"MAJOR BLUNDER"

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 7

"MAJOR BLUNDER"

SINGAPORE BASE. "Empire's Most Costly White Elephant." CONDEMNED BY JOURNALIST. (United P.A.—Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, February 3. Mr. G. Ward Price, in an article published in the "Daily Mail," says the sum of £0,500,000 has been expended on "the Empire's most costly white elephant," the Singapore naval base, and £4,000,000 more will go the same way in the next three years. "Britain, while her own unemployed stand idle, maintains 3000 coolies to transform jungles and backwaters into a harbour," says the writer. "Tliis work requires 8,000,000 cubic yards of excavation, 5,000,000 of dredging and 1,000,000 of concrete for a mile long granite-faced waterfront where the Navy's three most powerful ships may come SOOO miles for repairs in r, £1,200,000 floating dock, while the crews o: 1300 in each ship swelter in barracks. "The only foreign warships within 2500 miles are a few old Dutch gunboats at Java and an occasional American cruiser at Manila. The base owes its existence to fantastic fearfulness such as led Lewis Carroll's white knight to keep a rat-trap on his horse's back. "Even in the event of an AngloJapanese war no Government would send a battle-fleet to the otiier end of Asia thus risking a thrust at the Empire's heart by a European nation's sudden declaration of an alliance with Japan. The fleet could not go beyond Singapore. "A British naval offensive in Japanese waters would demand a three-fold superiority in the fleet, and it could not protect Australia because the Japanese route thither would be 4000 miles farther to the east. "Australia for a fraction of the cost of Singapore could be equipped, with an Ah- Force capable of destroying hostile warships and transports 500 miles from the coast. The construction of the Singapore base was a major blunder which Japan regards with resentment."