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Sir W. Carpenter on Pacific Defence

Sir Walter Carpenter, Head Of

the large group of Pacific companies, of which Messrs. W. R. Carpenter and Co. is the chief, returned to Sydney on July 10, after a tour abroad. He was in Europe during the very critical days of March, when Hitler seized Czecho slovakia, and he saw history being made.

He gives comforting assurances about the new strength of Britain: but he is insistent about the need for strong naval forces in the Pacific.

“I am more than ever convinced that Australia’s vital necessity is a strong navy”, he says, “Australia’s naval strength at present is hopelessly inadequate. Australia should join with Britain, New Zealand, and South Africa, if possible, in building a fleet strong enough to make any at tempt by Japan to move southward too dangerous to be undertaken. It is no use spending millions of pounds and waiting three years or more for a bat tleship and a graving dock. We should concentrate on cruisers, with the Singa pore Base as the bulwark of our de fence.

“Britain has battleships to spare, and some could be sent to the Pacific, while Australia should make every effort to ob tain more and still more cruisers for the protection of our long coastline.”