DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 61, 17 March 1913, Page 5

DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE.

THE BUILDING PROGRAMME

(By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (United Press Association.)

London, March 11

A naval memorandum mentions the generosity of the overseas Dominions. It shows that on April 1 there will be eleven battleships,three battle cruisers, thirteen light cruisers, thirty-five destroyers, and twenty submarines under construction. With the completion of the present programme Britain would possess 89 battleships, 38 light cruisers, and 125 destroyers, compared with Germany’s 20 battlesips, 20 light cruisers, and 102 destroyers. Though the estimates show an apparent increase of about a million and a quarter on the previous year there is actually a decrease, because they include a re-vote of £1,600,000 unexpended in 1912.

AUSTRALASIA’S PATRIOTISM

London, March 14

Mr Holman, in a speech at Goldsmith’s Hall, said that there was no division in Australia over the necessity of standing firmly by the Motherland in a dangerous crisis and letting the world know that united Australia valued its rights as Britishers too much ever'to have a doubt as to her course of action if British supremacy were endangered.