THE NAVY AND EMPIRE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19892, 10 March 1928, Page 12

THE NAVY AND EMPIRE.

LETTER FROM MR. AMERY.

A letter from Mr, L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for the Dominions, is contained in the current number of the Auckland Navy League Journal. Mr. Amery, who addresses himself particularly to the league's junior members, says:—

"My tour to the British Dominions has taken me to South Africa, to Australia, to your own beautiful islands of New Zealand, and now to Canada. When I return home I shall have gone right round the world—and whether on ship or on shore I shall have remained under tho Union Jack the whole time.

" But if the Union Jack flies over great Dominions all round the world, and if it flies over a great merchant service that links each of these Dominions with each other and with the Mother Country, that is due first and foremost to the Navy, It was tho Navy that made it possible for Britain to acquire those great countries in the first instance, and that has protected, and still protects, their peaceful development. It was the Navy which made tho seas free, and still keeps them free, for the vast trade of tho British Empire and for the ships which carry that trade. The means by which the British Empire grew in the past are also the means by which its security must be maintained in the future. The importance to us all of the Navy of the Empire will not be less, but possibly greater than ever, in coming years."