The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1944 ENGLAND CONFIDES

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25030, 21 October 1944, Page 6

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1944 ENGLAND CONFIDES

Today is Trafalgar Day. It was a Monday morning 139 years ago when Nelson saw from the Victory s deck the thrilling sight he had scoured an ocean to see—Villeneuve's fleet, twelve miles away, thirty-three sail of the line, moving south on the starboard tack. Nelson was to die that day, shot down on his own quarterdeck, leaving his countrymen unable to find in all their history another Englishman who, in so clear a sense, was given a duty to perform, faced it, finished it, and died. The curtain had fallen on one great act of war. It is true that ten long years remained to add to the twelve of stoim and stress which lay behind. The battle off the Spanish cape seemed strangely barren of result. It gave England the dominion of the sea, but what use was that, argued the short-sighted, if Napoleon was left dictator of the Continent ? Thus it was that imagination set about to build the legend, which cold research discredits, that Trafalgar saved England from immediate invasion. Trafalgar saved England from ultimate invasion, for from October 21, 1805, dates the period of slow, terrible economic pressure which drove Napoleon to the Berlin and Milan decrees of 1806 and 1807, entailing military operations on a vast scale, and leading inexorably to the Russian campaign of 1812, which set the seal on the French dictator's downfall.

Just such a part, without a Trafalgar or even Jutland to set one shining date in history, sea power has played in this war. It is an unseen and formidable force which continental peoples, prone to measure might in massed men and mountains of munitions, find difficult to understand. It works obscurely, and is often most dominant when least spectacular. As at Cape Trafalgar it emerges sometimes into the light, and the excited world the Ajax and the Achilles race across the scene shooting the Graf Spee to -crap iron off the Plate. The Warspite fills Narvik Fiord with smashed destroyers, Somerville sweeps Matapan, lines of foam race toward the striken Bismarck, and the Scharnhorst stands clear-cut and sinking under the star shells of the Duke of York. These are not the Navy's greatest deeds. It is the long endurance of the Fleet, the eternal watch which polices every corner of the seas that keeps the sea lanes open, binds a mighty commonwealth into one, and drives exasperated dictators into the Russian snows. Seapower, silent and inexorable, baffles them. Baulked by the quiet hostility of the blue water, Napoleon, like Hitler after him, turned to the white steppes and found ruin. Mr Churchill's instinct was as sure in 1915 as it is today. "Courage!" he wrote on that Trafalgar Day, "All's well with the Fleet. Under the sure shield of the Navy every mistake can be retrieved, every neglect can be repaired." There, with a realism he was to display on a yet more bitter day, he called England "to sustain unwearyingly the darkening conflict."

| It was 11.40 on Trafalgar Day, with Villeneuve's ships still like a row of models on the far horizon, and the British squadrons dividing under Collingwood and Nelson for the brilliantly - conceived attack, when the Admiral turned with an exclamation to Captain Blackwood. "Now," said he, "I'll amuse the Fleet with a signal. Mr Pasco, I wish to say 'England confides that every man will do his duty.' " The signallieutenant asked if he might substitute "expects" for "confides," that word not being in the code-book. Nelson agreed, and before midday John Roome the signalman had hoisted the words which were to become immortal and the cheers rolled like thunder down the line. England, indeed, confides her future to the Fleet. Never in this centfiry must the fact be forgotten. No Japanese treachery must build a new fleet in the distant east, no evasive cunning must launch new ships at Kiel. No folly in Whitehall or in Westminster must commit the tenuous lifelines of the Empire to 50 ageing cruisers. But England confides her future to something deeper and more noble than the unfeeling steel of ships. She "confides" that every man will do his duty. Duty and privilege can know no divorce. It has been the common fault of selfishness to forget the fact. Of privilege the future is full. A day of happiness can come with freedom at last secure. Duty well performed must buy such wealth —and "England confides," indeed expects.

UNITED STATES NAVY Delighted and relieved as were the people of Auckland in May, 1942, to see the United States Navy making preparations for the creation of a large base in the port, so now they are sad that the time for its closing has arrived. Affection for the American Navy was born of the visit of the Great White, Fleet in 1908. It was strengthened with the arrival of squadrons of the fleet in 1925 and by the visit of Commodore Stone's cruiser squadron in 1941. So far as the people of Auckland are concerned that affection has since been converted into a friendship which they hope will endure for ever. The course of the war in the Pacific made it unnecessary to develop the base on the scale first planned. Nevertheless it grew to large proportions. Some of the personnel, it has been the city's good fortune to have had here for long periods; the visits of others have been more or less fleeting, but all have been welcome. The three officers who have been in command at Auckland, Vice-Admiral Ghormley, Captain Jupp and more recently Commander Robertson, can report without reservation to their great Commander-in-Chief that the conduct of all ranks has been exemplary and that they have been fine ambassadors for the United States and worthy of the trust reposed in them. This achievement has part of its value in the fact that most of the men were wartime en-

liatments. They had no long period of navy discipline behind them. But they quickly took to themselves the best traditions of their service and lived up to them. As the United States Navy goes on to new victories in the Pacific it carries with it the good wishes and prayers of New Zealanrlers, who say to officers and men: Godspeed and safe and happy return. PURSUIT OF KNOWLEDGE Among the fine heritages of this age from the long Victorian era is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. The search is often conducted by * amateurs who, besides making their own worthy contributions, inspire and provide the means whereby the professional scientist is able to continue his researches. In New Zealand they have found outlets for their energies and ways of disseminating their knowledge in philosophical societies and institutes and museums among which the Auckland Institute and Museum occupies an honoured place. Their work is of interest to the multitude, but the multitude is more inclined to pass them by in ignorance of the richness of the treasures at its disposal. In the 75 years of their work as one body, ardent members of the Auckland Institute and Museum, who celebrated the marriage anniversary of the two bodies this week might have wished for wider public support, but they have never let the lamp of knowledge grow dim. They are people who know and appreciate the work of those sturdy pioneers who, after they had carved homes for themselves in the new land, turned to explore the wealth of the new flora and new fauna and the unknown geology of the young country. It was they who interested Hochstetter, Hector, Buller, Haast, Hutton and Hooker in the natural history of the colony. It was from their generation and that of their immediate successors that Rutherford, Cheeseman and Cockayne found inspiration. In Auckland today the work is carried on by the comparatively few, yet all Auckland is concerned. The metropolitan area and the province are proud of the home of local research, the War Memorial Museum, and of its contents. The people would enrich themselves and honour the pioneers by an equal interest in the institute.