The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 21. COLONIAL DEFENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 207, 21 August 1908, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, AUGUST 21. COLONIAL DEFENCE.

There is no reason why the people ui this Dominion should neglect the highly important, wurk of defence. Upon the form svhieli local defence works should assume in the colonics the Admiralty ■have declined the responsibility of adjudicating, but suggested thai, if the colonies decided upon having a system of harbor defence, submarines would prove the most useful way of beginning it. In regard to this matter, >Sir Joseph Ward iias been careful to point out*that

we in this Dominion aw m quite a different situation from the people of the Commonwealth, in the Commonwealth there are nearly Jive millions of inhabitants with six independent States, and each Shite, with the exception oi New South \Vali>, which contains Newcastle, has but. one important port. There arj, it is true, litlle places, such as Warnumbool and Portland, fronting on th»? sea, but no raiders are likely to vi»n Australia for the mere purpose of destroying llii'iu. In New Zealand, wii.ii one million inhabitants, there are four large cities accessible by .->ea, besides .several considerable towns such as iVi- I pier, Tiimuu, Nelson, Oamaru, and NVv Plymouth. Jn view of these facts, Sir ! Joseph Ward was very pertinent when ho asked —"liow many honorable members will say that ai the present time

S-we ought to go in for providing and equipping a flotilla of submarines for New Zealand't Do honorable members g realise what it would amount to?" At 3 the Imperial Conference Sir Joseph was | very happy in giving a description of I the position of this Dominion. A colony I seventy years old. with two or three 6 thousand miles of railway, with still | thousands of miles of railway to conI struct, where ail the public works of J consequence are undertaken by the I State, and where all that has been done is really but the fringe of what is required for the development of the resources of the country—to dream of a huge expenditure in submarines and destroyers is quite out of the question. The Lords of the Admiralty are authorities in reference to naval matters and ( questions of defence, and unquestion- i .ably their suggestions from their point !of view are sound, but clearly they know little of the work of colonisation. The whole of the resources of New Zealand are required to develop her *esourecs. Something may be done in a jjl moderate way for the defence of our m harbors, but our main reliance must Is continue to be on the British, cortimand g of the sea, and here something may be jg achieved not only by monetary contr;9 bution but by furnishing capable men to 9 man the fleets of the grand old MotherEl laud.