COSTLY ITEM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 February 1925, Page 5

COSTLY ITEM.

DEFENCE OF PACIFIC. AN IMPERIAL FLEET. BY CABLE—PRESS ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT. LONDON, Feb. 26. The naval correspondent of the Evening Standard, in discussing the impending naval conference at Singapore, says: “The three zones from which the commanders of ships have been drawn constitute an area to which the world’s, centre of gravity is slowly shifting by reason of trade importance. “An ideal safeguard would be an Imperial Eastern fleet, jointly created by Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India but such a fleet, to be adequate, would cost £200,000,000, or £40,000,000 to each contributor. Therefore it is an ideal beyond the reach of the exchequers, though perhaps each will ultimately have its own fleet coalescing into a. strategic whole when needed. “In the meantime the best attainable substitute is the decision to allocate Eastern waters to cruisers like the Vindictive and the Kent classes, with Australia’s new ~10,000-ton vessels, which are suitable for long patrols and trade protection, also available, but in order to offset the present opposing capital ships there must later he a battle squadron having the advantage of training constantly in waters /in its own sphere. The chief difficulty at present is the lack of docks,’ except at Bombay, Singapore and Hing Kong, but that is not insuperable.”