DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

Otago Witness, Issue 2892, 11 August 1909, Page 19

DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE

RECOGNITION OF RESPONSIBILITIES LONDON, August 3. i The Defence Conference discussions last week dealt only with military questions The Admiralty's latest programme was in the delegates' hands during the week-end recess, and to-day the conference commenced to discuss naval matters. The sitting lasted an hour and a-half. Mr M'Kenna and Mt ' Haldane were present. Only a very general discussion. or» the naval memorandum took place, the details being referred to a committee of experts, which will meet to-morrow. The conference has adjourned till Thursday. August 4. The House of Commons agreed to' the 1 Navy Estimates -without a division.- Tljero was a desultory debate. Mr Lee condemned the Government's : faiiure to provide sufficient up-to-date destroyers. When the existing programmes were completed Great Britain would only have. 84 Germany'^ 72.The proportion was ludicrously insufficient. The discussion on the^. report stages of the Naval, Military, and Civil Service" Estimates was closured, and votes for £75,000,000 were passed. Some English newspapers, are discussing the Australian, offer as though the Commonwealth desired the Dreadnought to be ; restricted to Australian waters and used , independently of such general Imperial measures for the defence of the Australian coast as the authorities may advise. _ Another newspaper error which has led to a misapprehension is that the Commonwealth desires to shorten the existing 1 arrangement. i In the face of this Colonel Foxton has found it necessary to make it known that j ihere was no desire to interfere with existing arrangements. August 5. The Defence Conference has not yet appointed its committee of experts, j The naval memorandum covers such an amount of ground that the conference will meefc to-morrow to resume the general dist cussion. Further sittings will possibly be ' held before the mass of details is handed .to the experts. Much detailed discnadon j by the experts' committee will be neoes-* isary before a plan of action is perfected acd agreed to. j Thus far the delegates have subscribed ' to the general principle that an Imperial I scheme of defence is essential, and that I the burden must be a joint one. What | form and what proportion thf overseas j dominions will bear will remain for future arrangement. i The Defence Conference to-day discussed the naval pliase of Imperial defence. Speaking at the United Service Club dinner, Sir F. Borden said that a few years ago the Canadian forces were a disorganised mob, but Canada could now put 50,000 into the field, and another 50,000 in a few weeks. Canada was going to do her duty with regard to a navy, . for which she was beginning at once to 1 lay a foundation. In cae« of trouble she would join to help to maintain the Empire. She would give all the money she could get and would help with men to man the fleet. Colonel Foxton said the great bulk of the electors in Australia had come round 1 to the view that the real defence of Aus- , tralia would not be in their waters, but that the crucial test might have' to be 1 fought many thousand miles away from their shores. Australia was prepared to fall in line with any suggestion which j might be made by the Imperial authoriI ties. They hoped to maintain a standard ' which would bear fair comparison with the standard of the British navy, so that when the time came their ships might bs found capable of taking their fair f-hare of the burdens which might be thrown upon Australia as an integral portion of the Empire. They in Australia claimed that blood was thicker than watsr, and they realised that tho Empire conM.=ted of one people and one Rag, and that there was one deetiny for them all. (ion'T.il Smuts Raid it was true that blood \r?> thicker than water, yet in another *-pnce there was something that was thicker than blood. The tie of honour was even greater and f-tronger, and he hoped that as time went on ifc would bs more and more realised that it was not a tie of t blood which held them together, but the

tie of community of interest, of justice, of fairplay, and equality. When they; saw the wonderful naval display at Spithead they did not forget that in the last resort it was not machinery or honour or cold steel which told in a struggle, but nerve. August 8. After discussing the Naval Memorandum, the conference adjourned till Wednesday to enable the committee of experts to prepare a report. OTTAWA, August 6. Mr Murphy (Secretary of the Dominion Cabinet) declares that the people of Western Canadian are apathetic in relation to Imperial defence. They want closed freight cars more than battleships. MELBOURNE, August 4. Mr Hughes moved the adjournment of the House of Representatives to discuss the Government's action in failing to disclose its instructions to the Commonwealth representative fjb the Imperial Defence Conference. Mr Deakin was badly heckled, but declined to" be drawn. He raised a storm by accusing the Opposition of persistently, wasting the time- of the House. A bill to allow the Commonwealth tat seize cables and wireless installations in time of war was introduced. The Minister of Defence approves tlia suggestion made by the London Tiroes for the formation,. of an* Imperial general naval staff: He sees no "Difficulty in the way, while there are many advantages. It wa3 inevitable* that the navy of the Empire must be one in the broadest sense. He hoped later .to fit in the Australian navy; as a section of it. ■"•--< - August 6. Mr Deakin, replying in the House to questions, said that Colonel Foxton was justified in the statement (already cabled) he had made in reference to the naval subsidy. According to Federal Ministers, th« assumption- which had been given currency that Australia is to agree with New Zealand and other parts of the Empire in raising a loan to create a cruiser squadron in the Pacific is wholly unwarranted. It had not yet-been settled that any cruiser fleet or presentation of a cruiser is to be formed, or what form the alternative to the Dreadnougt offer will take. No proposition of the kind had been cabled from the Defence Conference to the Government here.