The Hawera Star. THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1925. MAINTAINING THE NAVY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 3 December 1925, Page 4

The Hawera Star.

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1925. MAINTAINING THE NAVY.

Delivered every evening by 5 o’clock in Hawera, Manaia, Norinar.by, Okaiawa, Eltham, Mangatoki, Kaponga, Alton, Hurleyville, Pa tea. Waverley, Mokoia, Wbakamara, Ohangai, Meremere, Fraser Road, and Ararata.

If the Royal Navy were an aggressive force, if Britain’s purpose in maintaining the Navy were that she might lord it over the lesser nations of the earth, it would be an unseemly association to write of naval costs when the air of the world is charged with the spirit of peace. But because the White Ensign is the police flag of the seas, because the smudge of smoke which betrays a British cruiser on the horizon strikes terror into the heart of the oppressor and kindles hope in the breast of the castaway, there is nothing incongruous in the simultaneous publication of accounts of the signing of the Treaty of Locarno and of Earl .Tollieoe’s comments on the obligations of the Dominions in respect to their contributions towards naval defence. This appeal that the- former Governor-General of New Zealand makes through the pages of Brassey’s Naval Annual is not new; its urgency has been stressed throughout the Empire, from tlio floor of the House of Commons to our own columns. Above all else it is an appeal based on fairness. The people of Great Britain pay twenty-five shillings a year each towards the upkeep of the Navy; the people of New Zealand pay eight shillings each. And, as Lord Jellicoe remarks, trade depression and the maintenance of numbers of wouldbe workers unemployed is crippling the financial position of the Old Country. Taken on a population basis, with due regard to all types of investment, both home and foreign,

tli e United Kingdom is probably wealthier than New Zealand; but if the standard of measure be prosperity, then New Zealand leads. The Dominion has no unemployment problem, its markets are expanding rather than shrinking, it has too few* rather than too many people. Yet, per capita, .New Zealand’s annual contribution to the Navy is not quite one-third of Britain’s contribution. It is possible to argue that the Dominions should not be asked to’pay at the same rate as. the Motherland —the benefits of the Navy are, of necessity, not distributed absolutely evenly —but no ease can be made out for the justice of the present proportion. Lord Jellieoe, it will have been noted, does not suggest twenty-five shillings, nor yet twenty shillings a head, as the Dominions’ contribution. He proposes that the white populations in Australia, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa should pay at the rate of seventeen shillings. If not, if the Dominions refuse to take up a larger share of the burden, we have the famous admiral’s- word for it that “the Navy will slowly but. surely become inadequate for its work. ’ ’ That work is to keep the seven seas free for commerce, to guarantee food supplies to the Old Land and markets to the Dominions, to maintain those services of justice, freedom and 1 humanity which mark the track of British administration from the frozen north of Canada to the ice barrier in the south, from sunrise at Hong Kong to sunset over the forests of Vancouver Island.