Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, FEB. 10, 1930 BATTLESHIPS AND FREEDOM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17180, 10 February 1930, Page 4

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, MONDAY, FEB. 10, 1930 BATTLESHIPS AND FREEDOM

Jt is natural that the (Naval Conference should result, among other things, in an outpouring of comments from all possible angles, written or spoken by those who have been recognised as experts in their various lines. One of the best and most illuminating of tnese comments is written by Admiral K. G. B. Dcwar, whose view is that the big battleship could disappear entirely if the Powers agreed not to build larger vessels than cruisers, and he points out also how difficult it is .to preserve the doctrine or the freedom of the seas whence once war has actually broken out. The battleship, he says, merely protects the cruising ship from the enemy battleships. Remove the battleship from the sea, and the cruiser then becomes the ultimate expression of tactical power and combines in herself the functions of the battleship. The same authority points out that oven the humble torpedo boat destroyer can effectually control a particular area until something more powerful appears over the horizon, and therefore in a war between countries possessing nothing larger than the destroyer she fulfils tin; role of the battleship. There is, however, a limit in the downward scale. Cruisers must have sufficient seagoing qualities and fuel endurance to keep the sea for a considerable period and to operate where they may be required. They must also have sufficient speed and gun-power to protect the trade and transport routes from raiders and enemy cruisers. The utmost emphasis is placed upon the statement thai all these qualities can bo combined in a vessel of under 5000 tons, of which the British Delhi class may be token as an example. The; 10,000 ton limit has been suggested merely because the maritime Powers are already possessed of a number of .these vesesls, and that figure might therefore be accepted, except for new ships. This writer's conclusion on this section of his subject is that the abolition of the battleship, the limitation of the cruiser to 10,000 tons, and the rationing of total warship tonnage provide the means of obtaining re.al economy and security, and thus freeing the world from the burden of excessive naval armaments. As to the vexed problem of the freedom of the seas, it is pointed out that the phase has been and may be used in different senses. It is possibly most acceptable to take it to mean complete freedom of passage to neutral shipping in time of war. This, says Admiral Dcwar, sounds a plausible method of safeguarding British supplies in the event of war and thus justifying a drastic, reduction in naval expenditure. But the fact is that British food and essential commodities come to the country mainly in British ships, and no intermit ion al agreement can prevent :i Power at war with Britain from sinking British ships: and, of course, if it were possible to ensure the immunity of belligerents as well as of neutral ships, the whole reason for the existence of navies as such would disappear. But this is a mere idle speculation, by which war is visualised, as something different from what if is. Tin- methods of waging maritime warfare can be renounced for good only when war itself is abolished, and that time has assuredly not yet. come. Returning to the immunity of neutral ships, Admiral Dcwar contends that even if it wore practicable, it might not work out necessarily to the detriment of British interests, although lie admits that in the case of the Great War, such a possibility would .undoubtedly have lengthened the period of the resistance put up by Germany. The main objection, as tilings are, is that

it would cause intense and serious friction between belligerents and neutrals, and would almost inevitably break down when put to the actual test. Is it conceivable, asks the writer, that in the event, of a war between Mexico and the United Slates, the latter would allow British ships to supply the Mexicans with munitions any more than she would have allowed them to take coal into Santiago during the Spanish-American war? Again, in the late war, is it reasonable to suppose that Britain would have allowed American ships to pass through the Dardanelles with mines and torpedoes for the Turks? It may be replied that contraband of war would bo excluded) but the difficulty just; is to decide what is absolute and what is conditional contraband. As has been recently indicated by another British authority, it is impossible under modern scientific conditions to say what may or may not be converted into new means of waging war. The constituents of ordinarily innocent merchandise are such that they may be converted by chemical or other means into deadly means of destruction. Even food may be the raw material of high explosives, and one can easily imagine a so-called foodship carrying a cargo of quite edible material that would nevertheless be used for quite other purposes. So long as there is war, there must be interference with neutral trade. To allow war as a principle is automatically to allow the legitimacy of that interference. The greater includes the lesser. The right of stopping contraband and of enforcing a blockade is based, on the nature and ■ on the necessities of war, and no theory regarding the freedom of the seas, will alter that fundamental pact. "If it is in the power of a belligerent to prevent it. he cannot be expected to allow u neutral to perform for the enemy a service which the enemy has been rendered impotent to perform for himself." That; is the thoroughly sound principle laid down by Admiral Dcwar, and one that will be difficult to compute by anyone who realises ,the exigencies of war conditions. Of course we all would like to see war utterly and completely abolished, Vmt it. is of no practical value whatever to legislate for impossible concessions that begin to operate only after war has broken out. When war does come, everyone knows how former agreements may go by the board, and particularly in the question of the freedom of the seas is it dangerous in the extreme to multiply exceptions referring to ships that must not be interfered with. It is perhaps just .as well that, this particular aspect of the naval problem affecting the nations of the world has been omitted from the agenda of the Conference.