DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 360, 11 April 1910, Page 5

DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

DEFRAYING THE COST.

LEVYING A COMMON IMPORT DUTY.

IMPERIAL GENERAL NAVAL STAFF

WANTED.

By Cable.—Press Association.—CopyrigM

Received April 19, 5 .p.m. London, April 9.

Mr. Haldane, Secretary for War, addressing the Royal Economic Society, drew sympathetic attention to Professor Joseph Shield Nicholson's contributions on the question of the defence of the .Empire, wherein he sketched a system of defence by the medium of contributions collected by import duties levied on a common scale throughout the Empire. ■Mr. Haldane added it was through the intelligence and the will of the people of the 'Empire as a whole that the perplexing question of defence contributions iwould be solved. It was not right that taxation for naval and military purposes should be enormously greater per head in Britain than in the colonies. The reason was that Britain had to maintain ia force which went overseas wherever the Empire was assailed. The burden should in course of time be more evenly borne. When the Prime Ministers of 'the Empire at the last two Imperial Conferences avoided abstract views and saw the real living purpose of defence, difficulties which seemed almost insuperable vanished like magic. This might be so in regard to the larger questions which Professor Nicholson had discussed. Perhaps the Navy might have an Imperial general staff before long.