THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1912. CANADA AND THE NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15169, 7 December 1912, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1912. CANADA AND THE NAVY.

The Canadian Government has de cided to.ask its Parliament to pro vide three battleships of the besi possible class as a contingent foj [mperial defence. : With' the twc battleships of Australia and New Zealand and the proposed battleship 3ontribution of, the Malay States ; there will thus be a colonial contingent of six Dreadnoughts in the fighting line of the Empire by 1915, South Africa is still to be heard from ind it is possible that a Dreadnoughl nay be offered by the Indian princes as 'a ; gift ; to the'' 'Imperial 'Government,' so that' 'the has no! pet reached the limit of immediate 3olonial assistance. In connectior with the magnificent proposal of the Ottawa Government it must not be forgotten that the Canadian scheme includes a number of smaller vessel? and auxiliary . cruisers, which wil further assist the Imperial Navy s ir its, r,outjne work. ; Mr. $orden, the Canadian Prime Minister, states thai the Canadian vessels will be placed under the control of the Admiraltj '■' but later, if Canada desires control, such can be secured at reason ible notice." The important an louncement promised- by Mr. Border md eagerly awaited deals with the acceptance of the Canadian Ministei for Marine as a permanent membei jf the Imperial Defence Council, anc tip act in consultation with the [mperial authorities.on all questions if foreign policy. This Canadiar Minister will live in London while participation '' in \\ -the. :\. control ol foreign policy is being worked out, [t will be seen that the largest anc most influential of the Overseas Dominions has thus secured a very practical and important share in the direction of Imperial affairs and we may. anticipate that the samegener aus consideration will ultimately be extended by the Imperial Govern ment to the other self-governing British colonies. The advantage oi ihe unwritten and elastic constitution of the Empire is that it lends tself easily to necessary and advisable modifications. The Imperial Defence Council may develop graduilly into a most influential organisation, without any legislative, action Deing taken or required. It can onls act within the limits prescribed bj the responsible governments of the various component parts of the Empire, and these limits can be ex tended or contracted from time tc time as experience shows to be idvisable- This participation bj the self-governing Dominions in the jontrol of. Imperial foreign policy is ,he natural and evolutionary outcome Df the problem of defence. As long is the United Kingdom alone maintained the • Navy, .foreign policj was ■ naturally and -necessarily undei its exclusive control; but with the sntry of Dominions into the naval irena they are welcomed, to a share n Imperial privileges' in recognition jf their assumption, of a share in [mperial responsibilities.

The frankness of the Admiralty Memorandum on Naval Policy, read in the Canadian Parliament, is its only remarkable'feature. Everybody who has followed the course of naval events has known;'for years that "it has proved necessary to weaken the British overseas fleets in order to cope with German, expansion;" but it is one thing for the public to observe and understand an' l another thing for the Imperial,, authorities to openly and unqualifiedly acknowledge. The naval shield has been withdrawn from the Pacific for some years; it was recently proposed to withdraw the naval shield from the Mediterranean; it is unhappily true, as pointed out by the veteran Sir Chas. Tupper, that twelve years ago British fleets were predominant in every sea, while now they are predominant only in -the-North Sea, " this despite greatly, increased expenditure on naval defence." A hundred years ago, when England, in that great fight for national existence which opened the sea-roads to the ends of the earth and made New Zealand possible, had sloughed off administrative follies and legislative weaknesses, there would have been a very different reply made to the German menace. Germany has an undoubted right to turn her ports into arsenals and to work her dockyards, day and night, in the building of Dreadnoughts; and she has also a right, as the world goes and international morality is understood, to profess an enthusiastic love for Britain and the British, to chloroform us with fair words while sharpening the knife for our destruction. Yet it would have seemed, a hundred years ago, that England also had a right to put an end to the menace the moment it was apparent, to choose her own time and her own ground for accepting an unmistakable challenge. In the Twentieth Century, however, the weakening of the national character seems to prevent a defensive system which at the dawn of the Nineteenth Century was thought sound and found effec-

tive. ' Nowadays, Britain ' desperately strives to maintain her . naval superiority not by striking hard and swiftly, but by building fleets of warships in competition with her enemy. That is the strategy to which the Empire has been committed, although we all know that if Britain falters and weakens Germany will strike at her without hesitation and without remorse. When the Admiralty frankly names the foreign nation which has compelled the concentration of its fleets in Home waters it is time that the British throughout the world refused any longer to be deluded as to German intentions. The whole Empire is being dragged into this costly game of beggar-my-neighbour by Germany's unbridled and undisguised ambitions; since the game has perforce to be played it is not only our duty but our only hope to play it well. British patience may not always hold and a dozen colonial Dreadnoughts in the North Sea might well turn the scale of battle and regain for our maritime Empire that unchallengeable • naval supremacy which is as necessary for British safety to-day as it was a hundred years ago.