AN ENGLISH VIEW OF COLONIAL DEFENCE.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1269, 12 April 1878, Page 3

AN ENGLISH VIEW OF COLONIAL DEFENCE.

For years past (says the “ Pall Mall Budget ”) we have persistently called attention to the subject of colonial defence. Now that war may be a question of days or even hours, it is almost too late to point out the unsatisfactory manner in which this most important question has been dealt with. Both in England and the colonies delay has been the order of the day. The completion of telegraph communication between our various colonies, coaling stations, and strategical posts, concerning which a correspondence is now being carried on in the “Times,” though essential to a thorough reorganisation, is but a small part of what is immediately necessary. Yet what do we find P In New Zealand Sir George Grey declares that, owing to the present state of the finances, it is quite impossible to do anything towards the improvement of the defences of Auckland or any other large towns on the coast. According to him, the enormous expenditure on railways and other public works has incapacitated the colony reasonably ensuring the cities which the railways connect. In Victoria, after a scheme of defence for Melbourne had been adopted—an unnecessarily costly scheme, as we think—the Lower House secured the rejection of the Bill providing the money on the part of the Legislative Council by sending it up with the obnoxious preamble that the funds were the “free gift” of the Lower House alone. Nothing is being done, and, we presume, nothing will be done until the present crisis is at an end. It is true that the Cerberus is a formidable vessel, but she is very slow ; and if a smart cruiser did slip through the old fashioned vessels of the small Australian squadron, a great deal of damage might be done without much risk. New South Wales is better off as regards Sydney, but even there the steps necessary for complete security are being taken in very leisurely fashion. South Australia also is in no hurry, and Sir William Jervois is said to be authorised to look about him for a ship suitable to the defence of that colony when he comes home on private affairs some little time hence. Mr Torrens showed a few months ago what use a hostile Power could put King George’s Sound to, if that valuable position fell into its hards ; yet the post is still entirely undefended. As to land forces, there are about 15,000 half-trained volunteers as the entire military array of the whole Australian continent. But the subject is too large to be fully treated thus hastily. For the moment it is sufficient to say that here, as elsewhere, we are quite unready to meet any serious emergency.