VALUE OF THE NAVY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21168, 28 April 1932, Page 11

VALUE OF THE NAVY.

" A GUARANTEE OF PEACE." NEW COMMODORE'S VIEWS. [BY TIXEGKAI'H. — ]']!!•:SS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON. Wednesday. Appreciation of New Zealand's sea-con-sciousness was expressed by Commodore Burges Watson, Commodore of the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, when replying to a welcome extended him by members of the New Zealand Club to-day. "I contend that for an island people to have a strong navy is *o sign of belligerency," said Commodore Burges \\ atson. '"A strong Royal Navy is one of the best guarantees of world peace. Piracy was first put down, slavery abolished, and all the seas of the world surveyed and charted by your Navy. That is all constructive work for the good of all peoples. "In war enemy ships are brought in and handed over to a Prize Court," Commodore Burges Watson continued. "We endeavour to seek out and destroy armed ships of the enemy, but when that occurs no innocent people suffer. Pacificists seem to put navies under the same heading as armies, and can think of them only as instruments of unreasoning destruction. It is true that in the World War our enemies used their submarines to bring us to our knees by sheer destruction, but that was an act of piracy, pure and simple. All the laws, customs and usages of the sea through the ages have been against that dastardly way of treating merchant ships. "The sea has given you this lovely country." said Commodore Burges Watson. "Never surrender through false economy or a false sense of security that, protection and freedom which sea-power gives you. As you grow greater and greater, so your sea-power must grow with you. The Royal Navy niav pass away and the old Homeland be destroyed, but I soe n0 reason why the mantle need not fall upon sturdy seamen—sons of the old stock living in an island home, a far more powerful and greater New Zealand than we know to-day."