FUTURE DANGER.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20455, 7 November 1934, Page 13

FUTURE DANGER.

Adequate Navy Vital to Empire. “We have to remember that the War did not finish in 1918—it only let up,” said Lieutenant-Commander R. N. Harding, R.N., addressing the Navy League last evening. “We have left all the bones of contention undecided. It is only a question of passing it on to the next generation, and then when prosperity has returned and what we have learned has been forgotten the danger point will come. Britain must have an adequate navy.” There was at the University a noisy minority asserting that there should be no navies at all in the world, said the Commander. There was a tragic irony in the fact that as some people progressed through the various stages until the highest point of culture was reached they lost that will to fight which had taken them to that point. ITe was just as much a pacifist as any of them but he looked at the matter from a different viewpoint. Britain, he said, depended for her trade upon the Navy, and New Zealand depended upon Britain. The statesman’s job in peace time was to protect Ithose trade routes. In his opinion the statesmen had to think in terms of what had happened and not of what was happening. At any moment agreements were liable to b“ broken, and war might break out. At one time, when the U-boat men ace was at its height, there was si/-.: week s food left in England, and great privation was suffered. It was with great difficulty that the menace was averted. The only method available was to wipe out the enemy fleet, or to restrict its operations, in order to protect the whole of the trade routes. This would require a tremendous fleet, or the convoy system, which was largely the method adopted. ■At the present time it was proposed t0 c ld a number of convoy sloops of 2000 tons and four 4-inch guns. In the speaker’s opinion these sloops would be death traps. Fast cruisers of good strength and with at least five 5-m guns were necessary. He did not wish to speak of the Eastern situation, but the eyes of the world were turning in that direction