IMPERIAL DEFENCE.
CABLE NEWS.
United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright.
* REMARKABLE DEBATE. ARMY AND NAVY ESTIMATES. NOTABLE SPEECH BY MR BALFOUR. Received March 11, 8.5 a.m. LONDON, March 10. The debate on the Army Estimates was remarkable, firstly, because Mr Asquith, Prime Minister, in his reply to criticisms, hinted at the possibility of, a future date being set apart for discussing the Army and Navy Estimates together thus dealing with the whole problem of defence—and secondly, Mr Balfour's notable spaech in favour of Imperial defence commit'e?s and periodical re-examinatinn of the defence question. While regretting a reduction in the numerical strength of the regulars, Mr Balfour said he was certain they would have really good miltia and yeomanry regiments. He admitted the earnestness of Mr Haldane (Secretary of State for War), in organising the territorials, and added, amid Ministerial cheers, that this organisation might, at some future time," be absolutely invaluable as a force making for the safety of the Empire. Sir Charles Dilke (Member for Forest of Dean) deprecated Mr Haldane's comparison of the British and German armies' strength, and added: —"Such declarations have a damaging effect on Australia." Personally, he wished to see Australian co-opera-tion. Australasia and Canada were devoted to peace, and objected to any pressure being used. Colonel Seely, Under-Secretary for the Colonies, replied that the Government had received Canada's and Australia's most cordial acceptance of the General Staff proposal. I
STRENGTH OF THE TERRITORIALS. Received March 11, 10.10 p.m. LONDON, Maich 11. Corrected figures show the present strength of tie Territorials to be 237,561.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAG19090312.2.21.20
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3136, 12 March 1909, Page 5
Word count
Tapeke kupu
259IMPERIAL DEFENCE. Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3136, 12 March 1909, Page 5
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Wairarapa Age. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.