SHARP ATTACK

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 3 July 1924, Page 5

SHARP ATTACK

ON SIR FREDERICK FIELD. CANADIAN NAVAL DEFENCE. •T CABU— PRIBB ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT . OTTAWA, Julv 1. A statement attributed to Vice-Ad-miral Sir Frederick Field in Victoria that the Dominion should equip four cruisers for service, two in the Atlantic and two in the Pacific Ocean, was the Subject’ of sharp questioning in the House of Commons. Mr A. R. McMaster (Liberal) asked whether Admiral Field had been asked by the Government to give this advice. In view of the fact, said Mr McMaster, that Canada was a supporter of the League of Nations and was anxious to see naval and military expenditure minimised, and was convinced that war had been proved a dismal failure as a means of settling international disputes, and was convinced that financial solvency, if not civilisation itself, depended on a. reduction of armaments, would the Government consider the advisability of communicating directly with the gentleman in question or through the appropriate officers of State he, serves to the effect that such pronouncements were undesirable on a matter of purely Canadian national policy? The Minister for Naval Defence (Mr MacDonald) said Admiral Field had not been invited to make the statement attributed to. him in the press. He proposed “to take whatever course was deemed best in order to assert the well recognised practice in regard to this matter. ”• “Tell" him to mind his own business,” said Mr Roche Lancelot, (Liberal).'