THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1883.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XX, Issue 6811, 15 September 1883, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1883.

In these colonies we are calling oufc for annexation of the neighbouring islands; Cabinets and Legislatures are moving or trying to move the Imperial authorities, and Agents-General are clamourously knocking at the door of the Colonial Office. But it is now pretty well understood that there is no use in all that unless we are disposed to lend a hand in the guardianship of the lands annexed, and are willing and able to do so. The Home Government has intimated that for the annexations the colonies want, the proper preliminary step is federation, or in other words, that to render themselves efficient for the duties involved, they must put their heads together and combine their strength. Accordingly, a conference is to smooth the way, and a federal union may be said to be in contemplation. But for the case in hand, is not another preliminary step needed as well as federation, and without which federation would be shadow,, not substance? The particular object for which a federal union is now urged upon us is that we may create in some sort sea forces, "as well as land forces, and with a view to our local defences as well as this, project of annexation. But what, is the good, of ships without sailors, and it does seem childish to talk or think of the colonies providing cruisers without the means of manning them, Glendower might call spirits from the vasty deep, but for a colonial navy, even on a rudimentary scale, it Would be difficult to know where, the mariners are. to come from. Indeed, in any of these colonies it would, be far easier to establish an army than a navy, because there is no seafaring population. No doubt the inhabitants do include a large percentage of men whose original business, was the sea, but seamen are handy fellows, and can take easily to a variety of rough-and-ready employments, and in all these colonies they are to be found in a great variety. They are to be found in the bush, and on the goldfields, and at the pastoral stations much oftener than in the ports. The four Australian colonies are now getting gunboats and other seagoing warlike craft built in England. South Australia has even ordered out a vessel expressly designed as a cruiser. Victoria will possess a whole flotilla, formidable in the armament and in the number of the vessels, and which is to act outside Port Phillip as well as within, but for sailors it would seem that the flotilla is to depend on volunteers from those birds of passage belonging to the vessels which might chance to be in harbour when any emergency would, arise. That this :ts the intended arrangement appears from the Government programme ; the only naval enrolment is to be 426 men, and it is suggested that landsmen should not be excluded, as the force is " to serve as artillerymen rather than as sailors." Of course Sailors, if they could be had, would have. the preference for any duty on shipboard. Now, if for port defence a sufficiency of sailors cannot be looked for, or at least retained, so that the force designed for service on board ships must include landsmen, how difficult or impossible it would be to maintain colonial ships of War cruising in the annexed archipelagos ! As matter of fact, before these colonies can establish, even in degree, a navy, they must possess something of a maritime population,, as is the case with the North American colonies. Not only for this purpose, but for the great benefits to be derived from the utilisation of our fisheries, which around New Zealand are so rich and

so noglocted, we suggested in these columns that fishing settlements oould be easily formed. along our coasts by encouraging the emigration of skilled hands from the notable fishing stations of the old country. The refrigerating process makes a revolution in the market for this food, enabling it to bo transmitted in the fresh state any distance by land or sea. So it not only widens the local market, but opens to ■us the English, and other- outside ones; ; Thoy aro ready to take our frozen fish there, and to any amount, as they are now taking our frozen meat. The hardy fishermen who pursue their calling at our antipodes would be delighted to change their hyperborean winds and wares for the softer climate and the nioro attractive, shores of an ocean fairly termed by contrast the Pacific.. It needs only slight encouragement to make many of them and their families come out. to follow their vocation here. Since we drew attention to the matter, a member stated in the House that to his knowledge many of the fishermen of certain localities on the Scottish coast would be glad to transfer their industry to New Zealand; and a correspondent who had been a medical practitioner in St, Ives Said the same thing in our columns respecting emigrants from that wellknown. Cornish fishing ground..

In old countries it is a time-honoured axiom that fisheries are the nurseries of navies, and in. new countries there is no other road to the same end. In Australia they have now a spurt of gunboat building and cruiser building ; and they have devised a brand new plan for famishing the crews. But there is nothing in which theory so, soon suqcumbs to the practical as in marine matters. No - being in creation is so helpless as a landsman in Neptune's rough-and-tumble moods, and the case would not be much mended by taking him out, as is now proposed in Melbourne, for an occasional day's steaming and. sailing and airing and training. Men to work the big guns who might possibly be sea-sick, and sailors gathered in haste from the merchantmen in harbour, who would he all to work the ship, would know nothing about the guns, could not be very formidable against an enemy, who would scarcely come so far .on such, an enterprise if he had not filled his forecastle with men-of-war's men. If hostilities were to happen under present circumstances, the Australian cruisers and gunboats will be kept in harbour as floating batteries. These colonies will never have a navy until they lay the foundation in a settled seafaring population. That can only be got through the .fisheries to be really started by settlements of men bred to the pursuit, and around which nucleus the colonial youth would .soon take: kindly to a masculine and, under the prospects now opening, peculiarly remunerative employment. Thus new and great industries would be developed, and thus also .our naval defences would be provided for, and from such a population plenty of recruits would be forthcoming for our ships of war. New Zealand, as the insular colony, is fairly bound to set the example in this line, and the example our Australian neighbours would quickly follow.