SINGAPORE BASE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21341, 7 December 1934, Page 12

SINGAPORE BASE

Importance In Defence of New Zealand BRITISH ADMIRAL'S VIEW OF SITUATION (PBESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) AUCKLAND, December 6. "You have no defence problem if you maintain the Singapore base," said Admiral P. W. Dumas, R.N. (retired), who arrived in Auckland on the Mataroa from London. He is making a tour round the world. "I believe you are perfectly safe for 10 or 15 years, if not for ever," he added; "but it depends on maintaining the Singapore base. Whoever is going to get at you has got to maintain enormous lines of communication. Anyhow you would get timely warning, because Australia would be the first objective. The art of war is to break the enemy s line of communication, and the Singapore base maintains the British line of communication. You have to realise that for Australia and New Zealand to be seriously threatened by Japan, that country would first have to beat Russia, consolidate her position in Manchukuo and China, defeat America, and then deal with the Singapore base, which is 3000 miles from her own base. An the steps taken to do that would give New Zealand very timely warning. What is of real importance is for you to develop your own wealth and industries so that they would be available if needed in any time of stress 7i Admiral Dumas will spend two weeks motoring in the North, sand, and will then leave for Australia where he will spend a month. He will visit India on his way back to England. Distinguished Career A student of international politics he was for three years before the Great War naval attache in Berlin, and he has served in the same capa-, city in Denmark and Ho land. He entered the navy in 1881 and served with distinction until the end of the war, when he retired. He was appointed C.V.O. in 1910, and CB in 1914. In 1918 he was appointed aide-de-camp to the King. P From 1912 to 1913, Admiral Dumas served as secretary to the Royal Commission on Oil Fuel ana Engines, and in 1914 he was assistant director of torpedoes at the Admiralty. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and of the Royal Astronomical Society. Honoured by several foreign Governments, he holds the decorations of the Royal Danish Order of Dannebourg, the Royal Prussian Order of the Red Eagle, the Imperial Japanese Order of the Rising Sun, and the Russian Order of St. Vladimir.