SINGAPORE BASE.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXIV, 22 March 1924, Page 2

SINGAPORE BASE.

SCHEME ABANDONED. . CRITICISM FROM AUSTRALIA.. VSR PBBSB ASSOCIATION —COPYBIGHT MELBOURNE, March 21. The newspaper Argus,” in a leader the day prior to Mr Bruce’s reply to the British Government regarding Singapore, was published, said it the British Government abandons the Pacific naval base it abandons the Indian Ocean and abandons Australia. If the Australian Government fails to offer to share the cost and this failure causes the abandonment, then our present defence expenditure becomes sheer waste of money. The integrity of Australian soil will be endangered, and the death knell of White Australia sounded.

The British Government’s Singapore decision caused general disappointment. Leading citizens who were interviewed, emphatically savoured the calling oi public meetings to enable the people of Australia to register their protest against the over-ruling of the wishes of the Dominions.

Mr Ley (Minister of Justice and Lord Mayor of Sydney) advocated meec.ngs in both Australia and New Zeaiand. to voice the protest against the British Government's decision. The “Daily Telegraph,” in a leader, under the caption: “Our Greatest Crisis Since 1914,” says it is satisfactory to .earn that the Socialist Ministry ..oi. governing Great Britain, in the Leech of a two-thirds majority ol the electors, is not to be allowed to surrender British interests in the Pacific without a protest on behalf of frustrated public opinion iu the country. Although this is an Empire problem, vitally affecting the sea supremacy of

Britain, and has to be dealt with in that light, it has special interest to Australia, which, without a base ot battleships to operate from in southern waters would have to trust its future to the respect other nations may havu for the principles enunciated. The withdrawal of the British Navy from the Pacific is of more intense interest to Australia than any other portion of the Empire, and the people ought not to be content with a formal official protest from Mr Bruce, but Australian public opinion should add its direct voice to htat of its constitutional leader. No more serious situation has confronted the Commonwealth since the day it had to consider the action it should take in the Great

War. The Sydney “Morning Herald,” in a leader says that were Australia to-dav adeuately populated, the Singapore base would still be urgently needed frt hed defensive security, nil population had never been to any country a- guarantee against warlike attack. What : the Macdonald Government has decided is practically that the Pacific must be barred as an ocean for British battleships in time of war, but the

memories of what the German, raiders might have done during the Great War is too keen to permit us to sit easy under such a dicision. OTTAWA, March 19. Mr Bruce’s offer on behalf of Australia to give substantial aid to Singapore, if the British Government will proceed, instead of halting construction, is unlikely to stir the Canadian Government into similar action. The Singapore base is considered here as a peculiarly Pacific problem, towards which Canada had never been asked to contribute, nor has it volunteered to do so. There was some domestic sugestion that if the project went ahead, Canada might give some materials for construction. In any official correspondence on the subject, the British Government did not suggest a Canadian contribution, but rather the establishment o’ certain fuel bases on the two coasts for the use of the Navy generally. This proposal was put forward ten tatively by a former British Govern- : ment, but was not followed up by its i successors. «