“CLEARLY INADEQUATE”

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14069, 16 February 1939, Page 5

“CLEARLY INADEQUATE”

AUSTRALIAN NAVAL FORGES EARL BEATTY’S CRITICISM. United Press Assn. —By Electric Telegraph—Copyright. SYDNEY, February 15. Earl Beatty, in a speech before the Navy League, said that the Australian naval forces were at present clearly inadequate to perform the heavy duties that would be put on them in the event of war. The fortifications at Darwin affd Port Moresby, he said, were good as far as they went, but he strongly urged the establishment of a chain of fortified naval bases from Singapore to Fiji. He also urged the strengthening of the Australian Navy and Mercantile Marine. “It is a. lamentable position,” he said, “that Australia possesses only three cruisers in commission and New Zealand only one.” Meanwhile, the Prime Minister, Mr J. A. Lyons, in reviewing the progress made in munitions manufacture in Australia, said that since September both output in many cases apd the number of men engaged had been doubled. Mr Lyons announced that the whole field of arms output would be further speeded up. New factories would be built and others extended.