BRITAIN'S NAVAL POWER.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15894, 19 January 1924, Page 8

BRITAIN'S NAVAL POWER.

DOMINIONS' APATHY. GOrNG BACKWARD SINCE WAR. AN ADMIRAL'S COMMENT. LONDON, January 17. near-Admiral Sir E. Grant, lecturing at the United Service's Institution on the overseas naval forces, said that generally all the Dominion navies' had gone backward since the war. Even Newfoundland was ceasing to have a naval reserve. The amounts paid per capita for the navy were:—Australia 9s 3d, New Zealand 4s 6d, South Africa lid, Canada Is 2d, Britain 27s sd. Lord Kitchener had laid it down that no British Dominion could be afcta-cked while Britain held command of the seas, but Australia was really a group of islands'. All its towns were on the seaboard, and owing to differences of railway gauge everything had to be brought to the towns by sea. She depended on command of the seas for her existence.

He urged propaganda in the Dominions to bring home the need for a strong navy for the protection of Empire trade, and advocated a. general Imperial policy to define the minimum naval requirements for tlie Empiro agreed to by all political parties. The present system was suicidal. If the Dominion navies grew and included capital ships they would form an Integral part of the one-power standard agreed to at the Washington Conference. In that case the British Navywould be actually below the one-power standard.

Admiral Sir Doveton Sturdee, said that the fact that the Dominions thought of starting navies and then dropped the idea depressed him. They did this purely for local and political reasons. It was the same in Britain. The oniy mention of the navy during the general election was when some, politician tried to scrap the Singapore base. This- was the link between ourselves and New Zealand and Australia and it was the only point that politicians had tried to scrap.