AMERICA AND SINGAPORE

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 6

AMERICA AND SINGAPORE

When the establishment of a new naval base at Singapore was revealed as a principal element in British naval policy, there were many people who supposed that to some extent the proposed step amounted to a breach of the spirit of the Washington Treaty. But it has smce been explained that no such breach was involved, because the effect of the Treaty limitations as they affect naval bases in the Pacific was specifically restricted so as not to reach so far west as Singapore. If there had been any objection on this ground, the source from which it might be first expected is the United States which officially launched the limitation proposals. Yet Singapore as a naval base may be regarded as having received the blessing of America, if the authority of a writer in " Current History," published by the - New York Times " and in the main reproduced in to: days Post," ii accepted. The

author is Major J. M. Scammell, a retired army officer and technical assistant at the Naval War College. American naval officers, he says, are far from raising any objection, and, judging from their writings, professional journals, and private conversations, they rejoice in the project. This generalisation includes the Navy Department to the extent that it has failed to object, which it is usually prompt to do when American naval interests are adversely affected. Why should Americans object? he asks.

The one fact that stands out is this: the Singapore base is to be built as a defensive measure in support of-British policies which ay e aleo American policies ; m a word, as a measure of precaution against the possible future resumption on the part of Japan of those aggressive policies which led to the calling of the Washington Conference. So clearly does this stand out that one might almost suspect an Anglo-American tacit understanding. One is perfectly safe, naturally, in saying that no such agreement exists. Such a course is contrary to our policies, habits, and genius. . Practical identity of interests and policies in the Pacific led, on the or.o hand, to the British confidence in our.approval, and on the other, to recognition by well-informed Americans of the fact that the Singapore base constitutes a potential defensive auxiliary of the United States Navy and a bulwark of American Pacific policies.

Singapore, regarded as such an auxiliary, assists to balance America's inability, under the Treaty of Washington, to fortify, the Philippines and Guam. But, as the writer points out in the article from which the quotation is made, Singapore is a base not.of aggression but of defence. The -writer's conclusion is significant: " Had the United States developed a suitable naval base at Manila, and provided properly for the defence of the Philippines, I seriously doubt if the British Navy would ever have tried to get—much less succeed in get-ting^-funds for the Singapore base, so closely are British and American Pacific interests identified."