Cabinet has considered Pearce's memorandum of 26th January [1]to
you regarding question of capital ship based on Singapore
contributed by Dominions. Cabinet fully appreciates importance of
necessity for capital ships in East but feels that best
contribution that Australia could make would be to substantially
increase our Air Force in the North improving base at Darwin with
frequent interchange of machines and personnel between Singapore
and Darwin. Cabinet thinks that probably both [South] Africa and
New Zealand would join in such a plan. In addition we think that
we should concentrate on the manufacture of munitions and the
improvement of our facilities for that purpose. [2]

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