IMPERIAL NAVAL CO-OPERATION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1193, 31 July 1911, Page 7

IMPERIAL NAVAL CO-OPERATION.

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT. In a speech at Pontypool, Wale= on June 13, Mr. M'Kcnna, First Lord of the Admiralty, said 110 was happy to say that tho naval arrangements made with tho Dominions were most satisfactory. Two years ago the spontaneous cfi'er of assistance had come from the Dominions, "and at the Naval Conferenco of 1903 tho principles were discussed upon which this assistance mijjht liost be developed. Each of the Dominions would contribute in the fashion most appropriate to its resources and its internal public opinion to tho strength of the Empire. Some would do it by direct contribution to the power of the British Fleet, either by annual payment or by tho gift of ships, or both; others by tho development of fleets of their own. In the li'.tter case there would bo interchangeability of officers and men and such common standards of training nud discipline as to ensure, in the event of war, that tho joint fleets would bo able to act in complete Union. Tho defence of the gigantic oversea trade of tho Empire, continued Mr. M'Kcnna, was a colossal task. This trade traversed the ocean in every part of the globe. Great as was the British trade, that of the Dominions in proportion to the population was not less important, and the people of this family of nations had n common interest and care in its protection. The statesmen of the Dominions had joined with the Government in

providing and maintaining the neccssary means of defence, and while there was to bo 110 interference with the autonomy of each member of the Kmpirc, the foundations had been laid of a naval strength which, if combined in war, would safeguard Imperial interests in every part of the globe.

The Ideal in Warfare, Commenting on this tho London "Times" said:— "It is, as we have said, impossible to exaggerate the importance of this announcement. ... In point of fact, it may be taken as an axiom, established by the whole courso of naval history, that efficiency in naval warfare depends nl.cve all things on those moral and personal factors which make no show at all in a merely material comparison of strength, but which count for everything or for nearly everything on the. ciay ot battleon sound and ingrained conceptions of the strategy and tactics that mako for victory, on clear-headed direction and undivided command, ou uniform standards of training and discipline, on continuity of inspiring tradition and common loyalty to its inspiration, and finally on tho spontaneous and almost automatic harmony that is engendered by all these agencies between the mind of the com-mander-in-chief and the minds of his subordinate officers. "I had tho happiness to command a band of brothers," said Kelson after tho battle of tho Nile. "As the modo of our attack had been previously determined on," wrote Collingwood in his dispatch describing the battle of Trafalgar, "and communicated to tho flag officers and captains, few signals were neccssary, and none were made." That is tho ideal to be aimed at by all the children of Nelson. They must all acknowledge tho same parentc.ge, whether they are serving for the moment in the Royal Navy or in the affiliated navies of tho Dominions. It is inly so that the ideal of Nelson—tho noblest ideal ever bet[uea'i.hed to any navy—cau be fully realised by the Imperial Navy of the future."