OUR DREADNOUGHTS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVII, Issue 111, 12 May 1909, Page 3

OUR DREADNOUGHTS.

MR. BALFOUR'S GREAT EULOGY NEW ZEALAND'S FORTNIGHT. THE MONEY MARKET. (From Our Own Correspondent.) LONDON, '2nd April. The reply sent by the Government to the New Zealand offer of Dreadnoughts sent a wave of disappointment over all who had been worked up to enthusiasm by the spontaneity of the Dominion's offer. As a matter of fact the question had been so much canvassed on party ' lines that the Government was hardly expected to make the reply whicn its own feel\ngs would have dictated. A tierce controversy raged after the declaration of Government policy, and acceptance of the second vessel was rendered impossible in view of the words oi the offer by the fact that the Government had declared for four Dreadnoughts as ample security. The disappointment, however, was at tlje postponement of the acceptance of the first vessel. The press -generally, feared that the effect would be to discourage other self-governing colonies from following New Zealand's lead. THE DOMINION CREDIT. Whatever may be the feeling in New Zealand, the people may rest assured that New' Zealand Stocks have advanced considerably here. No country has been better advertised, and the advertisement has touched the very best class of people, the business men and financiers whose confidence no colony can afford to spurn. If New Zealand, after a lapse of years, comes presently to the London money market, there is not likely to be any difficulty in getting money on good terms. All references to our financial condition have been sympathetic and favourable, and a number of municipal loans, recently offered, have been snapped up with avidity. The events of the last fortnight will have still further improved the position. The most remarkable incident of the week was of course the decisive Government majority on the No-confidence motion op Monday evening. AN IMPERIALISTIC SPEECH. At the Agricultural Hall, Islington, to one of the largest audiences ever gathered in London, Mr. Balfour" made a slashing and thoroughly Imperialistic speech. Almost half was devoted entirely to New Zealand. "One great and magnificent result of recent events," he said, "is the permanent awakening of public feeling within these islands, but it Is not the only result. The wave ox Imperial sentiment has spread with telegraphic rapidity to the furthest ends of the earth, and the sentiment which animates, I believe, the community in every great centre of population throughout the country has +"ound an echo, and more than an echo, at the furthest ends of the earth. NEW ZEALAND'S OFFER. "I know nothing more moving, more magnificent, than the immediate response, the unsolicited response, made by New Zealand — (cheers) — by that great sister State to the needs of the country — of our own two small islands, from whom all these sister States have spread. New Zealand, you all know — every Englishman, every Scotchman, every Irishman knows at this moment — that New Zealand has come forward when she could only have had a telegraphic summary of what has gone on in the House of Commons, and offered a Dreadnought to the Empire. (Cries of 'Bravo!' and cheers.) Do you realise what the population of New Zealand is? The population of New Zealand is about the same as five out of the 28 London boroughs which surround this hall. The population of New Zealand is about one-fifth of London ; it is less than one-fortieth of the United Kingdom. And the contribution which New Zealand has offered" to Imperial needs is a contribution which in capital figures would relatively amount to a great deal more than the annual taxation of this country. (Cheers, a,nd a voice, 'When are you going to give it Preference?') I will come to that presently. Every man, I do not care what his opinions may be, in whose breast there beats one pulse of patriotic motive, every man may be deeply moved by this magnificent exhibition of Imperial sentiment , and if there be a man, and I hope there is none whose tendency is to despair of the future of the British Empire, to overrate the gathering difficulties with which we or our children may have to deal, I say, learn a lesson of genuine confidence and optimism from what one of the smallest of our sister States has done ; learn not to despair of what British patriotism has it in its power to do, and what British patriotism, when the occasion arises, will most assuredly accomplish, whether it be at the other side of the world or across the Atlantic, or in the two islands which we inhabit. (Cheers.) I have to admit, while no "words thai 1 can command adequately express the sentiments with^ which I "regard this practical self-sac-rificing tribute to a great Imperial ideal, that I am not so satisfied at the reception which it has met at the hands of the Government. (Hear, hear.) .... The Government seems to have taken this Dreadnought as a relief to the British taxpayer — not so much as an addition to the British naval strength as a diminution of the burdens that lall upon the taxpayer of this country. ('Shame!' and 'That will not do.') I do not deny that the taxpayer in this country has had to pay, and will have to pay, in correspondence with the Imperial obligations falling upun the Mother Country ; but, I do not believe it is beyond our power to do so. The time, indeed, may come when the relative population and the relative wealth of Great Britain, as compared with the sister States of the Empire, may have undergone some profound alteration, and we shall have to look to them to a degree which up to the present time we have not been obliged to look to them to help us to carry the great and growing responsibilities of Empire. But in my opinion thai/ time has not yet come j and wh% I most gladly and joyfully accept every aid which the sister States can give, let that aid be given in addition, let it be a super-added precaution— (cheers) — let it be something which is to guard against the unknown, the unexpected, the incalculable, and the unforeseen. Let it not be part of the ordinary orovision of ordinary times — (cheers) — and let us not deal with the splendid and patriotic liberality of a relatively small community like that of New Zealand merely as a subvention to our pecuniary necessities, but let us meet them ip the spirit in which they have come to us, and let us accept their magnificent offer as an additional guarantee ,that whatever happens, whatever comes, whatever be the policy of this or that great military country, the supremacy of Great Britain on the seas shall be undisputed and indisputable. (Cheers.) COLONIAL PREFERENCE. "I have but one further observation to make, and that is suggested by an interruption, a- perfectly courteous interruption, which I think I caught from the gallery opposite. I think I heard a voice say : 'What about Preference?' (Cheers.) Surely that inter-

ruption was not an irrelevant one. Here we are accepting, and joyfully accepting, this immense boon, this gift which, compared with the resources of the giver, is of enormous magnitude. W e are accepting it, with gratitude. Are we going to give anything in return? (Cheers.) We find the Government in their reckless financial career making it obviously more and more impossible, whatever your fiscal views may be, to collect the revenue of this country upon the old lines. More and more plainly does the necessity show itself for adopting a scheme, which, be it good or be it bad, our fathers had not to resort to. We shall have to resort to it. (Cheers.) Even supposing that you are wrong and that I am wrong, or those who believe in the expediency of a great fiscal change — supposing we are all wrong, be it expedient or inexpedient, it is going to be necessary. (Loud cheers.) And if it be expedient, as I believe, as you believe, as London believes, and as the country is going to believe, if it be necessary, as even those who differ from us will soon be forced to admit, then 1 ask you, are we not out of theJ new fiscal system which must be born of our necessities if it is not to be born of our wishes, are we not out of that fiscal change to give our colonies that which they ask for? (Cheers.) You are going to accept from New Zealand a gift which in a year amounts to more per head I believe, a great deal more per head, of the population of New Zealand than our whole taxation in a year amounts to per head of the inhabitants of the British Islands, and you are going to refuse to New Zealand that which New Zealand, Australia, the Cape, Canada, the whole constellation of the sister States have asked steadily, persistently, patiently year by year. You cannot manage an Empire on these lines." (Loud cheers.) THANKS TO NEW ZEALAND. It is desired by not a few members that a special vote of thanks should be passed by the House of Commons to the Dominions of New Zealand and Canada and to New South Wales and Victoria for their offers to contribute towards Imperial defence. A movement is on foot with this end in view. A great many members have now signed the memorial of thanks to the New Zealand Government, including Mr. Asquith and Mr. Balfour. The list will be closed this evening, with probably 400 signatures, and will be fittingly illuminated and framed before being sent to Sir Joseph Ward. SIR JOSEPH WARD'S MESSAGE. Following is a copy of the last cablegram sent by Sir Joseph Ward to the Standard :—: — "In order that there may be no misunderstanding of the considerations which prompted me, on behalf of the Government and people of New Zealand, to offer one, and, if necessary, two Dreadnoughts to the Motherland, I should like to say that no other part of the British oversea dominions has a people of such purely British stock as we; nowhere In the Empire is national pride more vital and instructive ; our loyalty is a living sense of kinship with the Motherland, of the sincerity of which our support in her last great struggle in South Africa may serve as a small earnest. "Our own insularity and isolation quicken the ties of sympathy that bind us to the land of our fathers'. We proudly call our little country the Britain of the South, and dream that some day we may emulate her greatness. We know how much our nation owes its freedom to the British Navy ; that freedom so won England has conferred upon us, for the British Empire is not a system of tributary dependencies, but, a galaxy of free young nations. 'Thus we trace our freedom to the Navy, and, remembering Cadiz Bay, St. Vincent, and Trafalgar, nsk : How can we help England now? Thus our offer was made in no flamboyant spirit, but from a sense of filial gratitude and duty. Recent events and utterances have not only increased our solicitude for the nation's naval supremacy, but have impressed us with the immense and growing burdens the Motherland assumes to protect not only her honour, but her own shores. "The command of the Pacific, so vital to us, and so doubtful since Great Britain parted with Samoa, may one day needs be settled by her ships of wai\ The East threatens problems that maydemand tne same grim solution, and j>gainst these dangers and all foreign aggression we feel the British Navy is. our final palladium. Our obligations to the Homeland are in proportion to the protection she throws round our lives, liberties, and property, and no crisis" was needed to rouse us to a recognition of this fact that, with her present wealth and developments, New Zealand ought to bear an increased share cf the burden of Imperial defence. "Hence we would have the people of Great Britain understand that our offer sprang from no impulse of panic, from no fear that they would forget 'that the Fleet of Britain is her all in all,' but from a growing sense of our duty to the Empire. While, however, it is easy to justify, ex post facto, on countinghouse considerations of self-interest, our new contribution to the Navy, the feeling which prompted it was not selfish, but spontaneously patriotic ; it but voiced our pride that, although our numbers are scarcely greater than those of some of her provincial cities, still we are : ""'One with Great Britain, heart and soul ; One Life, one Flag, one Fleet, one Throne.' It was meant to prove to that Old Land whose greatness rests — as all national greatness must — on individual sacrifice, that, beneath these far-off skies, where two bright pointers mark our constellation of the cross, we can emulate the spirit of our forefathers."