BRITISH SHIPPING AND NAVAL EXPENDITURE.

Waikato Argus, Volume IV, Issue 231, 6 January 1898, Page 4

BRITISH SHIPPING AND NAVAL EXPENDITURE.

Tuk Times recently printed the full text of a very important return relating to the "Naval Expenditure ami Mercantile Marine " of various countries, which lias iust been issued by the Board of Trade. In a leading article The Times s.iys : "We thus have the maritime trade of the United Kingdom estimated at £822,158,000; that of India at £116,331,095 : that of the ael£-governing colonies at £194,195,16S ; and that of other colonies at £175,000,000. But in order to arrive at the total value of British maritime interests we must still acid s'.me very lirgc sums of which no account is taken either ia the present return or in any of its predecessors. Thus £100,000,000 at hast must be added for the value of the shipping, estimated at over 10,')00,000 tons. Again, it is well known that a large portion of the maritime commerce of other nations is carried in British ships, and is to a large extent owned by British merchants in transit. The value of this item was estimated in 18J4 by a .:orrespondent, who criticised trw return of that year in our columns, at not less than £350,000,000 ; and the same correspondent pointed cut that the valae of securities and other marketable documents annually carried -.o and fro in British ships could not be less chan £250,000,000. Adding a. I these items together we find that the total value of British maritime interests mass, on the basis adopted in the present return, bo estimated at r.ot less than £2,000,000,000. "We have now to compare this stupendous figure witl- those relating to other countries as given in tho return. . . We find that the aggregate value of the imports and exports by tea of the principal maritime Powero of Europe and of the greatest maritime. Powers of the New World amounts, to less than £1,000,000,000 ; and even if we aid 50 per cent, to this total in repest of the elements of value corresponding to those which, as we have shown, arc neglected in the returns for the British Empire, we still get a figure less by over 25 per cent, than that which represents the maritime interests of the latter. It need surprise no one in these circumstances that the naval expenditure of the British Empire is more than double that ot any other country ; but, even so, the insurance of our stupendous maritime interests doe 3 not amount to wry much more than 1 per cent, of the interests insured, though it amounts to more than 20 per cent, of the aggregate revenue of the United Kingdom, which tears vet-y nearly the whole of the burden. Thii3 New South Wales contributes £47,000 to the cost of naval defence out of an aggregate revenue of over Victoria £70,000 out of »«Sf Revenue of over £6,500,000, New Zealand £20,000 put of a revenue of nearly. £4,500.000, the South African colonies, nothing shown in the return—though we must not forget Sir Gordon Sprigg's munificeut ofler of a first-class battleship—and the Dominion of Canada nothing ; while out of an aggregate revenue of a little less than £102,000,000 the United Kingdom spends no less than £21,250,000 in the naval defence of the Empire. These figures may be commended to the earnest attention of those colonists, if any such still survive, who hold that the colonies gain little or nothing from the Imperial connection." ~..■'