The Singapore Base a Gateway:
Purely an Internal Matter and Not a Menace London, Dec. 8.
"Mr. L. S. Amery, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, speaking at an Australian and New Zealand Tuncheon in London to-day, referring' to Empire Defence and the necessity for keeping the ocean routes. open, said that Gibraltar, the Suez Canal and the Straits at Singapore were. three gateways of vital The Singapore gateway might be valueless unless means were provided to re-equip our ships. That was purely an ternal matter for ourselves which we were not merely entitled to look after, but were bound to make sure In conclusion, Mr. Amery said that in the vast developments pending in the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand must' give a lead to the new world as Britain had given lead to the old' world—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.