THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1909. IMPERIAL CONTROL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14143, 19 August 1909, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 1909. IMPERIAL CONTROL.

The arrangement regarding the Im-perial-control of Australian warships dufing war time, reported to have been made at the Naval Conference, is one of the practical compromises which are peculiarly British. The Australian navy is to be placed at the disposal of the Admiralty whenever the necessity arises, but during peace will be under the sole control of the Commonwealth authorities. This method is a sufficiently close, duplication of that which governs the relations of colonial military forces and the Empire. In effect, the Imperial Government has remitted to the colonial Governments the entire control of local military organisation but upon occasion the various colonial Governments offer military assistance 1 to the Imperial Government, colonial-forces thus transferred passing for the time being into the Imperial ' Army. The naval understanding is necessarily more complete, but the •! principle involved may be considered ; very identical. It remains to be seen whether the independence of commands engendered during long years of peace may not weaken " Imperial discipline during time of war, but this danger is reduced by the promise of interchange of officers and by the understanding that the same standards will be maintained in the little 'Australian as in the great Imperial fleet. Nor is there any need for pessimism. As long as the Imperial spirit is a real and living emotion, as long as the Empire depends upon the inherent cohesiveness of the: British States, we need not fear what may happen in time of trouble. Any assault upon' the Empire, any emergency which compelled a display of Imperial strength, would find the naval forces of any loyal colony as eagerly marshalled on the side of the Mother Countryas military forces have ever been. If the Imperial spirit should ' expire, and' the bond of Imperial union become a mere letter, then we need riot

trouble ourselves upon the . relations of various naval forces, for whether there were Admiralty control only, or colonial control in addition, our great Empire would be doomed. The unity of British States has been attained by processes which were long considered to make for disintegration, and it is altogether probable that the local navy idea, as it has. now taken material shape, may be the forerunner of an Imperial naval unity before which Continental alliances and international compacts will crumble into dust. For an Imperial Council, that ultimate central authority of the British States, may be none the weaker or more distant if British States have their own warships as well as their own armies, their own foreign policies as well as their local autonomy. Admitting all the difficulties and all the dangers, and not forgetting that the unity of the Imperial Navy is an essential to the maintenance of the Imperial Peace, the compromise with Australia may be fairly regarded with confident good will, and as blazing" a track through a great Imperial problem which may in time become an Imperial highway, trodden not only, by Australia but by Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa as well.

The reason which has been potential in moulding the Australian naval policy is not any antagonism to the Imperial Navy, but the great national determination to be ready for any future Asiatic outbreak. That this feeling is not confined, to Australia is shown by the Canadian determination to insist upon a strengthening of the Imperial naval forces in the Pacific. The visit of the ".Great White , Fleet" to the Pacific was a consequence of the same influence working in the western United States. The naval attention of' New Zealand has been more steadily fixed on the necessity . for safeguarding our ocean road to the London market, but nobody would suggest that this Dominion looks with unruffled equanimity . upon the naval rise of Japan and the naval preparations of. China. The Imperial Government, after the AngloJapanese treaty, greatly reduced its naval strength ,in the Pacific, and thus gave definite and determined purpose to the naval ambition which has always . stirred the Australian imagination. Whether the Imperial Government acted wisely or unwisely, is not the question.. The fact is that the • English-speaking States of the Pacific—Australasian; Canadian, or Americans-have certain convictions upon the Asiatic problem which their kinsmen of the Atlantic must accept. 'The world is small in these days of steam and . electricity, but the world is still wide enough to have many problems—and there is a problem of the. Pacific as well as a - problem . of the North Sea. Canada is. insisting upon more cruisers upon the Vancouver station ; Australia is to build her own cruisers for the Sydney station; and we may be satisfied : that Sir Joseph Ward was found side by side with' them in the contention that the British "naval shield" recently withdrawn from the Pacific should be restored." The Imperial Council of the future will consider all . the various interests of the British States and coordinate them with an equity and a sympathy quite impossible to any authority which cannot understand why we do not welcome the Chinese to our waste lands, and why we do not view with enthusiasm the naval development of Japan. Meanwhile, it may be pointed out, the Australians will be building a navy and training naval. seamen with an energy and upon a scale which would never have been equalled by any contribution she might have made to the Imperial exchequer. The shearers of Riverina and the miners of Kalgoorlie, with the voting multitudes of great Australian ; cities, will warmly approve the spending of millions as a precaution against,, the hated Asiatic when they would have resented such an expenditure upon broader and more Imperial ' lines. ,And if Imperial war comes what will it matter who own ; the ; Australian navy : h The great difficulty ,in democratic countries is to get necessary naval estimates voted, and it may be well for the Empire that Australia has found a popular cry.