Imperial Defence.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7317, 10 June 1902, Page 6

Imperial Defence.

During the recent election in which Lord Charles Boresford was returned unopposed to the House of Commons, he made Imperial Defence Reform his main plank.

We have been running the Army and Navy on a system (said Lord Charles) which would bring a commercial concern to bankruptcy in eighteen months. Thousands of lives have been lost in South Africa, and hundreds of millions have been spent to retrievo disasters which would ncvet have happened if th-.' services had been properly organised. 1 now want us to get within the margin of safety, and I have the support of many members of Parliament. I. have the suppsrt of many officers of both services. I know I shall gat a very large support in the country—because I am not asking for money. Preparation for war does not mean expense. It means practice, foresight, organisation. What is the good of an imperfectly equipped army or an imperfectly equipped fleet ? Give me four battleships with their complete auxiliaries—cruisers, torpedoboats, colliers, distillers, and all that— and I will fight a better action than I could with ten battleships if the auxiliaries were insuMicient. Ido not wish to oppose the Government, I want to help them by opening the eyes of the public'ito our defects. "Why should not the public have information about our defects? Why should not they have the opinion of the experts ? At present you never know where you are until you go to war, and find that by the absence of one of the links the chain is more or less useless. The old country is getting a little bit too sleepy. We want waking up. Wo are very rich, and wealth has come to have mure importance than it ought to have ; and tho working man, 'though I do not say he is apathetic, shows rather too much of a tendency to sit still. By a vigorous bang on the table Lord Charles indicated that he intends to wake somebody up.