MORE POWERFUL PROTECTION

Southland Times, Issue 23345, 1 November 1937, Page 6

MORE POWERFUL PROTECTION

Navy And Dominions In South Seas FAR EAST FLEET TO BE CREATED HASTENING OF BRITAIN’S PLANS (Special to The Times) WELLINGTON, October 31. From information available in Wellington it is indicated that New Zealand may have the most powerful naval protection in her history at an early date. The information makes it clear that the Far Eastern crisis has made Britain decide to expedite her declared intention to create a new Far Eastern fleet. Some time ago Sir Samuel Hoare, when First Lord of the Admiralty, revealed the policy of the British Gov-' ernment to adopt a “two hemispheres” standard of naval strength as soon as present construction plans permit this to be done. The plan, it was revealed, was to send out to the Far East station, with headquarters at Singapore, warships of a capital cost of some £70,000,000 and representing an annual cost of £12,000,000 for upkeep. The fleet will include five battleships, 10 cruisers, 24 destroyers, two aircraft carriers, 18 submarines and 12 escort vessels, besides the usual depot ships, repair vessels, mine layers and mine sweepers.

BRITISH UNDERTAKING The despatch of this fleet, however, was not contemplated before 1940, when British capital ships now being built will be about to be placed in commission. At that time the British Navy will include 20 capital ships. But the Sino-Japanese crisis has placed a new construction on affairs and it is now believed that the five battleships to be sent out will leave Britain as soon as the modernization of them is completed. They are all Queen Elizabeth class ships, and the work on them has been proceeding for about three years. The capital cost of the reconstruction is over £2,000,000 a ship, very little short of their cost at the time they were built. The Malaya and Warspite have already been completed and the other ships, the Queen Elizabeth, the Barham and the Valiant, will be modernized fairly soon. This will mean that Britain once again will have a battle fleet in the Pacific. It will also mean that lor the first time Japan will be confronted by a battle force of another nation besides the United States. And'it will place a formidable barrier between Japan and the South Seas. For it can be said definitely that the reports at the time of the Imperial Conference that Britain would not send her fleet east of Singapore have absolutely no foundation in fact. In the waters which the new fleet will cruise there are 400 ships or more than 3000 tons and flying the British flag at sea every day of the year. Also it is possible to reveal that one undertaking of Britain at the time of the Imperial Conference was that she would reinforce her Far Eastern fleet. Recently it has been reported that New Zealand has undertaken to pay an additional sum towards the cost of the fleet, in consideration of the tact that she is granted this additional protection. __________