THE EMPIRE'S DEFENCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LVII, Issue LVII, 11 April 1910, Page 5

THE EMPIRE'S DEFENCE.

RESPONSIBILITY OF THE COLO-

[PUESS ASSOCIATION.]

LONDON, April 9.

Mr Haldane, Secretary for War, addressing fthe Jttoyal Economic Society, said it would be through the intelligence and the will of the people of the Empire as a whole that the perplexing question of defence contributions would be solved. It was not right (that taxation for naval and military purposes should be enormously greater per head in Britain than in the colonies. The reason was that Britain had to maintain a force which went oversea wherever the Empire was assailed. The burden should in course of time be more evenly borne. When the Prime Ministers of the Empire at the last two Imperial Conferences avoided abstract views and saw the real living purpose of defence, difficulties which teemed almost insuperable vanished like magic.