The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1900. SIR ROBERT GIFFEN AND THE COST OF EMPIRE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXI, Issue 185, 6 August 1900, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

MONDAY, AUGUST 6, 1900. SIR ROBERT GIFFEN AND THE COST OF EMPIRE.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that ne«ds resistance, For the futur* in the iiatonoo, And tha scod that wb oan do.

Sir Charles Dilke, the author of "Greater Britain," whose tragic past blighted many national hopes of his becoming a leading statesman, affirmed lately, in a lecture to the London Statistical Society, that the annual military cost of Empire was simply appalling. He could, however, suggest no effective remedy in face of traditional prejudices and habits. Conscription cheapened foreign armies, but the evils connected with it to free-born lovers of British liberty are more alarming than increased expenditure. Tlio, lessening of some extravagances in connection with small garrisons— like Gibraltar and Malta —might be thought of. British visitors to our scattered military camps would be more satisfied by finding the latest inventions of defence than all the pomp and circumstance- of fashionable military life. It is fair also to say; that while pointing out how far short the colonies came of the Mother Country and India in contributing to the cost of Imperial Empire, the author of "Greater Britain" recognised in full the splendid .spirit of our loyalty and liberality in connection with the South African campaign. This lecture, delivered to the London County Council, Chamber of Commerce, Parliament, or House o£ Lords, might have appeared very convincing, but the select, critical audience of the London Statistical Society cannot be carried away by appeals to popular feeling. Unsound arguments, like doubtful chemical compounds, soon yield to the touch of the careful analyst. Mr Wilkinson and Sir John Colomb pointed out, in different words, but in similar ways, the absolute need of increased cost in proportion to the increased income and responsibility of the Empire; that the expenclitxu-e must always be large, and that we should look forward to obtaining more for our money, rather than, any decrease of expenditure.

■ But it was left to Sir Robert Giffen, with perfect calmness and courtesy, to simply sit upon 'Sir Charles. Dilke's , lecture—as some member of Parliament sometimes plants himself down upon a shininghat of a fellow member full of wonderful notes, and simply squashes it for ever. In doing this service to the Empire, Sir Robert has squashed also the press and platform utterances of many alarmists; the conir mon stock-in-trade of anarchical, socialistic, Fenian, Little England, pro-Boer, and Continental critics. These troubling writers, speakers, and evil-doers at Home and abroad, will not bless the name, we maf be certain, of Sir Robert Giffen. They cannot, indeed, picture this statistician as a dry-as-dust personage of no consequence. From early life— from the bench of Glasgow University, and the desk of the solicitor's clerk, through the life of the journalist and editor, up to the chief seat of the statistical department of the Board of Trade, and late ControljerGeneral of Statistics under Government—he has kept himself abreast of modern social and political, as well as'financinl, questions. Among, other works, his "Progress of the Working Classes within the Last Half Century" and "The Growth of, Capital" and"The Case Against Bimetallism/ gives a genuine modern'

ring to his opinions. Only a few years older than the late radical, Sir Charles, he has nothing of the old Conservative stager about him; he is quite ahead of the author of "Greater Britain" in his conceptions of the duties of Great Britain of the United Kingdom to the Greater Britain beyond the seaa. His opinions,, arranged and condensed a? follows, are worth remembering by all colonists: —

(a) The people of the United. Kingdom are not spending an alarming sum upon the defence of the Empire;, not quite 5 per cent, of their annual income, of from fifteen to sixteen hundred millions. A really cheap'insurance of the British Empire.

(b) Might not a i'ew millions spent a few years before the South African war, in preparing the army for its special needs, have saved the expenditure of a hundred millions in a few mouths?

(c) The question of India contributing too much should be considered, specially in view of her sending troops to other parts of the Empire. (d) Nothing save the most urgent need at Home, under the burden of Empire, should make statesmen suggest 'to self-governing- colonies the necessity of contributing more liberally to her general defence. The suggestion, however theoretically right, may be practically unwise when the special conditions of the colonies are considered.

Sir Robert Giffen is evidently a firm believer in the spontaneous loyality and liberality of our colonies. He sees also in our expenditure to defend our shores a contribution to the Imperial Commonwealth. Still ,we cannot feel comfortable in being dependent upon a mighty fleet for safety to which we contribute little or nothing. Even the expenditure of £119,000 last year for defence, and a great deal more in the future, may be a much less percentage upon our income than that of the Home Country. If statesmen and statisticians are generous at Home towards us, that is an extra motive for well-doing.. We must be just at aU times, as well as generous on special occasions. Preserve always, as las as possible, even when linked closest in heart to the Motherland, "The glorious privilege of being independent."