=Source.=--_The Times_ Special Supplement, 31st December, 1912--a
Review of the Year 1912.
Mr. Borden's main proposal was that a sum of £7,000,000 should be
voted at once for the construction of three armoured ships of the
latest and strongest type. These ships were to be built in England
and placed at the disposal of the Admiralty, subject to recall at
a later period should the permanent naval policy of the Dominion
require it. To show their origin they were to bear Canadian names,
and they were to be additional to the programme of construction
already laid down for next year's Navy Estimates by the First Lord
of the Admiralty. In order, meanwhile, that naval shipbuilding
should make a start in Canada, yards were to be established for
the construction of certain cruisers and auxiliary craft which the
Admiralty engaged to order from the Dominion. A very important
step towards closer consultation in matters of policy was,
moreover, announced in the appointment of a Canadian Minister to
the Committee of Defence. This Minister was to have the right of
being present at all meetings of the Committee, which would thus
be brought much more closely in touch with the Dominion Cabinet.
In the course of his speech, Mr. Borden also read out an extremely
lucid and well-worded Memorandum on the growth of foreign navies,
with which he had been supplied at his own especial request by the
Admiralty.
The main effect of the Memorandum was to show the increasing
concentration in home waters demanded of the British Navy by the
swift expansion of the German Fleet and the consequent reduction
of Imperial naval strength in all outlying seas. The statement was
an eloquent corollary to a suggestion thrown out by Mr. Churchill
on May 16 at a banquet of the Shipwrights' Company. The First Lord
then urged that, while Great Britain made herself responsible for
the security of the Empire in the central European theatre, the
Dominions might combine to patrol the outer seas. This argument was
strongly developed by Mr. Borden in the course of his speech; and,
though it has not been repeated by Mr. Churchill, it is likely to
exercise a very important influence on the development of opinion
on the naval question in the Dominions. Mr. Borden's proposals
were received with enthusiasm in this country; but Liberal critics
showed a tendency to question the constitutional propriety of the
addition to the Committee of Defence, and to complain of the
cost of manning and maintaining ships which were to be strictly
additional to those already demanded by the Admiralty. The latter
line of complaint, though never at all widely urged, received some
reinforcement from Sir Wilfred Laurier's speech a week later. The
Leader of the Opposition supported, as we have already said, the
vote of £7,000,000; but he moved an amendment to the Bill proposing
that this sum should be devoted to the construction of a Canadian
Navy, to be manned and maintained entirely by the Dominion. It was
added that the ships proposed should be built in the Dominion and
should form two separate fleet-units, one on the Atlantic and one
on the Pacific Coast. Sir Wilfred Laurier also took occasion to
reiterate a view formerly expressed that Dominion ships should not
take part in any Imperial war except upon a vote of the Canadian
Parliament....
It would, however, be leaving the most significant part of the
event untold not to record the profound impression which it has
created throughout the Empire. The gift of the Malay States had
already roused a strong wave of Imperial sentiment when Mr. Borden
delivered his speech. It is no exaggeration to say that the
Canadian initiative was hailed with fervid enthusiasm everywhere.
Opinions differed in regard to the details of control, but there
was only one voice regarding the main proposal of three first-class
ships. Great attention was, moreover, given to the announcement
that a Canadian Minister should in future be regularly summoned
to the Committee of Defence, and the opinion was freely expressed
that in the proposal lay the germ of a much closer future union in
foreign policy and defence.