The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1911.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3286, 3 August 1911, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. THURSDAY, AUGUST 3, 1911.

The terms of the new naval agreement

between Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are much on

imperial Naval Go-operation.

the lines of recent forecasts. Briefly, wo are told it provides that the naval services of each Dominion shall be exclusively under the inspection of its own Government. A very necessary decision, however, is that the methods of training, etc., in the colonial navies shall be in uniformity wtih those of the Royal Navy. The Inspector-General of the Oversea Forces will only inspect the Dominion’s forces, it is further stated, by invitation of the Governments concerned. But he will on no account interfere in regard to local military policy or schemes unless invited to do so. Those oversea Dominions which are developing local navies can surely have no reason to complain of this new arrangement. As required, too, the Admiralty will lend the Dominions officers and men during the developmental period. In regard to the position of affairs which would accrue between Great Britain and the Oversea Dominions in time of war, the messages so far to hand on the subject are not very full. Upon this point it is merely stated that any Dominion ships put at the Imperial Government’s disposal shall form an integral portion of the Royal Fleet, remaining under the Admiralty throughout the war. This brief announcement —apart from the information which has come from other quarters—might be capable of being misinterpreted to mean that the Dominions will in the future have their choice as to whether they shall assist in offensive as well las defensive operations in every war which the Empire may undertake. That such is not the understanding, however, is unmistakably clear as a result of what has been made public from time to time as regards the proceedings at the late Imperial Conference. It is quite evident that the Oversea Dominions are to be consulted in regard to all such undertakings, and also that when action is decided upon it shall be as in the past of a concerted nature. For instance, Mr. McKenna, First Lord of the Admiralty, speaking at Pontypool (Wales) a few weeks back,, is reported to have said that the naval arrangements made with the Dominions were most satisfactory. “Two years ago,” he continued, “the spontaneous offer of assistance had come from the Dominions, and at the Naval Conference of 1909 the principles were discussed upon which this assistance might best be developed. Each of the Dominions would contribute in the fashion most appropriate to its resources and its internal public opinion to the strength of the Empire. Some would do it by direct contribution to the power of the British Fleet, either by annual payment or by the gift of ships, or both ■ others by the development of fleets of their own. In the latter case there would be interchangeability of officers and men and such common standards of training and discipline as to ensure, in the event of war, that the joint fleets would be able to act in complete union. The defence of the gigantic oversea trade of the Empire, continued Mr. McKenna, was a colossal task. This trade traversed the ocean in every part of the globe. Great as was the British trade, that of the Dominions in proportion to the population was not less important, and the people of this family of nations had a common interest and care in its protection. The statesmen -of the Dominions had joined with the Government In providing and maintaining the necessary means of defence, and while there was to be no interference with the autonomy of each member of the Empire, the foundations had been laid of a naval strength which, if combined In war, would safeguard Imperial Interests In every part of the globe.” So much to the point were the comments of the “London Times” on the significance of Mr. McKenna’s announcement that they might also well be given. “It is,” said the “Times,” “impossible to exaggerate its importance, for in point of fact it may be taken as an axiom, established by the whole course of naval history, that efficiency in naval warfare depends above all things on those moral and personal factors which make no show at all in a merely material comparison of strength, but which count for everything or for nearly everything on the day of battle—on sound and ingrained conceptions of the strategy and tactics that make for victory, on clearheaded direction and undivided command, on uniform standards of training and discipline, on continuity of inspiring tradition and common loyalty to its inspiration, and finally on the spontaneous and almost automatic harmony that is engendered by all these agencies between the mind of the commander-in-chief and the minds of his subordinate officers. ‘I had the happiness to command a band of brothers,’ said Nelson after the battle of the Nile. ‘As the mode of our attack had been previously determined on/ wrote Collingwood in his dispatch describing the battle of Trafalgar, hind communicated to the flag officers and captains, few signals were necessary, and none were made. 5 That is the ideal to he aimed at by all the children of Nelson. They must all acknowledge the same parent-

age, whether they are serving for the moment in the Royal Navy or in the affiliated navies of the Dominions. It is only so that the ideal of Nelson—the noblest ideal ever bequeathed to any navy—can be fully realised by the Imperial Navy of the future.”