COLONIAL JACK TARS. Superior Clay.

Free Lance, Volume IV, Issue 176, 14 November 1903, Page 6

COLONIAL JACK TARS. Superior Clay.

" TICJE don t want to fight, but JLJL by jingo if we do," we're going to spend £40,000 a year to enable us to make a tolerable show New Zealand is stuck out in the Pacific Ocean, and, as her trade grows and she becomes as important a group as the British Isles, she will be forced to breed a nation of sailors, unless, m the meantime, the great white Czar, who is averse to bloodshed, manages to bring his universal peace scheme to a successful issue. * * • Under the Australian and NewZealand Naval Defence Bill, which passed through the House in. record time on Friday night, we are at a small cost to have an up-to-date naval squadron m these seas Up to now we have had the protection of several more or less obsolete craft, and we have taken no personal interest m the matter except to pay the contribution We have rested, happily secure, under the unaided protection of Father John Bull John Bull has a lot to look after, and he wants help. We are going to give him some. * * * New Zealand and Australia are going to man a war-cruiser belonging to the squadron with colonial jacktars. This will be the first colonial attempt to turn out fighting sailors The necessity is so obvious that one wonders the scheme has been delayed so long The New Zealander, by force of circumstances, is largely an aquatic animal, and he is by nature and descent a fighting animal. Anyone who follows Australian labour affairs will admit right away that our fellow-colonists across the Tasman Sea are happiest fighting, too. We are, m very truth, to be John Bull, junior, and the youngest son is going to get the largest share of the good things going * * * Colonial recruits for the cruiser are to enroy ' a local rate of pay. They will belong to the same squadion as the British jack-tar, who will man the remainder of the war-ships in the Pacific, but their pay will place them on a higher plane. Jack will look upon the new article exactly as the one and fivepenny Tommy" looked upon five-shilling Imperial Yeoman, Esq It will be -^ pretty poor start for an Imperial federation You have to offer intending colonial Jacks a higher rate of pay to induce their love for the Empire to send them aboard that cruiser.

The pay is not too muck, but- the disparity is unfair and undemocratic, il one may be permitted to use such a word in, connection with a Royal Navy. We are congratulating ourselves on the splendid protection we are to get, and the cheapness of it. We could have afforded more money, perhaps 1 ? The representations of a powerful colony like this at the Admiralty w.ould,. perhaps, assist the old-style Jack, to secure a Jaxger pay while on this station. If his pay remains at the old rates, he is bound to reason that the colonial cruiser s crew is composed of "swells," who, by virtue of their financial position, will look down on him. * * * If the colonial, who is bound to be a raw recruit, is a better man-o'-warsman right away than an oid Jack who has grown whiskers m'h 1 King's service, pay the colonial ccording to the higher value of his services, but if Jack, with his traditions, his expert knowledge, his discipline, and his "handmess," is as good a fighting unit as his colonial mate, isn't it reasonable to giv& both a like remuneration ? There can be no appeal to the Arbitration Court in this case.