened in a. • manner more compatible with the coming | J dignity of the "Gibraltar of the Pacific." , There arc plenty of guns at home in all j conscience to re-arm the defences of Sin- -, gapore. « In the House of Commons last week, 1 the Singapore naval 'base scheme was : severely criticised by Mr. Asquith, Mr. : Lambert, Mr. C. W. Darbyshire, Captain 1 Hay, and some other Radicals and Lab- ' our representative. From none came the criticisms with worse taete than from i the ex-Prime Minister, whose shilly-shall> policy before 1014 was so largely responsible for the preciptation of the Great War. Tf Asquith's Government had boldly face*] the problem of a 'big navy and a big army there would have been no war. < "He knew that war would come at latest , in 1915, and did not take the slightest , steps to meet it, being more occupied in keeping his party in power by dabbling in Irish politics, of which they sueceiiled in making such a sorry mess. So • ell did the ex-Kaiser fool Asquith that it may be recalled that one of our squadrons just got away in time from Kiel before war was declared. Mr. Asquith declared that the naval base at Singapore found no favour at any of tKe Imperial Conferences he had presided over for ten years. Lord Fisher or Sir Arthur Wilson, lie was certain, would have rejected any such scheme. He went on to say thn-t during the late war, the German ileet was bottled up in its own ports, with the one single adventure of Jutland. He did not attach much 1 importance to the establishing of naval [ bases. He would not say that the estab- I lishing of the Singapore 'base would be a breach of the conditions of the Washington Treaty, but it ought to be looked over many times with special regard to the moral and ethical considerations involved. It was a speculation; it was even a gamble. Captain Hay, who is a Labour man, denounced Singapore .as a pestilential and moral cesspool, and said that the fortification of Singapore would 1)C regarded as a direct challenge by the yelFow men of the Far East, especially the 'Japanese. Was Singapore going to Indefended against America or Japan r They were going to throw away £10,000,----000 in the mud swamps of Singapore. Mr. Lambert waxed very wratli on the aspect of the Washington Treaty and the naval base, and maintained that the League of Nations had been flouted if Japan had not been consulted. What ever may have been the late Lord • Fisher's faults —nobody by the way said i a single word about Lord Fisher's i faults except Mr. Lambert —he concen- • trated the ships in Home waters. Singa- • pore was 7.000 miles away. How was it proposed to keep communication with ! it? What enemy were they going to meet there? He wanted to know if Australia had been consulted. : Mr. F. G. Penny said lie had lived j ' twenty years on that "moral cesspool" - and had not been anything the worse of 1 it. He thought the scheme was a very wise one and a cheap naval insurance

premium. Mr. Darbyshire said ho had lived twenty years there, and for those who ; had not to work hard the climate was enervating. It was, he thought, an infringment of the Washington Treaty , and would encourage America to go mid ' do likewise. He thought that the Ad- ' miralty would be lucky if they completed it at a less cost than £20,00(l,0()0. Commander Bellairs said that there were three causes for fortifying Singapore. It was because of the Pacific ho- j coming of increasing importance to the . future of the world; the next was the ; rise of Japan, which was not now an ally of this country. Xo one could tell what combinations of Powers there would be ten years hence. Xo one could say that the Liberal party would be in power in Japan for ever, or that a military pariy would not come into power. If Australia was to he defended in the future, capital ships would have to he sent out for that purpose, and there must bo docks for their accommodation. Another reason was that Singapore was . on the direct route to the Far East. i Rear-Admiral Sir Guy Gaunt, a distinguished Australian naval officer, to ; whom the House listened very attentively, said that the navy was changing very quickly, and it was no use in sending out ships to the Far East when there . was no provision for them to obtain necessary repairs. They had to recognise that the League of Nations did not function. (Laughter.) Eventually they might get into the air for the purposes of'"imperial defence, but they had not got there yet, and until they did so for heaven's sake let them keep open the sea communications with distant parts : of the Empire. (Prolonged cheering.) , I Mr. Amery. First Lord of the AdmiI ralty, replying, said it was clearly I understood that Singapore was outside ' the region in which Great Britain agreed , I to exercise a self-denying ordinance ! under the Washington Treaty. If they ' were contemplating strained relations I i 1 with Japan they would be proceeding in j ! this matter in a much more strenuous | and urgent fashion. They could not ' rely on indefinite peace. Singapore was a question of general strategy. It was only if they had an oil station base within the operating range of the fleet, which was not much more than two thousand miles, that they could make the Navy free to work across the seas of the world. This was not a new strategy of the Admiralty. It was the old one, upon which the British Empire had been built, and the future destiny of the Empire might well be settled in*the remotest regions of the world. They were not in a position to-day, and would not bo for many years, to put a, battle j fleet into the er even as far as 1

Singapore. In all those waters, with such immense consequences to this country from a strategical point of view, and for the defence of the Empire, we were absolutely helpless and reliant upon the goodwill of a friendly and former Allied Power. No self-respect-ing Power could afford to be dependent I -upon another Power for its security and ' for its existence. Mr. Asquith had 1 asked for the genesis of the scheme. The defence of Singapore went back to recommendations made in 1882. In 1885 provision was made to strengthen those defences still further, and before the war it was decided that the scale of defence should be adequate to resist attack by armoured cruisers, involving (l.2in guns. Further, the strategic importance of Singapore was recognised by the Imperial Conference of 1911, when it was decided that the composite fleet of the Empire should look to Singapore as its main rallying ground and centre. It had always been the contention of the Admiralty that the fleet should be free to go wherever a potential enemy might go. The problem of building oil stations and of developing Singapore wae brought forward by the Naval Staff to the Committee of Imperial Defence. Their views were endorsed by that committee and by the Cabinet in the time of the late Government, two or three years ago. The proposals were before the Imperial Conference in 1921, and met with approval. At present they were engaged upon various preliminaries. There was ample time for discussion, and they meant to discuss the question of the fuller development of that dockyard. The matter had been investigated, and reinvestigated for more than three years. He had no doubt that the Conference I to be held in the autumn would endorse the conclusions arrived at by the Conference in 1!)21. Mr. Lambert had asked how this distant base and its •communications would bo defended against submarines. The submarine had never interfered in the least with the free movement of battleships and a battle fleet. The danger they had to face was when they were at anchor. A fleet in movement, with all its proper proportions, could afford to take very lightly the possibility of attack by stray submarines operating many thousands of miles from their nearest base. What they proposed to have at Singapore was an effective repair and docking base in every sense of the word. They proposed to have a g raving dock capable of holding the biggest modern capital ships. They would also probably have a floating dock as well; they would certainly have all the workshops, stores of reserve ammunition, and all the other equipment of a good-sized base on which the fleet could work if the emergency should possibly come. Undoubtedly, Singapore would require guns to defend itself against raid, and some form of military garrison, but in fall these respects it would, like Malta and Gibraltar, be in the main dependent on the Navy itself for its security against a great attack. It was only against minor attacks and preliminary raids that they wanted to make it secure. The action they had taken was entirely consistent with the geriral policy of the Government of getting armaments down to the utmost limit I compatible with safety; it was in no I sense contrary to the spirit either of the League of Nations or the Washington Treaty, and it simply aimed at securing for the fleet, now very much reduced, free mobility, so that it might carry out in every sea of the world its historic mission, which was to keep the seas freo for the trade of this country, and for communication between this country and the other portions of the Empire on which, in peace as well as in war, our security and existence depended. (Cheers.)