PACIFIC STORM CENTRE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3979, 9 July 1913, Page 7

PACIFIC STORM CENTRE.

IMPORTANT EVENTS AHEAD

NEW ZEALAND’S PART.

MR GRIFFITH AND THE NAVY

MELBOURNE, July 1

“Will you send Senator Pearce to the Imperial Defence Conference on the Pacific?” I asked a Liberal leader to-day. “Net on your life,” he shouted. “Do you think we exist or the glorification of Pearce and the Labor Party?” “Bout of all questions, this question of a White South. Pacific is surely non-party.” ‘ 'The Liberals are quite able to deal with it,” said my friend, who is a very able and generous man except when partisanly imbecilie. “Did the Labor Government ask Joe Cook to the launching of the Warrego?”

Mr Cook would make liis mark at once as Prime Minister if) lie established a Defence Council on which Mr Fisher and Senator Pearce would have their places. He would merely be following the British methods, which recently so far unbended from party stiffness as to include the Opposition leader on the Imperial Defence Council. But Australia is not .governed on these lines. Labor ignored Liberals when in office, and the Liberals are now going to ignore Labor. fber>' is neither generosity nor pub-lic-spiritedness in the attitude of the parites towards one another.

WHO CAN BE SENT?

The Liberals will be sore pressed to spare a man for Vancouver. They may have to fall back on the Senate Honorary Minister, for no one can be set free for three months from the House of Representatives. This will be another sacrifice to party. The Imperial Conference called for the end of the year is fraught with tremendous possibilities fbr Australia. It will decide whether other dominions are to follow Austrlaia’s lead, and establish local navies. It will blow into atoms the 1909 local navy agreement, on which Australian naval policy was based, or it will develop that as the basis of Imperial naval policy. In short, it will determine whether Australia is to stand alone amongst the dominions for the local navy policy, or whether the other dominions are to fall into line.

Of more immediate interest is the destination of the Cambrian, Psyche, Torch and other vessels of the auxiliary fleet. Not one hint has been dropped as to where they are to go after the new Australian warships relieve them of their duties on the Australian station. Under the 1909 agreement they were to form part of a powerful unit to be established by Great Bitiain on the China station. This station contains now only the ghosts of former fleets. The Admiralty was to send two units to the Pacifie—one for the China station and one for the East Indies station. Each unit was to be as powerful as the Australian .unit. The only contribution to these two Admiralty units has been two old battleships, the Thunderer and the Swiftsure.

JAM FOR NEW ZEALAND

If the Admiralty regard the New Zealand portion of the agreement as more sacred than the other portions the Cambrian and her little escort will point their noses at Auckland when they say good-bye to Sydney harbor. Not even the Admiralty knows where they will eventually get to. Probably the Sea Lords would like the Cambrian,which js still a good fighting ship to strengthen some section cf that concentrated North Sea fleet. It is more likely, however, that the Cambrians, captain will get orders to steam for Auckland, and that New Zealanders will bo told to he content with these fragments of the once powerful Australian squadron. Perhaps it does not matter where the Psyche and Torch get to. They do not materially strengthen the Emipre’s position in the Pacific. It is enougli to say that it is going to cost the Commonwealth £15,000 to repair the Pioneer—the sister-ship ofi the Psyche, recently presented to the Royal Australian Navy by the Admiralty. The Admiralty seems to be waiting to know how the New Zealand Cabinet is going to spring. Colonel James Allen, New Zealand Minister of Defence and Treasurer, went to London full of a scheme for a New Zealand local navy to take the place of the Dominion’s annual naval suibsidy, and ultimately to be welded with the Australian navy into an Australasian fleet. The “Sun’s” special representative in London has told, in graphic language, how the Admiralty, after chopping and changing about, tore the Allen scheme into shreds. Colonel Allen has said very little since his return, but lie will have to confess soon that the Admiralty prefer the continuance of the subsidy. ' Public opinion in New Zealand is, unfortunately, scarcely awake enough to disregard this Admiralty advice, and it is to be feared that New Zealand’s contribution to the Imperial navy is to take the form of a subsidy, none of which will be spent on warships for the Pacific. The only lingering hope is that a few destroyers will also ho purchased to form a New Zealand basis of the inevitable Australasian Pacific navy.

GARDEN ISLAND TRANSFERRED It would be ungenerous and unjust

to blame the Admiralty for neglect of the Pacific, until all the tale-has been told'. At any rate, the Admiralty’s attitude seems to he that of generosity personified in comparison with the attitude of the Holman Ministry. The New South Ministers have been scathingly, although privately, denounced here for their meanness *in demanding payment for the Sydney naval establishments. These became the property of the Admiralty many years ago on condition that the land was always used or naval purposes. The Admiralty intended to add these valuable establishments to its other gifts to the young navy) One generous stroke of the pen was to endow Australia with all the mother country’s naval possessions on the Australian station. But Mr Griffith stepped in, poked his nose

amongst some musty law documents, and claimed that Garden Island, Spectacle Island, Admiralty House, and tjio other establishments were really the possession of the State. Mr Griffith has since announced that he has prevailed on the Commonwealth to pay interest on the properties as if they were transferred properties. Possibly, Mr Griffith is counting his chickens before they are hatched. It is a moot point whether the use of the establishments for Australian naval purposes will not be regarded by a court of law as just the same as their use for Admiralty navaf purposes. The matter is almost certain to go to the High Court. In these establishments the Admiralty is keeping stores for one year for the present vessels of the Australian squadron. It is evident, therefore, that the Cambrian and and other vessels are to remain in the vicinity of Australia for twelve months.

JERVIS BAY DOCKYARD

Most of the spade work in connection with the defence schemes has been done by the Fisher Ministers, but Mr Cook will have many momentous decisions to make. The persistent neglect of the Pacific storm centre by the Admiralty will compel Mr Cook to accelerate the Henderson construction scheme, just as Mr Fisher proposed doing by the building of a second Dreadnought during the next three years. Admiralty approval was obtained for this course before Mr Fisher publicly advocated it. An even more important question is the proposed establishment of an enormous dockyard at Jervois Bay. The Fisher Ministers intended to provide a dockyard capable of constructing all the future vessels of the Australian fleet. Early expenditure of two or three million pounds would have been necessary under the Fisher scheme. Mr Cook is pledged to economy, and he may on that ground go to Great Britain for his warships. Another matter of interest is the treatment of Australians in the Defence Department, and especially in the navy. There is more than a suggestion that Senator Pearce was apt to be led by the nose by imported officers in the Navy Office. Without discounting the unselfish, able, and excellent work of Paymas-ter-in-Chief Manisty, Commander Hyde, Commander Burrows, Captain Cliabers and many other R.N. officers, it is time that someone suggested that the officers sent out from the Old Country should he worthy of the highest traditions of the navy, and also that Australians should get perfectly fair treatment.—Keith Murdoch, Alfred Place. Melbourne.