The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1923 SHOWING THE FLAG.

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15866, 12 December 1923, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 12, 1923 SHOWING THE FLAG.

The battle-cruisers Hood and Repulse, together with the five ships of the "D M class composing the First Light Cruiser Squadron, sailed from Dcvonport late in November, and will be back in English waters at the end of September. During their ten months' tour of the world these ships of the Royal Navy will see and be seen by many men and many cities. As they sail along the coast of the live continents washed by the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific, two out of every three of the ports at which I hey will touch, between forty and fifty in number, will be British possessions, under the Flag of the Empire. Till next June, when they anchor off Honolulu, their crews will not once have set foot on foreign soil. They will, with that single exception, have been the guests, wherever they touch land, of men of their own race. On their way back to England the battle-cruisers and their consorts, when they separate at San Francisco, will take different routes, the Hood and the Repulse sailing through the Panama Canal up to Halifax and Quebec, touching at four ports of the United Stales on the way, while the First Light Cruiser Squadron will pass round Cape Horn, slopping at the Falkland Islands, Buenos Aires. Montevideo, and Rio do Janeiro, and so home. The thought of such a voyage must stir the pride and fire the imagination —it' he has any—of every man with the sailor blossd of Britain in his veins. Apart from the valuable training and experience which it will give to officers ;>nd men, its mission Is to show the flag in far-off parts of the Empire, where, in these days of relentless economy, it is now too rarely seen. Two of the five light cruisers—Dauntless and Dragon—formed the escort of the Prince of Wales when he sailed to Canada and Newfoundland in the Renown. Every one knows how these visits of the Prince to the Dominions and India brought the different nations of the Empire closer to each other and to the

Mother Country, not only by virtue of his winning personality, but because, as the eldest son and representative of the Sovereign, he was to all the King's subjects- overseas a visible reminder of their common bond and heritage in the Crown of England. The King's ships, and the proud (lag which they fly, will serve in the same way to recall to the minds of all of Brbiish descent who sec them thfc strength and oneness for which the Royal Navy stands to-day, as it, has through all the glorious ages of the. Empire's past. Without its ships and its officers and men, not one of the Dependencies of the Crown which the cruiser squadrons are. to visit would have been added to the brotherhood of Dominions' and Colonies that make the Empire. Without them, as they were then and will be while the Empire lasts, the commerce which is its life-blood could never have been built up and could not now continue lo circulate. The Hood and Repulse are noble witnesses, together with their lighter consorts, of the unrivalled skill of Britain's shipbuilders. The one disquieting effect of their departure commented on in England was the weakness which it shows in the cruiser strength of the Navy. Not only because, of the employment which it will give, but because it will to some extent repair this deficiency, the decision to resume the work of cruiser construction was a most welcome announcement. Britain, at j Washington, had agreed to a certain | limitation of its naval armament. But below that limit, because of all that the Nav/ra£3Q§j iL&mnot, and dares not, fan,