The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Sun. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1941. THE DOMINIONS AND SINGAPORE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 303, 23 December 1941, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Sun. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1941. THE DOMINIONS AND SINGAPORE

WITH Hongkong in grave danger, British forces in northern Malaya still retreating and the Americans in Luzon faced with a large-scale invasion, the situation in the -Pacific is obviously bad, and it is likely to become worse before it is better. That it should be regarded with great anxiety, particularly by the peoples of the Pacific, is natural, but wartime experience to date should have taught all of us to keep an emotional balance in the face of reverses. It is far too easy, when unexpected reverses happen, to assume that someone has blundered, and to say that men in responsible posts are "incompetent." The Rajah of Sarawak, who seems to have found himself in Sydney at a time when it might be thought he would be in Sarawak, has been delivering himself of a diatribe against what he calls "the Singapore incompetents," and no doubt he will have plenty of imitators. When they have all had their say, will the military situation be any better? It is indeed plain that errors have been made, but few laymen are in a position to assess the gravity of the errors, to fix responsibility for them, or even to estimate how much such errors as were made have contributed to the military situation as we see it to-day. That situation is due, primarily, to weakness—at sea, in the air and on land. The root causes of the weakness lie far back, before the war; the immediate causes are not to be isolated and exposed by people who cannot possibly be in possession of all the relevant information. It seems certain that the authorities at Singapore led the public to believe that the strength of the forces under their command was greater than it was, tnougn we do not know wny tney did so. But though the wisdom of such tactics is questionable, they did not alter the basic fact of weakness, nor will it be altered by public' recrimination now. It can be altered only by reinforcements, of ships, of planes and of men.

The responsibility of providing for the defence of Singapore was, and remains, that of the British War Cabinet, which '/as other responsibilities, too. It had the responsibility, among the others, of providing General Auchinleck's armies in the Middle East with equipment plentiful enough and good enough to enable them to destroy the formidable forces which were menacing Suez. We have good reason to think that the War Cabinet succeeded in that difficult task, and that the men in Libya, having been provided with the tools, are finishing the job. Was the defence of Singapore "starved" because of the more immediate and greater needs of the defence of Suez? Perhaps that happened, and perhaps it had to happen. The War Cabinet did, however, send two battleships to Singapore, and it could not have foreseen that those ships would be lost immediately, or that the Japanese would spring a surprise on the Americans at Pearl Harbour. Common justice, as well as patriotism, should insist that these facts should be properly weighed against the jeremiads now coming from Singapore and Sydney. But this also should be said: The extension of the war to the Pacific gives the Dominions an unassailable right to a voice, and a strong voice, in the war councils of the Empire. That right should have been admitted before, if only because the Dominions had sent forces to Europe and Africa, and even intp the United Kingdom, to fight for Britain. Now, when those forces are far away from home, their home countries are menaced. In such a situation it is imperative that the Dominions' Governments should assure themselves that the defence needs of the Pacific are given sufficient weight in the War Cabinet, and that the appointments of men to responsible posts in which they will have the control of Dominion troops are the best possible. More than that, in such a key-point as Singapore, which is a vital part of the defences of Australia, and of New Zealand, there should be strong representation of the Dominions in both diplomatic and military councils. The notion that our interests there can be perfectly understood and served by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was never convincing, and it is scarcely supported by experience.