IMPERIAL NAVAL DEFENCE.

Evening Star, Issue 14635, 3 August 1911, Page 1

IMPERIAL NAVAL DEFENCE.

Thk eimoltaneiiTm publication tn Ottawa and London of the naval arrangements entered into last June between Great Britain and the Oversea Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (South Africa having decided to do nothing further at present than to continue the payment of a naval subsidy) has come at ail opportune time. They confirm the sanguine hopes of patriotic citizens in all parts of the Empire, and establish, indirectly the accuracy of Mr Fisher’s indignant repudiation of the doctrine of Imperial Union ascribed to liim by Mr W. T. Stead. We rejoice over both announcements. It was not pleasant to bear that the ' Federal Prime Minister had been represented as committing himself to an endorsement of the pestiferous and impossible evangel of the South African ‘ Volkrstein,’ which, in turn, has fallen back by way of vindication upon some vague and isolated pronouncements of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. We knew that the Australian people were sound .and sane on each and every question touching the union and honor of the Empire, and there was a difficulty in harmonising Mr Fisher’s public utterance; with the dogmatic and dictatorial statements that were set forth with such detailed and prima facie authenticity in the ‘ Review of Reviews.’ Happily, they have been characterised by their alleged author as ‘'brutal, monstrous, and insane,” which is much stronger than the terms the majority of his critics applied to them. What these affirmed was that any such doctrine of Empire as was credited to Mr Fisher was an impossible one, and what the publication of the Naval Agreement to which we hava referred does is to make plain that the Commonwealth, through its Prime Minister, is one of the authors of and parties to the agreement. Mr Fisher could not, therefore, very well have said what Mr Stead says he did say. The impoitance of the agreement in its relation to Imperial and local Naval Defence may bo briefly set forth. In an address at Pontypool on June 13 last the First Lord of the Admiralty spoke as follows; Ho was happy to say that the navsJ arrangements made with the Dominions were most satisfactory. . . . Each of the Dominions would contribute in the fashion mast appropriate to its resources a:>-1 its internal public'opinion to the strength of the Empire. Some would do it by direct contribution to the power of the British Fleet, either by annus 1 payment or by the gift of ships, or both; others by the development of fleets of their own. In *the latter case there would be interchangeability of offi cers and men and such common standards of training and discipline as tc ensure, in the event of wax, that the joint fleets would be able to act in complete union. Tha defences of the gigantic oversea trade of the Empire was a colossal task- This trade traversed the ocean in every part of the globe. Great as was the British trade, that of tha Dominions in proportion to the population was not lees important, and the people of this family of nations had a common interest anil care in its protection. The statesmen of the Domini one had joined with the Government in providing and maintaining the necessary means of defence, and while there was to be no interference with the autonomy of each member of the Empire, the iound.it] ms had been laid of a nava] 'trennfh which, if comf ; <.’*■» -.pird Imperii!, interests in every part cf ihe globe. Sir W. Laurier, at Ottawa., and Mr Harcourt (the Colonial ‘Secretary), in the House of Commons, have now made public tho nature of those arrangements, which confirm the original intimation made by Mr M'Kcnna. The points of interest are": (1) That the local fleets in their own waters are wholly under the orders of their own Governments ; (2) that when in foreign waters they trike their orders from and report to the British Admiralty ; (3) that in war time all ships pass automatically over to the sole control of the British Fleet; and. most important of all. (4) that there shall be an interchange of officers and men and common standards of training and discipline so as to ensure that the joint fleets would act in complete union in time of war. It is apparent that tho Naval Agreement makes for Imperial : unity of the most desirable kind. Ahso- ! lute freedom of action and unquestioned i control in all that pertains to local as opj posed to international action are the I foundations on which the new arrange- ■ meat rats, the Imperial Navy assuming ; command only in foreign waters or i after hostilities have been decided on. I The London ‘Times’ regards this as th* j true teat of an efficient navy : | It, may be taken as an axiom, estab- | lished by tho whole course of naval his- | tory. that efficiency in naval warfare j depends above all things on those moral and personal factors which make no i show at all in a merely material com- ; parison of strength, but which count for everything, or for nearly everything, on i the day of battle—on sound and en- : grained conceptions of the strategy and I tactics that make for victory, on clearj headed direction and undivided command, on uniform standards of training and discipline, on continuity of inspiring tradition and common loyalty to its inspiration, and finally on the spontaneous and almost automatic harmony that is engendered by all these agencies between the mind of the commander-in - chief and the minds of his subordinate officers. Every student of naval history will recognise the justice of this contention. Allied flecks have never worked together with the same singleness of purpose and aim. nor with the same efficiency, as fleets under one flag, and inspired by common traditions. Ship- and guns—the mere material of a navy, no' matter what their numerical superiority—will not count or tell in th? day of Armageddon so much as the moral and personal factors. There were, perhaps, tome grounds of apprehension, ‘ Tho Times’ thinks, when it was first intimated that Australia and Canada intended building navies of their own, whether the men of the. old and new worlds would regard their duty as members of the Navy from tho tame glorioui standpoint. Wc think that under the new dispensation this fear will soon pass away. What the statesmen of England and of the Oversea Dominions (to whom Mr M'Kcnna. paid a high compliment) have done is to establish a common standard, to break down harriers of exclusiveness, to provide ways and means for interchanges of officers and men, and to pave tho way for tho creation not of a British Navy, or an Australian, or a Canadian Navy, but, for a genuine Imperial Navy that, in the words of Mr M'Kenna, will be able to “safeguard Imperial interests in every part of the globe.”