Evening Post. MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1924. IMPERIAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES

Evening Post, Volume 65, Issue 65, 17 March 1924, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, MARCH 17, 1924. IMPERIAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES

A word from Lord Balfour is always in season, because he is one of those people who speak not because they have to "say something but because they have something to say. But his long silence, his intimate familiarity with the principles of naval policy, and the urgent need of the new Parliament for guidance on the subject combine to make his speech on the Singapore scheme at least trebly welcome. The assurance that "everybody concerned with the Washington Treaty was perfectly aware that Singapore was excluded from the area where no new naval base could be constructed" ought to have been superfluous, but since the "Daily Herald" became a Government organ many things that were superfluous a few months ago can no longer be so described. And if such an assurance was necessary, who was so well qualified to give dt as the man who represented the Empire at the Washington Conference and was one of its two leading figures? As a matter of fact, no greater insult could well be; offered to the statesmanship and the diplomacy of Japan than I the suggestion that her representatives at Washington did not know the latitude and longitude of Singa-] pore, its vital importance to the •British Empire for the protection oi India, Australia, New Zealand, and the trade routes to these countries and the East, and its exclusion from the scope of the Treaty. It is recorded of a British statesman of a previous generation that he was astonished to find that Cape Breton is an island. To suppose that the position of Singapore is not as well known to the Japanese l'oreign Office as that of Tokio, or that it supposes that anything that was said or understood at Washington requires Britain to acquiesce in a state of naval impotence in the Pacific, is utterly absurd. America would really have a much better right to object than Japan, for the Philippines are] about twice as close to Singapore as Formosa, which is the nearest Japanese territory. But America, which so strongly resented our alliance with Japan, does not appear to be worrying now. She doubtless realises the bona fides and the soundness of Lord Balfour's contention that " Singapore would strengthen the defences of the Lmpire without threatening any rival Power, and there was nothing to arouse legitimate jealousies or excite fears." The idea ot a British fleet using Singapore as a base for aggression on Japan is a sheer hallucination. A modern fleet, says Lord Baifour, can- I «ot operate effectually too fur from its '"so. A fleet which has to go three thousand miles to meet an equal fleet ! close to its base i s rea ll y risking its existence. If prudent men aud statesmen in Amln m. \ ew Zcnh , m l. lllld Infliii . .inked at tin; map. they wunlrl ask ct.nl.] UicKr, „l, Heel, hoi,, them, unless it ha-l refuel? Wllero i{ ™"ld rdU illld ■ll is aiu-ely piaiu Uxnf tt Oeeb .which ,

would have to go all the way back to Malta for the fundamental necessities which assert themselves from time to time in peace, and in war demand incessant attention, could not possibly give these .Southern Dominions the protection which they have hitherto enjoyed. And Lord Balfour is right in assuming that "prudent men" in this part of the world are sufficiently familiar with the map to appreciate the fact. ' The remark which follows—that " they know that without a British Fleet in the background, their world position would be singularly insecure"'—admirably illustrates Lord Balfour's taste for understatement. "Singularly insecure" is Balfourian for "absolutely helpless." It is the "British Fleet in the background" that has made the British Empire possible and allowed the Dominions to grow in peace, security, and prosperity to what they are pleased to call nationhood. This protection has ensured their independence at a cost to themselves which has been little more than nominal. Except during the Great War, when the Dominions were brought face to face with a peril which threatened the whole Empire with destruction, and which they spared no effort or expense to resist, this protection has been too efficient to be fully realised. The British Fleet has been so far in the background that it has been for the most part invisible, and its existence has been taken for granted as one of the normal dispensations of Proviviolence which come to us without cost or trouble on our part, and make no call on us for effort, or even, except as conveniently long intervals, for gratitude. To-day, in accordance with the principle that "blessings brighten as they take their flight," the peril of the Singapore scheme has probably brought that gratitude to a higher pitch than it ever reached before except during the war or immediately afterwards. But it is clear that our critical position calls for something more than retrospective gratitude and regret that the inestimable boon which we have hitherto enjoyed is to be withdrawn or grievously weakened by a Labour Govern-' ment. Lord Balfour's penchant for understatement, into which our guilty consciences may perhaps read a touch of irony, is again displayed- when he says that the whole scheme of political thought in the Dominions depends on the idea that they are not bound to us by legal, constitutional ties, but by the fact that wo aye always prepared to employ every ounce of strength we possess to protect them in caso of need. Every Australian and New Zealander is uware that, if Britain refused to make Singapore an adequate base' for the Fleet, it would.be immobile when sent to these remote latitudes, and a . change of heart would necessarily be produced among them. Does this mean that the Dominions' ideal of Empire is a scheme under which all the obligations of defence are on the side of the Mother Country, and with this trifling exception there is complete equality of mother and daughters? And that if the Mother Country declines to carry the whole burden of naval defence alone the daughter States will suffer a " change of heart "1 If this is the meaning it comes very near the facts, except that by "change of heart" Lord Balfour appears to imply an alienation of sentiment, of which there is no'likelihood. A change of heart which will bring the Dominions closer to Britain by inducing them to talk less of their Imperial rights and to discharge a fair share of their Imperial duties is what is needed. If the scare over Singapore convinces Australia and jSfew Zealand that to sponge upon the British taxpayer for their defence is not only mean and unpatriotic, but dangerous and perhaps* suicidal, it will not have been in vain: