AUSTRALIAN NAVAL DEFENCE. T HE Report which the Imperial Defence Committee
have made on the naval defence of Australia has not been officially published in this country, but it has been presented to the Federal House of Representatives, and cabled summaries enable us to follow the drift of it. It dismisses the scheme of Captain Creswell for the up. building of a local Australian Navy, and in its place lays down elaborate provisions for the extension of the local land forces and the garrisoning of forts which are to be a defence against stray invaders. We are not surprised that the Australian Press with scarcely an exception has protested against the decision. A Navy for herself is a very old and most commendable policy in Australia. There is in some of the States a small local force of Naval Militia, with a torpedo-boat or two, and there is, of course, the annual contribution of £200,000 to the cost of the British Navy. But Australia no more than any other Colony likes to pay money and have no say in its expenditure, and she naturally wishes some autonomy in her defence. An independent Navy is out of the question, but she might at least, she has argued, be allowed to create a "second line" of naval defence. Captain Creswell, the present Director of Naval Forces under the Commonwealth, first broached the scheme in the South Australian Parliamentary Report for 1897. In the same year Mr. Kingston brought it before the Conference of Premiers in London, and ever since it has been one of the popular commonplaces of Australian policy. Captain Creswell's latest scheme, on which the Imperial Defence Committee have reported, is for the provision over a space of seven years of three cruiser destroyers, sixteen torpedo-boat destroyers, and fifteen torpedo-boats, first and second class. The total cost of this flotilla is estimated at £2,300,000, with an annual sum of £120,000 to provide for upkeep and additions to the personnel. Its purpose we may define in his own words. It is to be regarded as "a defence not designed as a force for action against hostile fleets or squadrons, which is the province of the Imperial Fleet, but as a line necessary to us within the defence line of the Imperial Fleet,!--a purely defensive line that will give security to our naval bases, populous centres, principal ports, and commerce." This new force would be supplementary to any Imperial force in these waters ; and further, would, like the Australian land con- tingents, be available for the defence of the Empire in any part of the globe.
Obviously such a scheme has two aspects,—the strategic and the political. The experts of the Defence Committee were concerned only with the first, and not unnaturally they had much to say in disparagement. Unless they are misreported, we do not understand the point of their insistence upon forts as a means of repelling any invading cruisers which should have escaped the British Fleet. The real argument of the experts—and it is a , very strong ono—is not that forts can do the work of a local Navy, but that if our Fleet remains unbeaten there will be no work to be done, and if it is beaten neither fort nor flotilla will make much difference to the result. Unless the defence line of the Fleet is broken, the local Navy will not have to be called into play to protect the bases and harbours. Now the inhabited coast-line of Australia is some four thousand miles long, and it will be very difficult for a stray enemy's cruiser to do any serious damage to the twelve or fifteen ports along it. Besides, even if the enemy should detach a cruiser or two for the purpose of damaging the Australian seaboard, there is no reason why the Imperial Fleet should not undertake the task of following and preventing them. As the Times points out, this was the pledge given by the Admiralty to the Food Supply Commission. Further, the experts argue, it is the first condition of naval efficiency that the strategic control shall remain undivided and centralised. If we decentralise command we shall have a grievous wastage of energy with little result. The chief Australian contention, so far as we can gather, is that the Defence Committee are wrong in saying that the nearest foreign naval base is four thousand miles distant, since they forget the preparations of Germany at Simpsonshafen, of France at Noumea, and of America at Tutuila. But the experts may reply that a naval base is nothing without a naval force, and that if the force is there it is the business of the Imperial Fleet to checkmate it. In the last resort the Australian argument on the strategical side comes to this : "Some invading cruisers may get through and do a lot of damage to our harbours and shipping. Why not allow us to take our own means of preventing this contingency ? " To this the experts reply : " The contingency will not happen ; if it does, the Imperial Fleet can deal with it ; and it is waste of money and time for you to take on yourself a burden which belongs to some one else." Strategically, we admit that there is a good deal in the experts' argument, but we think that there is also some- thing in Australia's. Even assuming that her Navy did nothing more, it would at least provide a valuable reserve of men. , On the other side—the political—we think, as we have said before in these columns, that the Australian case is very strong. We desire to see our Colonies powerful independent nations, and national strength involves a capacity for self-defence. No vigorous race likes to think that it is dependent for its security on the efforts of other people. A contribution to the Imperial Navy does not meet the difficulty, or in any way satisfy national pride. Australia wishes to take a hand directly in the work, to make provision for the training of her own people to the naval profession. She argues rightly on the analogy of her land forces. Had the only soldiers in Australia been British Regulars, where would the Colonial contingents in the Boer War have come from ? Such a local Navy at the start may be of little use, and may cost the country more than it is worth ; but after all, it is Australia that will be paying for it, and if it is of little use it will be no handicap. A local Fleet would not take one ship from the strength of the Imperial Navy. In time it would improve, both in size and quality, until it became a valuable auxiliary, and paved the way for some joint system of defence, paid for and directed, not by Britain alone, but by all parts of the Empire. We think that, whatever the strategical objections, granted the existence of this desire on Australia's part to take an active share in her own defence, it is the duty of the Mother-country to encourage rather than throw cold water upon it. Imperial unity, as we have always maintained, depends upon the unfettered growth of Colonial nationalism. A corporate feeling throughout the Dinpire can only arise out of the prosperity and vigour of the separate parts. Imperial defence May, in the long run, be managed by an Imperial Executive, and paid for by funds contributed by the whole Empire. 13ut till that time comes it is right to encourage every attempt on the part of a daughter-nation to take up a share of the burden for herself. The ultimate consolidation will be aided rather than hindered by the rise of the parts to a higher level of public duty.
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