DEFENCE OF BRITISH EMPIRE

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 30 September 1933, Page 14

DEFENCE OF BRITISH EMPIRE

ADMIRAL SIB HERBERT OEHOHuYf'OND addressed the Royal Empire Society’s summer school on “Imperial Strategy,” keeping the subject within technical bounds. He said that in Imperial defence the principle of securing all the individual territories against invasion was an mistaken one. They should begin by concentrating upon the safety of their communications, and the other would then follow. On this point it must be remembered that a smaller navy than one’s own could gravely injure communications; for a much larger navy was required for defence than for attack, although to carry out an invasion it was necessary to have a navy superior to that of the enemy.

He thought it was important for the scattered Dominions to realise that, even if they were to devote the utmost they could afford to land defence against invasion, they would not strengthen their security, but weaken it, because the money thus spent would be taken away from the sea force which protected communications and which alone could maintain the security of the Empire. There were two opposing, views on this question of Imperial defence. One was that the defence of the Empire should be considered as a whole. The other view was that each unit of the Empire should consider its own individual dangers and provide such forces as it could to secure it against them; a system of Imperial defence would then concern itself with co-ordinating these various units. He believed that this second view was entirely wrong, because it produced a local outlook.

Paramount Need of Naval Strength

I ‘They could not have economy of effort without unity of effort, and unity of effort was impossible without unity of aim. The problem of defence should, j therefore, be regarded as a whole and. the peoples of the Empire brought to realise their community of interest. Many people failed to realise how greatly the situation had changed since 1914, continued Admiral Sir Herbert .Richmond. Their naval superiority had been built up through years of effort, and once acquired it was not very difficult to maintain. Moreover, trade w r as flourishing, and it was therefore possible for Britain to bear the burden, of naval upkeep without asking the Dominions to do more than contribute a portion of their local defence. It was now necessary, however, to look ahead and to consider that it would not be so very many years before the population of the overseas Dominions outstripped their own. In the meantime they must create a real understanding of the problem before people’s minds became too crystallised. Once they had been overtaken in naval power it was very difficult to recover what they had lost, for if they tried to re-establish their superiority by building more ships others were free to do the same. In answer .to a subsequent question, Sir Herbert Richmond said: “I am not at all averse to our leading the way in disarmament, but I am very much averse to our disarming when the other nations do not, and to the idea that they should be left with sufficient- forces to bring us to our knees if the international machinery happens not to work. I do not think there is any value at all in what is called a gesture.”