TO HIS TRADE

Feilding Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 4577, 1 May 1922, Page 2

TO HIS TRADE

ADMIRAL CONDEMNS AUSTRALIANS. FOR PLACING SPORT BEFORE THE NAVY, < (By Electric Cable—Copyright.) Ausl. and bi.'/.. Cable Association) Sydney, April 30. Roar-Admiral Dumaresq, the departing commander of the Australian Navy, in an interview, commented on the unpleasant fact shat. Australia had failed to realise "the importance of preserving the minimum na\al force which would preserve the soul of anything that could be. called a fleet, and that must be preserved throughout bad. times as well as good. If tho total amount spent by sport-loving Australians on racing and other sports was assessed, it would amount to very many times the cost of a tactically efficient Royal Australian fleet. He could not help feeling that on arrival in England he would feel - ashamed of Australia on account of the attitude it had taken up over the Navy. Speaking of tho future, he hoped the Navy would never be ollowed to drop below three light cruisers, and the small minimum of destroyers and submarines. The soul of anything like a navy would not, bo maintained below that limit. Referring to developments at the Genoa Conference, he nrged the need of keeping up an adequate minimum naval force to secure a fair share of the world's markets and the faw material of the world, and, in the case of Australia, freedom of the seas to export primary products.

WEEDING OUT THE UNFIT

BRITISH ADMHIALTY'S ORDER

V London, April 29. An Order-in-Council authorises the Admiralty to place on 1 the retired list, irrespective of age or service, such officers as are considered unfit for further service owing to peculiarity of temper 'or other defects not amounting to misconduct or caused by intemperate habits.