Protection of the Empires Highways

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 66, 20 March 1935, Page 6

Protection of the Empires Highways

INCREASED NAVAL STRENGTH URGED Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Night. Vigorous comment on the vital need for Britain to maintain an adequate Navy and keep pace with the other nations in order that her sea defenses may be sufficient to cope with any emergency was made in an interview to-day by Rear-Admiral Randle Ford, officer commanding the Australian Naval Squadron.

Ho said that Australia and New Zealand had much in common in commerce and defence, and their common problem was the safeguarding of the lines of sea communication. These lines must be protected by ships. Aircraft was the eyes of the Fleet, but in the protection of commerce the scope of aircraft was limited. The high seas must be kept safe by ships. Rear-Admiral Ford said emphatically that the British Navy had not enough cruisers for commerce protection. Blie needed 70 at least, but at tho Naval Conference had accepted 50. Next year fourteen of the 50 would be duo for scrapping.

“Wo cannot continue pursuiug the dream of disarmament all alone, or bartering the security of a reality for the possibility of an ideal, or for the sake of false economy,’’ he declared. There wero many people in New Zealand and. Australia who slept comfortably under a false feeling of security, partly because in 1914 Britain had adequate defences and partly because she was 12,000 miles away. Maybe, the next war, should it come, which God forbid, would be near home and if any part of the Empire should prove weak it would affect the whole. Wince the war the British Empire had bartered her security away and her future hung precariously in the balance. Sho was no longer supreme on 1 he sea, or the land, or in the air. Security depended on whether the peoples of the Empire wero prepared and resolved to maintain Britain’s power at sea. “I consider it is our duty out here,’’ he concluded, “to see that the sacrifice mado by the many thousands of New Zealanders and Australians who died to defend the right of their countries to live did not die in vain. ’ ’