THE NEW ZEALAND'S CRUISE

New Zealand Herald, Volume L, Issue 15377, 12 August 1913, Page 6

THE NEW ZEALAND'S CRUISE

The magnificent receptions accorded in British Columbia to the battleship New Zealand are evidence of the singular kinship of all the Pacific States in matters of defence as well as of Canadian appreciation of New Zealand's patriotism. Unfortunately defence has become a party question in Canada. The strength of the party feeling may be judged from the absurd lengths to which imagination has run in seriously crediting the British Admiralty with arranging the tour of the New Zealand in order to stimulate Canadian loyalty. It may seem from the action of the Senate in rejecting the Naval Bill that Canadian loyalty needs a stimulus in some quarters, but it is not on the Pacific Coast. In British Columbia, as in California, there is the ever present feeling that if the dangei* of Japanese immigration is not understood in the Eastern States of Canada and of America, it is at least understood in Australia and in New Zealand. This is the. common ground upon which all the British

States in. the Pacific can unite, and the common reason w\hich forces them all to freely accept responsibility for a share in naval defence. That the British Columbians have, by the action of the Canadian Senate, been denied the right to share the cost of building similar ships for the navy is only an additional reason for Vancouver giving to New Zealand's gift ship a reception which Captain Halsey described as almost equal to that of Auckland.