A STRONG NAVY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 98, 27 April 1932, Page 10

A STRONG NAVY

POWER FOB PEACE

COMMODORE'S ADVICE

SECURITY OF SEA POWER

Appreciation of New Zealand's seaconsciousness was expressed by ' Commodore F. Buvges Watson, the new Commodore of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, when leplying to a welcome extended to him by members of the New Zealand Club to-day.

"May I say at once how proud you must be of being citizens of such a lovely island Dominion, and still further, may I compliment you as Naval officer on your healthy sea-conscious-ness, and your appreciation of the inestimable benefits which a sea frontier gives you," he said.

" 'I will, lift up mine eyes unto the hills from, whence Cometh my help* is a wonderful prayer for a country with a land frontier. For you, as for us at Home, it becomes 'I will lift up mine eyes over the seas from wtence cometh my freedom.' But it will not give you your freedom unless you make the sea your first line o4 defence. Of that fact you are in this country very aware.

"You support a Division of the Royal Navy; you back it with a Naval Reserve, and a most lusty infant, the Volunteer .Reserve. I recommend that Reserve to your every encouragement for having no great fishing population as at Home to draw on in times of trouble, this Volunteer .Sf-serve of yours is absolutely necessary. "Now I contend that for an island people to have a strong navy is no sign "of belligerency. A Navy is not an aggressive force as we British people understand sea power: A strong Eoyal Navy is. one of the best guarantees of world peace. Piracy was first put down; slaving abolished, and all the'seas of the world surveyed and charted by your navy/ That is all constructive work for the good of all peoples. "Even in war the Navy is far more an instrument of protection than destruction. Against enemy trade, do we destroy? No. The ships are brought in and handed over to the Prize Court. "We endeavour to seek out and destroy the armed ships of the enemy, but when that occurs no innocent people suffer. When fleets meet, a Rheims cathedral is not damaged or a priceless Louvain library destroyed. What a contrast to the march of a victorious army which leaves death and destruction in its wake.

"The pacifists seem to lump navies under the same heading as armies, and can think of them only as instruments of unreasoning destruction. It is true that in the World War our enemies used their submarines to bring us to our knees by sheer . destruction; but" that was an act of piracy, pure and simple. All the laws, customs, and usages of the sea .through the ages have been against.that dastardly way of treating merchant ships. The Germanic races are not a sea-conscious people, and their ideas of using a navy were those of soldiers only. Time after time they attempted to introduce their interpretation of the laws of the sea. They called Captain Pryatt a 'franc-tireur' of the- sea and shot him because he exercised the age-old right of every master mariner to resist capture. Who are the people to dictate to us, whose life is " the sea, the laws and customs of those who sail it? "The sea has given you this lovely country. You are, I know, very conscious of it, but I pray you never to forget it either in good times or bad times. Never surrender through a false economy or a false sense of security the protection and freedom which sea power gives you. , "Ton have no frontier but the coast of an enemy that arrays himself against you. As you grow greater and greater so your seapower must grow with you. The Eoyal Navy may pass away and the old Homeland be destroyed, but I see no reason why the mantle need not fall upon, the sturdy seamen: sons of the old.stock living in an island home; a far more powerful, greater New Zealand than we know to-day."

. Commodore Watson was presented by Canon J. _ Sykes (president) with a memento in the form of a greenstone paperweight surmounted Taj a silver kiwi.