COMMAND OF SEAS

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 96, 18 January 1924, Page 7

COMMAND OF SEAS

PROTECTION OF EMPIRE TRADE NEED FOR STRONG NAVY A SUICIDAL SYSTEM By Telegraph—Press Association. —COPYRIGHT. (Rec. January 17, 11.5 p.m.) London, January 17. Rear-Admiral Sir EdnituJl Grant, Superintendent of Portland Dockyard, lecturing at the United Sendee institution on the overseas naval forces, said that generally all the Dominion navies had gone backwards since the war, even Newfoundland ceasing to have a naval reserve. The amounts paid per capita for the Navy were: Australia, 9s. 3d. ; New Zealand, 4s. 6d. ; South Africa, lid. ; Canada, Is. 2d.; Britain, 275. sd. Lord Kitchener had laid it down that no British Dominion could be attacked while Britain held command of the seas, but Australia was really a group of islands with all towns on the seaboard. Owing to the differences in the railway gauge, everything had to be brought to the towns by sea. She depended on the command of the seas for her existHe urged the use of propaganda in the Dominions to bring home the need for a strong Navy for the protection of the Empire trade. He also urged that a general Imperial policy defining the minimum naval requirembnts for the Empire should be agreed to by all political parties. _ The present system would be suicidal. If the Dominion navies grew and included capital shops, they would form an integral parts of the one-Power standard agreed to at Washington. In that case, the British Navy would be actually below the one-Power standard Admiral Sir Doveton Standee said that the fact that the Dominions thought of starting navies, and then dropped the idea depressed him. they did this for purely local reasons. It was the same in Bntian. The only mention of the Navy during the general election was when some politician tried to crab the Singapore base. 11ns was the link between ourselves, New Zealand, and Australia, and .that was the only point the , llad tried to scrap.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.