THE SINGAPORE BASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20419, 22 November 1929, Page 16

THE SINGAPORE BASE.

Sir, —I venture a few comments on the lending article in last Saturday's Herald. It is stated that Lord Jellicoe's remark that the British Navy had never been the cause of war "is abundantly proved by a searching appeal to facts." It would be difficult to find a case of any army or navy being the simple cause of war, and no one suggests that the British Navy is likely to be used for naked aggression. The statement is true, in its bald sense, but trivial. But it is at least a possible deduction from history, and much more significant, that attempts to attain security by the pre-war method of defensive strength do not lead toward peace. It was the feeling that Britain's dominant, though defensively-intentioned, naval power, backing British diplomacy, could put a veto on most moves outside Europe which led Germany to build a fleet, not superior to Britain's, but sufficient to be seriously reckoned with. Competitive building was undoubtedly one of the elements in the explosive atmosphere from which the Great War sprang. It should be remembered, too, that both Mr. Lloyd George and Lord Grey of Fallodon have said that Britain's initiative in building dreadnoughts helped to provoke the armaments race. At tho back of America's naval expansion, which fortunately seems to have now heeti saved from developing into a dangerous AngloAmerican competition,' lay ' a similar motive to Germany's—a fleet to be reckoned with in deciding divergent interpretations of the. rights of neutral trade in wartime. But more important is. the contention of the leading article that tho stoppage of work in the base would "make trade insecure over vital lanes of transport." It should be common knowledge that a cruiser-base intended to protect commerce already exists at Singapore; the reconstruction would make the base suitable for capital ships used only in first-rate naval battles. Also commercial routes become unsafe for interImperial trade only in a war in which the Empire is engaged. For both angles the base has meaning only on the assumption that war is likely with a Pacific naval Power. With whom, and over what? Of course, the base is not aggressive; but it is just the belief in tho possibility of war which alone makes the base intelligible, that produces the nervousness and suspicion from which explosions arise. The base may make Empire routes a little safer in time of war—if we can talk of safety under such conditions; it may also make those routes a little less safe generally by continuing the ! mistrustful mentality from which wars spring. Can we, without serious exaggeration, say that the suspension of the reconstruction work in the hope of real progress toward naval reduction and good understanding among the great naval powers constitutes any threat to the nation's existence, or that the Government which proposes it is bent on making unsafe the routes of Imperial trade ? Wo cannot develop security on the basis of international co-operation unless we are prepared to modify some of our strivings after security by individual national strength. We cannot have it both ways, like Macaulay's "fool in the old story who resolved not'to go into the water till lie had learned to swim," which, I find quoted in another portion of Saturday's issue. Willis T. G. Airey. 13, Glen Road, Remuera. November 19, 1929.