BRITISH PRESTIGE

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 91, 14 October 1935, Page 8

BRITISH PRESTIGE

ADEQUATE NAVY

NEEDED

INSTRUMENT OF PEACE

The need for an adequate.Nayy.to. uphold British, prestige, and ensure the security of the Empire was referred to at the annual dinner, of the New Zealand Company of Master Mariners on. Saturday evening. It was stated that a navy was not necessarily an instrument of aggression,,! but a potent factor in' working for peace, and that _ unilateral'r disarmament had been a costly andi dangerous/ business. . ;

Captain W. Whiteford, who proposed the toast of "The Navy';" said the British Navy had been" dwindling for years, and when men: saw' Britain's superiority declining they,,,.wondered when it was going to stop.. Eminent officers realised how dangerously far1 disarmament had gone, as to reach a state of §ienace to peace., It was to be hoped that no halt would be called', in restoring the strength of the Navy until thi prestige that had been lost in recent years had been' regained.

Captain L. V. Morgan, R.N., replying to the toast, said there;were some, who,still thoilght that a powerful navy was to be regarded as an instrument of aggression; but events had shown that in world councils a strong British Navy was still a potent factor for peace. Unilateral disarmament had been a dangerous and costly business, and.the vast majority< of people in Great Britain-were behind the Goverhment in putting its house in order as regarded the Navy.