THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 1906.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8152, 30 May 1906, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MAY 30, 1906.

In the current number of the National Review, Admiral Fitzgerald has contributed a striking article on the subject of the colonies and the navy. He sbows that the coloniul feeling in favour of a locally-owned or locally-controlled naval contingent is based on the broadest Imperial spirit. He writesj —"AIL things must have a beginn" iug, but if a beginning is not made there can never be any result, ket it be granted, then, that for some years to oome no navy which Australia or any of the colonies could form or maintain would be of fighting value; that it would be a mere water-baby, a Bea urohin if you like; yet that does no appear to be a valid argument against starting such navies, for the same one might be used against all babies. But if the re were to be no more babies there would soon

be do more men. Is it not human nature that when a young man sets up in the world for himself, and starts an establishment of his own, he will, ir he has any proper spirit in him, prefer to have his own servan s, be they ever so rough and untrained, rather than have the use for a small money payment, of his father's servants, whom he oannot call his own, nor order about as he pleases? This appears to be one of those oases where a strongly expressed sentiment should be allowed to over-rule a temporary expediency, whiuh no one," continues the admiral, "not even the British Admiralty, can regard as a permanent arrangement. And I would venture to submit that the proper, far-seeing, and truly statesmanlike course to pursue is to remit immediately the money payment of the colonies, making no change whatever in the distribution of Imperial warships, and leaving it to the Commonwealth, and such other colonies as choose to do so, to take the initiative and spend what money they please in starting navies of their own, on similar lines to their armies, the Imperial Government freely lending, gratis—even as a wise father schools his son—'Suitable ships and highly trained instructors, so a 9 to begin on the same plan as the Japanese did, viz., to train tbo personnel before buying the ships, and not as the Russians did, to buy the ships first and then find that they had no properly trained crews to man them, with the result that all the world knows. Those who argue against the institution of separate colonial navies tell us that if Australia and New Zealand, for iustance, had navies of their own, they would be used exclusively for the defence of their own shores, and that this would be opposed to all ideas of sound naval strategy, which regards the sea as all one. But what grounds there are for such a supposition I, for one, am at a loss to guess, as these two great colonies have already given practical demonstration of precisely opposite intentions, and have sent tneir one ship and many battalions of their sons to the nearest points at wbiob. there was any fighting to be done in defence of the Empire, though the quarrels were not specially Australian or New Zealand quarrels, and ihough the area of operations was thousands of miles from their own shores. No doubt," the admiral goes on to observe, "if colonial navies are formed, they will ostensibly be for the defence of their own shores, just as their military foroes are ostensibly for the defence of their own lands, but anyone who supposes that they will not be available to fight for the Empire wherevbr they are most wanted must not only have a very poor opinion of the spirit of our colonial brethren, but his supposition is unjustifiable, a B being opposed to actual pi'oof to the contrary."