NAVY MUST BE STRONG.

Wairarapa Age, 5 August 1921, Page 5

NAVY MUST BE STRONG.

NEW CONSTRUCTION NECESSARY. TO AVOID PATH OP DISASTER. London, z Aug. 3.—Lieut.-Colonel Amery, in the House of Commons, when submitting the naval estimates, including provision for four capital ships, said that the latter was not a policy of competition or a challenge, but simply the replacement of obsolete ships. A few hours’ actual fighting in the late war sufficed to revolutionise the ideas as to the necessary type of battleship. Other Powers were not slow to make use of that experience. There were at present under constrution whole battle fleets of a type incomparably more powerful than any afloat at the battle of Jutland. Japan would have eight completed by .1925, and eight more completed by 1928, while the United States would have 12 of these supreme engines of war, each over 43,000 tons, completed by 1925. The constriction of four ships could not in the circumstances be regarded as provocative; on the contrary, the Admiralty might be open to a charge of allowing the navy to fall below the standard of other Powers. (Received 5.5 p.m.) London, Aug. 4. —Continuing his speech, Lieut.-Colonel Amery said:— “If we fail to construct now, we stereotype the present position of inferiority. Britain must declare she will not accept a position of definite naval inferiority. Let us be sure we can rely on our own strength. Never allow our sea power to fall to a point when we will be foiled to make entangling agreements to avoid the path which would lead to the greatest disaster, not only to ourselves, but to the whole world.” The vote was carried.—(A. and N.Z.) DANGER OF DELAY. Mr Churchill deprecated the aggravation of the situation by extreme language. It was an astonishing fact, lie said, that excepting the Hood, the leading capital units had not been reinforced for more than seven years. In the meantime, two other navies had revolutionised construction according- to lessons learned in the late war.

“Ifwwe delay another year,” Mr Churchill added, “we shall sink to the level of a third-rate naval Power, and may never recover. We would exist then as a great Power only on sufferance. Our power to guide events for good would cease, and we could not extend to the Dominions that protection which we have always been prou l to extend. Our hope for the success of the Washington Conference was the sincerest, but unless we could assume that the ships now building in Japan and America would be scrapped, any disarmament decision at Washington would be irrelevant to the decision reached to-night.”