IMPERIAL DEFENCE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 25 August 1913, Page 5

IMPERIAL DEFENCE.

CABLE NEWS

(UniUd Prut Atwciation— Hi M*ctzic TtUgraph — Oopjfright.)

QUESTION OF CONTRIBUTION.

ATTITUDE OF SOUTH AFRICA.

Received This Morning, 12.20 o'clock. CAPETOWN, August 24. "At a dinner given in Parliament House in honour of the officers of the Australian wanships, the Hon. Sir N. F. De Waal, representing the Union Government, presided over two hundred guests. . Sir N. F. De Waal proposed the toast "Australia," and in the course of his speech referred to {general Hertzog's recent statement that it was a pernicious principle to consult the British Government with regard to the navy, andreca/led the fact that the Hon. W. Hofmeyer, at the London and Ottawa conferences, advocated the paying of contributions to the Imperial Navy by means' of a suptertax on foreign goods. The speaker added that Mr Hofmeyer represented the views of the whole Dutch-speaking population of Cape Colony, and declared emphatically that the Dutchmen's views had not changed. South Africa would take up her burdens and they would realise more and more that although the cry was ''Australia for the Australians," "Canada for the Canadians," and South Africa for the South Africans,", "the Empire 'is for us all."

Hear-Admiral Patey, in responding, said it was right for each overseas Dominion to decide for itself the best way of contributing to the diefence of the Empire. He'was sure the whole of the Dominions, whatever political party was in power, had the good of the Empire at heart.