NAVY LEAGUE PROTEST

Wanganui Chronicle, Issue 20037, 21 March 1914, Page 5

NAVY LEAGUE PROTEST

("Times" and "Sydney Sun" Services.) LONDON, March 19. The Navy League regards the Estimates as inadequate, and declares that unless the expected Canadian vessels are replaced we will not have in 1915 a single capital ship available for worldwide service, and it will be impossible in 1916 to keep up Great Britain's proportionate strength in the Mediterranean.

In the 14 years ended March 31, 1912, the British Navy has cost the people of the United Kingdom no less than £502,000,000, or, to put it another way, every unit of the population of those islands has contributed in those 14 years the sum of a little over £10 to the naval defence of the British Empire. The total population of' the British Empire is about 410,000,000 people, the contributions to the navy working out at 2s 6d for every subject of the King. This does not appear a very exorbitant price to pay for the enjoyment of existence under the British Constitution. The British Empire comprises 11,500,000 square miles of territory. Forty-six million pounds was the total of the naval estimates for 1912-13, and it will thus be seen that every square mile of land over which the Union Jack flies is insured in its continuity as the property of the British Crown at the sum' of £4.

The safety of British trade depends upon, the navy's efficiency. In the year 1913 the seaboard trade of the Empire—that is to say, the total of the imports and exports of every community under the Crown —was, in round figures, £2,100.000,000. At <tthe ports of the whole Empire something like 300,000,000 tons of shipping (have been entered and cleared, and the cost of the navy, regaixied as the guarantee of the free going and coming of British ships, would be represented at 3s. per ton. The German naval expenditure in the last ten years ha© totalled practically exactly £173,000.000. In proportion however, the expenditure has greatly exceeded that of Britain. Thearea of the German empire being 209,000 miles, and as in the consideration of this question her colonies may be entirely left out of account, it has cost her during the past year £105 per square mile for naval defence alone. This shows that, as compared -with the British Empire, the Germans have been expending, 261 times as much in naval proportion Vith." reference to their territory,' «s has been expended by Great Britain. ; 'Taking the population of Germany as 65,000,000, the- cost of her navy will amount to 6s 9d per head, exactly three times as much as it costs each indivi-. dual inhabitant of the British Empire. Although the total national expenditure of Germany is only three-sevenths of that of the Avbole British Empire, she. pays ,2s lOd in the pound for the luxury of a great fleet, against the 2s 7d which would be the average of a British subject in any /part of the world. To put the comparison of German naval armament as against British upon another basis, it may be expressed in terms of Dreadnoughts. The British Empire has one Dreadnought for every 500,000 square miles of territory; Germany has one for every 80,000 square miles. The British Empire has one Dreadnought for every 20,000,000 of its people, and Germany has one for every 4,5O(XO00. Great Britain has one Dreadnought to protect each 800,000 tons of shipping, and Germany one for each 250,000 tons of shipping:, Great Britain has one for every £90,000,000 sterling of her external trade, and Germany one for every £55,000,000 of its external trade. Gi'eat Britain has one Dreadnought for each 300 males of United Kingdom coastline; Germany has one Dreadnought for every 48 miles of its coastline.