MUSSOLINI'S SEA CHALLENGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22905, 12 June 1936, Page 10

MUSSOLINI'S SEA CHALLENGE

SIR R. KEYES'S DISCLOSURES

Speaking at a Navy League meeting at Hove (says the London Telegraph of April 8), Admiral Sir Roger Keyes said that British sea power had often been challenged before and if it were challenged in the Mediterranean the challenge would be met a s challenges had been met bel.'ie.

ft would bo a very good thin;: if it were made perfectly clear ro Signor Mussolini that if lie challenged British sea power in the Mediterranean the whole force of the British Empire would be behind Great Britain and the British Na Y.J'I'ne present situation between the League of Nations, Italy, and Abyssinia was entirely governed by the presence of the British fleet in a base in the eastern part oi the Mediterranean at Alexandria. There it lay, quite unperturbed by air threats or by the threat of submarines, which, whatever denials had been made, had been located near our fleet. When Mussolini mobilised his army of 500,000 on his northern frontier he mobilised his whole fleet and gent 50 submarines to the Mediterranean. Our Government supported the Admiralty, who sent out every submarine hunter wp possessed, and practically the whole Bntisli Navy except certain battleships which were not required was mobilised in answer to Mussolini'* action. If we were challenged in the Mediterranean that challenge would be properly met.