ONE EMPIRE, ONE NAVY.
The “ Fleet of the Empire" is a term which is capable of bearing a widely enlarged meaning. If the Australian programme of naval delete follows the lines of its logical development, the fleet to be based on Sydney (or whatever Australian port is chosrn) might quite conceivably be in part built by Australia in Australian dockyards, a nd be in Part manned by Australian bluejackets. It might be linked up with Esquimault and Simon’s Town by cruiser squadrons similarly built and maintained by Canada, New Zealand. a nd South Africa, reaching out the hand to the Home Guard in the Channel and Mediterranean, thus proving that the sea and the fleet 1 are Indeed all one, and pushing fori ward the frontiers of the Empire, not of Great Britain alone, to “highwater mark on the enemy’s coasts!" A dream ? Perhaps, says the “Nav>* League Journal." But an ideal at which to aim, be the goal never so distant, and the road thereto never so beset with thorns. Its realisation depends on the answer which the States of the Empire oversea a re prepared to give to the following question—Have you part and lot in the heritage which Britons have won in the lands w’hich are not white men’s lands ; in India, in Africa, North, East, and West ; in the West Indies, in Malay, and in the countless islands scattered over every sea ? If you have, then Imperial defence involves for you not merely the defence of your own shores, but a share in the defence of theirs. If you have not, then the Empire exists but in name. Each for all/and all for each, is the only true watchword of Imperial unity.
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Bibliographic details
Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 3, 6 September 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)
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286ONE EMPIRE, ONE NAVY. Northland Age, Volume VI, Issue 3, 6 September 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)
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