THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1907. THE AUSTRALIAN NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13487, 14 May 1907, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1907. THE AUSTRALIAN NAVY.

Whether for better or for worse, an Australian Navy is to.be one of the factors of fixture Imperial Defence. With the consent of the; British Government, the agreement under which the Commonwealth paid a monetary contribution towards the maintenance of a special Australasian Squadron is being set on one side; instead, Australia will have her own, coastal defence vessels, manned by her own v crews and controlled by her own Administration. A difficulty presents ijfcself owing to the part taken by New "Zeal in the i naval agreement, under, which the Australasian Squadron was arranged for at its existing strength, which agreement has still several years to run, but at the! most this i can only temporarily interfere with the Australian programme and is not likely to be insurmountable even now. For though there is a marked unanimity, of feeling in this colony upon the desirability of retaining the existing method of Naval Defence, we can have no ill-feeling towards our Australian fellow-colonists because they have determined to take another course of action. As Sir Joseph Ward explicitly stated at the Conference. we recognise their right to do what they regard' as the best that can be done while believing that the subsidising of the Imperial Navy is the most advantageous for all concerned. It is evident, indeed, that in Australia the r question has gone beyond the stage at which argument and discussion as to the advisability or inadvisability of local navies can do any good. While naval experts have been debating the problem, the Commonwealth has been making up its mind and cannot be persuaded to forego the experiment. To New Zealand that experiment appears unnecessary | and mistaken, but only because, of two .optional methods, ? we hold ; ?a' generous .and increasing support to | the Imperial Navy to be very much. j the more preferable. And it is quite possible that, /as far as the Empire itself is concerned, the obvious weak- j ness of divided authority and lack of l naval homogeneity may be counterbalanced by the greater expenditures I ■ which the Commonwealth may be confidently expected to make upon a j pet scheme of its own. In the last resort,. as we all know, every British fighting / unit, ashore or,.afloat,.; will fall into line with every , other British fighting unit and there is no suggestion, in the Australian plan, that an Australian Navy would not I be absolutely available for the common Imperial Defence. The draw-1 back is that for many years there will be no Australian "navy" in the true sense of the term.. For while there can be no dispute as to the placing of any Australian cruisers or battleships in the Imperial first line of defence, it must not be overlooked that in the practical application „ of the Australian scheme only coastal defence is primarily dealt with, a consideration which might well have; induced the Commonwealth to continue its support to the ; Imperial Navy -while it went to work upon a supplementary local organisation. . In the future,. in ten or twenty years, 'the Commonwealth may possess half-a-dozen powerful cruisers, or even a Dreadnought; but in the present she can only aspire to a few torpedq boats, a torpedo-catcher or two, and ; an occasional > submarine. And there is nothing to prevent New t Zealand making similar provision for the defence of her harbours and coastal ' tirade without professing to set up a ■".navy" of her own. We hear a great deal of the; tremendous extent; of coast possessed by the Commonwealth, but. in proportion to her still more tremendous area she has a small coast line, y At any- rate the Australian coast line could not well be much less than it is. She is an island-continent, with much more of the continental,than of the insular characteristics ; and to her continental habits of thought may. safely be ascribed the evident confusion in the popular mind? between coastal defence and naval matters. 'New Zealand, which is insular and not continental, which; lies in mid-ocean like an anchored ship, and has hardly a wind that does not smell of the sea, makes no < such confusion. Although we had a submarine in every harbour, a torpedo flotilla at every great port, and a torpedo-catcher patrol from the North Cape to the Bluff, we know enough of the deep seas to understand that without the wardens of the ocean marches we should not be secure against alien armadas, nor our merchantmen and liners be guarded on their Homeward path. In favour of coastal naval defence under colonial control there is much to be said. Viewed from a very practical standpoint it is entirely a local matter, and may be held as necessary a charge upon colonial exchequers as harbour fortifications or port defences of any other kind. Small coastal defence vessels make easy a certain amount of . naval■ training, and though submarines require the highest skill and coolest ~ courage ; in-their crews they thus give occupation to selected naval reservists, who. are of the greatest value as naval instructors. In its gradual? assumption of that duty of maintaining local naval bases, which was definitely assigned to the colonies by the Imperial authorities at the Conference,;;and tacitly accepted by the; colonial ' Premiers, New ; Zealand may be expected to co-operate with the Imperial Government : by acquiring and maintaining vessels suitable for harbour defence purposes. So far we can have no objections to make to the Australian plan. Our objections? really begin : at the project to set up a navy; for ocean work, which

is both beyond our present power and contrary to a wiser policy. For the time being neither Australia nor New Zealand, nor both combined, can afford to establish a real naval defence, and if we did it would only be to overlap at great and unnecessary expense the magnificent fleets essential to the Empire and maintained by the Imperial authorities. There may be some . possibility of the Imperial Navy being temporarily withdrawn from the Pacific upon a great emergency for the defence' of Home waters, but there is the certainty that if the colonies take' upon themselves the naval dominion of the South Pacific—without which Australasian naval defence is a mere fiction—they will be expected to make good their claims. Which is a very excellent and practical reason why we should co-operate with the Mother Country for the maintenance of the strongest .navy , in the, world, whatever we may decide to do for the very different though allied question of coastal defence.