FUTURE NAVAL POLICY

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue LXXIV, 27 August 1919, Page 5

FUTURE NAVAL POLICY

NECESSITY FOR BEING READY

SPEECH BY LORD JELLICOE

(BY TELEGRAPH —PRF.S3 ASSOCIATION.) WELLINGTON, Aug.' 26. Lord Jellicoe was entertained at ■luncheon by the New Zealand Club today. The Governor-General presided. in the course of his remarks, Lord Jellicoe said-one of the objects of his inisison was to do what was possible to ensure co-operation and homogeneity between the different forces of the Empire. New: Zealand recognised the ' absolute dependence of the Himpire on sea power and the ability to use sea power. It meant they had to inculcate in youths the call of the sea, and to i foster the mercantile marine, which j hac^ played- ayeiT larSe part in the I defence of the Empire in the war. But j for the mercantile marine the war would have been over about 1915, and he did not know what would have i happened to New Zealand in that case, i The Navy was absolutely essential to tne Empire. There was a tendency since peace was proclaimed to think there was no hurry to be ready ftfr the next war. "History showed," said Lord Jellicoe, "that one war bred another, and if you want to be at peace you must be prepared for war. Ihere--fore I strongly urge my fellow countrymen not to be penny wise and pound foolish, because the cost of being ready for war is infinitesimal compared with the cost of one month of war, and we would be ill-advised if i we listened to any . suggestion that there is np occasion to be in a hurry I to get our defences into proper order.'' The Pacific was an ocean growing in importance every day. It contained great possibilities of trouble. There were elements which might give rise to future international complications, but statesmen would get more easily over these if they had a strong right arm behind them. They wanted a striking force, a trade protective force, and force for the protection of har- j bors. He had endeavored to separate those forces in the report he had presented to Australia.

Ever since 1912 they had been gradually weakening our naval forces abroad, with the result that when the crash came the forces out here were inadequate to protect British trade. The experience of the war had shown how difficult it was to hunt down even one enemy raider. The Emden, for instance, had many narrow escapes. Few people knew how narrow some of those escapes were. H.M.S. Hampshire passed within ten miles of her in early morning in a rain squall. The Moewe and Wolf were similar instances. The difficulty of preventing the escape of raiders was greater than it ever was, and therefore the number of vessels required for trade protection was greater than ever before. They needed a great many more cruisers than they had before the war. They should base the number of cruisers, not on the number of German cruisers, but on our trade as compared with German trade. There was only one system of protecting "trade, and that was by convoy, and we had to see that we possessed a sufficient number of ships for the purpose. We could not do that without paying for it, and it would help the Mother Country if the Dominions shouted aloud their intention that the British Na.vy should not go down.

As to militarism, he said the British Navy was a defensive force which never had been used aggressively. What was needed was co-operation between the Dominions and the Mother Country.. They should work for the good of the great inheritance which had been handed down by our forefathers. ? Finally, he thanked New Zealand for its gift years ago. Tbe inscription on the wheel of the battleshio (now in a museum): "Ake, ake, kia kaba!" was, be understood, to be again inscribed, and he could assure them It would be a signal call to all on board to do all +>>at could be done for the glory of the Empire.

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