EMPIRE DEFENCE

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 122, 20 November 1922, Page 7

EMPIRE DEFENCE

ARE THE DOMINIONS PULLING

THEIR WEIGHT?

A MORE EQUITABLE ARRANGE^ MENT. •■ ' '

(FROH OUft OWN CORMSPONDIHI.)

. LONDON, 3rd October. Empire Defence as applying to Australia and New Zealand is the subject of a leading article in the current number of ciThe Naval and Military Record." "It would be idle to pretend," says the Writer, "that the issue is being faced as earnestly as its importance merits. In the Dominions, as at home, post-war retrenchment has been largely at the expense of the armed forces. ' But whereas the -Home. Government, while curtailing its expenditure on armaments, has endeavoured to maintain some sort of proportion between them and the minimum commitments of the future, nd such balance seems to have been struck by the authorities of the various Dominions. In Australia, for example, the axe has been wielded apparently without any regard whatever to the strategical outlook, and Canada also has been cutting down her defence budget almost to vanishing point. In these circumstances, 'Empire naval co-operation' seems likely to become an empty phrase. ''Without going so far as to predict war as inevitable, a, great many people, perhaps even a majority, in' Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, clearly anticipate a conflict for the mastery of the Pacific, though not a conflict itf which the British Empire would be involved as a principal from the 'start. They realise, moreover, that if such a struggle did occur their own fate would be determined by the measure of nava-1 power that could be thrown into the scale. If, notwithstanding all this, they still omit to make such provision for defence by sea as would be consistent with their financial position, it can only be because they are relying for protection on the British Navy, paid for by the British taxpayer.

"It will be the duty of the Home Government at the next Imperial Conference to submit to the overseas delegates some more equitable arrangement for Empire defence: If the menace that formerly prevailed in the North Sea. has now shifted to the Pacific ocean, our sorely burdened people at home cannot be blamed for asking why they should have to pay £60,000,000 for a Nary which, if it fights at all, will probably have to fight on the farther- side of the globe. "The High Commissioner for New Zealand told a recent Navy League meeting of the anxieties that beset that Dominion in the early days of the war. We never knew,' he said, 'whether the avenues of commerce were to be closed, whether we were to be blockaded, or whether it was possible for' an attempt to be made on our shores. . . . and

we should look fofward with terror to any such, war again.' As to the future, Sir Jamo.s frankly expressed, the anxiety felt in New Zealand because of the knowledge that there may be fa«t cruisers, surface and submerged, which might at any moment harass her commer,ce and be a- positive danger. Responsible 'Australian, officials have already spoken in much the same terms. Thus the necessity for adequate naval defence is admitted, and it only remains to decide how and by whom .it shall be/ provided. Whatever scheme may be devised, .Great Britain must inevitably contribute the lion's share, and will do sn gladly if she knows that the other parties are hbnestlv pulling their weight. We are certain, hownver, thnt most people in the Dominions appreciate the glaring injustice of the present system Kinder which the Mother Country 1 saddled as it is with hth;er- heavy a-flspongibiKfcfes., has to bear practically the entire burden of defending tht Empire." •''