INCREASE OF THE NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10032, 20 January 1896, Page 4

INCREASE OF THE NAVY.

The meeting to be held to-day, at the offices of the Harbour Board, for the formation of a branch of the Navy League, should appeal to the reason as well as the patriotic sentiment of every man in Auckland. The thought that will probably arise in many a mind is what good can we do by forming suoh a body ? How can we add to the numbers or strength of the British fleet were we ever so eager 1 And what is the use of our forming a League and meeting together if we have nothing to do? Now tlie answer to this is clear enough. It is true we have neither hold of the purse strings of the British exchequer nfcr have we the ear of the Lords of tho Admiralty. But we know that it is public sentiment and the public voice that dominates questions of this tort, and we know that there is at this hour a singular sensitiveness in home circles, including the governing circles, as to the sentiments ruling in the colonies. We feel confident that that little incident in Melbourne, in which in an hour of Imperial crisis the street crowd made the German hand play "Rule Britannia," has flashed through millions of hearts at homo and set them tingling at the thought of the loyalty of the colonies and their readiness to do or die with England, And we feel sure that that message from the Premier of New South Wales to Lord Salisbury commending and thanking him in the name of the Australian colonies for hi? firmness in maintaining the interests oi the Empire, has stirred manly British feeling from one end of the Kingdom to the other. And we feel just as confident that nothing could more graphically show to the people of the Mother Country, governing or governed, our sense of the oneness of our fates and fortunes with their oWn, than the knowledge that we are forming leagues in ooncert with the Navy League at home, under the conviction that the destinies of the whole British people depend upon the maintenance of the command of the sea. That this will stimulate the movement to press forward the building of warships, there can be no doubt; while, apart from this, the movement will act on our Government so as to prevent any more falling into indifference regarding our own defences, as our share in the defensive operations of the Empire. Anything that oan stimulate the patriotic and national and loyal spirit of the community, is at this hour the duty of every good man. When we know that it is the command of the sea that lias given to the British Empire its extraordinary expansion, that lias opened the oceans and shores of the globe to our commerce, that has given us the Australasian colonies unpressed anywhere by the foot of foreign ruler, that has made South Africa British instead of French or Dutch, that has set the English tongue and British influences to go on conquering and to conquer, that has wholly given its standing and stability to the British Empire, while without it, or through its defeat, "the whole fabric of Empire, and with that the prosperity of all classes of our people will vanish likea palace in a dream —110 one that values what we have and what we are, should hold aside from anything that may contribute to the maintenance of the British power at sea. The Navy League in keeping the navy question vividly before the minds of all can render invaluable service to this end, and we trust that Auckland in fori.iing a vigorous brauch of the League, will show that the remotest outposts of empire equally with the centre recognise tho paramount importance of maintaining the command of the sea.