SIR GEORGE REID.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2765, 21 March 1910, Page 5

SIR GEORGE REID.

SPEECH ON THE NAVAL QUESTION.

United Press Association— Copyright LONDON, March 18.

At the Anglo-Saxons’ Club dinner-. Sir Gilbert Parker presiding. Sir George Reid, responding to the toast of the club’s guest, said that whatever the terms controlling the relation of the Australian navy or the navies of other dominions to the British navy, the ships must be ready to find themselves as near the Empire s future Trafalgar as possible. He knew that was where the Australian ships must be. He had no fear for Britain while the people showed their ancestors’ attributes. He added: “It is unwise to depend on a branch of the Anglo-Saxon race not in the Empire, or home, ally, or friend, with whom we have an understanding. Understandings are very good things, and should be cultivated, hut w© want something behind them. T do not know what an understanding can be worth, considering even a treaty i s worth little or nothing in emergency struggles between nations that in one form or another are inevitable. There is a greater danger to ns, perhaps, in the labortories of foreign countries than in their dockyards.”