The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1929 IDEALS AND DISARMAMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 688, 13 June 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1929 IDEALS AND DISARMAMENT

MIMIC naval warfare is being waged off the Queensland coast between ships of the combined Australian and New Zealand squadrons. A brisk battle was fought during last week-end, and it has been reported that, as the result of an attack on Australia’s warships, our cruisers Dunedin and Diomede were forced to limp into Hervey Bay, metaphorically licking their wounds. Although, of course, no material damage was done to anything or anybody, it may he assumed with the utmost confidence that the combatants received great benefit from their exercises. Incidentally, the friendly manoeuvres in a sea whieh prophetically has been set apart as the test centre of the next big war among nations demonstrate that, whatever international politicians may do or fail to get done about world pacification, the British Navy everywhere means to keep ready for any emergency, in no way affected foolishly either by sentiment or stupidity, whether in the form of hypocritical politics or that anaemic pacifism whieh is embellished by the title of conscientious objection to war or even preparation for competent defence. And it doubtless is a good thing for the Empire, whieh has acquired rather more than its share of moral slackness since the war that was to end war, but didn’t, that the Navy goes on doing its duty wisely and well. Discipline alone is a great defence.

There is more talk about further naval disarmament and fresh hope for what is impressively called world pacification. This has been quickened by the return of the Labour Party to power in Great Britain, and intensified by the expectation of the practice of a gentle foreign policy. It has been rumoured that Mr. Ramsay MacDonald plans to visit the United States during the grouse-shooting recess of the new Parliament at Westminster and have a heart-to-heart talk with President Hoover on naval disarmament. This, so far, is nothing hut a promising prospect, but it has been made clear that, if the Prime Minister wants a conference, the American “Barkis is willin’.” Hitherto, the subject of naval disarmament has been a supreme question for academic discussion at Geneva, where Mr. Hugh Gibson, the American representative on the Preparatory Commission of the Disarmament Conference last April, not only urged that the method of limiting naval tonnage by categories, which had so sensational a success at the Washington Conference, should be extended, hut assured the delegates that President Hoover was heart and soul with him. Of course, it was pointed out then that, while it had been easy enough to limit the category of battleships, the limitation of cruiser tonnage on the same principle was a different and more difficult question. This difficulty is due to the difference of opinion in respect of the needs of Great Britain and the United States concerning cruisers. Who would agree that America needs as many cruisers as the number essential to the protection of Great Britain’s world-wide trade routes? But such technical objections were swept aside by Mr. Gibson who, with a characteristic appeal to idealism, argued that the Kellogg Pact had altered the whole outlook of every honest nation.

Unfortunately, the matter does not rest solely between the greatest Republic in the world and the world’s greatest Empire. Other nations with the right to be recognised as great Powers must he considered, and neither France nor Italy has been very enthusiastic about naval or any other kind of disarmament. Perhaps they are less concerned with the sea than they are about defence on land. This bi-ings in the bristling question of conscription. Neither Britain nor America conscripts men for military defence, and if they are expected to reduce their naval forces, they cannot fairly he blamed for asking or expecting France and Italy to i-educe their compulsorily-trained land forces. Then, in the background, Germany, partly disarmed as a penalty for aggressive warfare, points out that her enforced disarmament was exacted at Versailles on the understanding that it would he imitated voluntarily by the Allies. If this has not been done within the next six years, Germany will be free of the Versailles shackles and at liberty to revive conscription. It does not require much exercise of imagination to determine the anxiety of France with a smaller population.