AUSTRALIA'S IDEAL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 23 September 1913, Page 4

AUSTRALIA'S IDEAL.

The ideal of Australian defence is that British sea power shall ultimately possess the same command in the Pacific which it now possesses in the Atlantic (says the Sydney Morning Herald). ~ We realise that upon ourselves and upon New Zealanders a great part of the responsibility for sustaining that sea power will fall; and that, if we provide a force which is worthy of assistance, tho Empire will help those who help themselves. That is the Australian ideal. Wo contemplate no narrow provision of ships to be tied to our own harbours, but a fleet that shall help td hold free for the Empire ©very corner and channel of the Pacific, just as surely as the fleets of Britain at present hold the Atlantic. We realise that, in spite of any promise of ships to spare in tame of need, we have no right to •xpoot that help -unless we establish in this o*ean both a fleet and i&e «r----ganiaatida for a fleet. -We ieliere that we can scarcely fail to realise the ne«ds of the British States in the Paarffo better than those needs can be realised, with the best will in the worldj by the British States in the Atlantic. That is the reason why, in spite of certain considerations of strategy, which are quite as well realised in : this continent as they are in Great Britain, we have adhered,_ and shall continue to adhere, steadily to the principle of a so-called "Ideal" navy.