BRITISH DEFENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 165, 6 August 1909, Page 2

BRITISH DEFENCE.

AX BIPEItIAL SCHEME ESSEXTIAL. A JOIXT BURDEX. PROGRESS OF TUE CONFERENCE. l!y Oai>lc.—Press Association.—(Jopyrigiii Received o, D.IiO p.m. London, August 5. The Conference has noi .. jointed a committee of expert. The nuvaj mcmur.mi.u.i ...vers such an amount ol ground Uiti L .u- delegates meet to-morrow to resume the general discussion. Further sittings ate possible before the mass ol' uetails is handed to the experts. Much dotuiled discussion h.v the exports committee will be necessary betore a plan of action is perfected and agreed to. Thus 1 far the delegatee have subscribed to the general principle that an Imperial scheme of defence is essentia!, and the burden must be joiii'l. What lonn and what proportion the overseas dominions will bear remains for future arrangement.

TUE NAVY ESTIMATES. Loudon, .august 4. The House of Lords and the llousc of Commons agreed on the second reading of the navy estimates without division. Iu a desultory debate Mr. A. 11. Leo (Conservative member for I'areliain) condemned the Government's failure to provide suHicient up-to-date destroyers. When the existing progm mines wer c completed Britain would have 84 destroyers as against German. - r>. The proportion, he added, \v.i-i ludicrously insufficient. Tlio closure wa.-. applied to -the discussion at the report stages of the naval, military, and . i vil service estij mates, and votea i. .counting to 75 millions were passed.

AUSTRALIA'S POSITION. London, August 4. Some English newspapers are discussing the offer as though the Commonwealth desired the Dreadnought to be restricted to Australian waters and used independently of such general Imperial measures of the defence for the Australian coast as the authorities limy advise. Another newspaper error wlticii led to misapprehension is that the Commonwealth desires to shorten the existing arrangement. 11l consequence of th.s Colonel Foxton, the Australian delegate

to the Defence Conference, found it necessary to make known that there was no desire to interfere with the arrangement.