BURDEN OF NAVAL EXPENDITURE.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1886, 21 October 1913, Page 8

BURDEN OF NAVAL EXPENDITURE.

NO RELIEF UNLESS THE OTHER NATIONS RELEASE THEIRS. Speaking at the Grove Hotel, Peckham Grove, recently, Mr. T. J. Macnamara (Financial Secretary to the Admiralty) said that tho great and draniato change .in our method of levying taxation brought about by the LloydGeorge Budget had turned, and permanently turned, the course of taxation in this country down democratic channels, channels which ever widened with a bounteous volume of inflowing income. With that income we had mot, and met amply, tho growing cost of national defence. That was our first duty, and we must continue to do it at all costs. The cost of. the burden of national defence was most oppressive, our Navy Estimates were shaped by the provision made by other countries. Some of his friends alleged that we had set the j/aco in this crushing international rivalry. That was not true. They had only to examine the naval expenditures of other European countries during the last ten years to see that it was not true. When they considered our insular position, the vast amount and value of our oversea trade, the vital necessity-ltp our people to keep the trade routes open, and the widely-scat-tered character of our Empire, the endeavour made by the late Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to call, a halt wa's a most courageous act. If it did not produce the result he desired, at any rate it showed that wo were deeply sincere in our desire for a common understanding. Our Navy Estimates presented a tremendous strain on the public purse, but it was no good halting between two opinions. This thing must bo done thoroughly or not at all. It was far safer to spend a million too much than a million too little. Tho ono was to be regretted—with so many pressing claims upon us in other directions —and all care must bo taken, and was taken, to avoid it. The other might moan national disaster and tlio ioss of many hundreds of millions. Continuing, Mr. Macnamara said: In the namo of all that is civilised let every effort be made to securo a better understanding between tho great jleoples. Let every effort he made to wipe away distrust and suspicion. Let a common agreement be arrived at so that wo may mutually abate this over-growing outpouring of our resources. But let there bo no mistake. Wo frame our Estimates in relation to tho provision made by other peoples. For an island nation like us, vitally dependent upon open sea highways, and immunity from successful attack from without, that is tho simple expression of the law of self-preserva-tion. Wo want peace. It is our greatest interest. Wo want a quiet time in in which to cure our social ills. Wo have no sinister designs on anybody, anywhere. But we cannot lay aside the armour of our defonce, or any portion of it, unless othor great peoples agree similarly so to do. If this tiling lias got to go on —deplorable as it is—we must continue to shoulder tho burden as philosophically as wo can. We do not discuss tho matter bccauso of any anxiety on our part as to inability to go on providing for adequate defence, Not at all. We discuss it because, from the international point of view, the whole thing on its present scale is sc gratuitously, so stupidly oppressive.