The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1923. NAVAL DEFENCE

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11658, 24 October 1923, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 1923. NAVAL DEFENCE

Disquiet on account of Japan must be expected in Australia and other countries of the Pacific. Japan is congested with a rapidly-increasing population. Australia is, in comparison, empty, with five million people against Japan’s forty millions. Travellers return to Australian ports from Japan and emphasise the contrast between the beautifully fertile and perfectly empty country their ship has skirted while going inside the Barrier Reef to Japan, and the close-packed population they have seen there, in its great cities and in its meticulous cultivation. Japanese subjects are settled in countries outside Japan, and are anxious to increase their numbers. Australia forbids this settlement. The reconciliation of these radically opposite views is the greatest problem of the day, and history tells much of what has happened whenever that problem of reconciliation has not been solved. Under the circumstances, when a prominent Australian political leader expresses uneasiness, declares that Japan is not observing the Washington Naval Convention, and demands that Japan shall be rigorously called to aocount by the British Kmpire, adding that Japan is the natural enemy of Australia and the Empire, no one need he surprised. The other side of the question has been promptly put by Senator Pearce, the Commonwealth Minister for Defence, who declares: (1) That Japan acted as our faithful Ally through the war; and (2) that she is fulfilling the Washington Convention. This is true. Nevertheless, the problem of reconciling opposite views has not been solved, and the fncts of history remain. The situation is not quite comfortable, therefore.

The situation gives prominence to the question of naval defence, in which New Zealand is just as interested as is Australia. There is a general agreement now, even in Australia, where a brave attempt was made to maintain a fleet, that the only naval force to he depended upon for the defence of the oversea dominions is the British Fleet. Arid the consequence of that general agreement is that the oversea dominions must pay as much as they can of their share of the upkeep of this fleet. That is now, and has always been, an axiom of New Zealand policy. Before it became an axiom of Commonwealth policy, the state of things sketched by Senator Pearce was reached. It is a very convincing state of things. It mean* that the Commonwealth cannot build ships, cannot afford to keop up a large naval personnel, cannot maintain munition factories with more than a capacity for making small arms and shells up to six inches.

It is a poor showing beside the groat fleet and up-to-date munition works of Japan. This has forced the agreement to contribute to the cost of the Imperial Navy, to jiay something towards its new base at Singapore, and concentrate on providing facilities for the shelter and repair of the Imperial ships in Pacific waters. On these line 6 Imperial naval defence is to proceed, and a specimen squadron, so to speak, is about to go round the world for our information and reassurance. The whole matter is being settled at the Imperial Conference. Thus we know where we are.

About where we shall be as time goes on, Admiral Sir Percy S'cott has definite ideas. They are not the ideas of the Imperial Conference as above stated. This Admiral has established a reputation which entitles his views to respectful consideration. His work as a remarkably ingenious inventor speaks for him. It was first seen when he enabled big guns to be placed in position at Ladysmith, to the saving of that city from ,tlie very superior Boer artillery. It was seen again in the range-finder of his invention, which enabled the Good Hope, Admiral Fisher’s flagship in the Mediterranean, to make and hold the record for gun practice, at the time a thing of astonishing proficiency new to the British service. The same Good Hope was without this device—for the Admiralty did not keep it in the front of things after Fisher’s Mediterranean command—when it faced von Spee at Coronel, and went down with Cradoek. Admiral Scott, associated with Lord Fisher, saw the danger of the higher angle fire of the German ships, and was engaged on a committee whose business it was to devise a method of strengthening the deck armour of our ships. This work was stopped by the Admiralty, and Admiral Scott unhesitatingly declared this to be the cause of the loss of the big ships blown up by the enemy’s fire in the Battle of Jutland. These and other things in this Admiral’s record do not, of course, make infallible his view that the battleship is obsolete. Nor do they compel the conclusion that the navail base at Singapore is a futile thing, which a fleet can never reach, or, if reaching by a miracle, will never get out of; that, in consequence, overseas naval defence must depend on submarines and aircraft. This more especially ns naval defence is principally concerned with the defence of the great ocean routes, which cannot be patrolled either by aircraft or by submarines. Nevertheless, the Admiral dees not speak like a tyro, and is, therefore, entitled to some respect. The Imperial Conference will no doubt have before it the view.- of all the naval experts, including those of Sir Percy Scott. Its conclusions, therefore, wilil be entitled to more respect than those of the Admiral who, for all the stoutness with which he defends his opinions and conclusions, never quite manages to conceal a sense of grievance against official treatment. A grievance, all the world knows full well, supplies the proverbial grain of salt for the consideration of everything with which it may find itself associated.