THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1927. SHARING THE BURDEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19550, 1 February 1927, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 1927. SHARING THE BURDEN.

Speaking of Imperial defence, the j Prime Minister of Australia has signalised his passing cull on New Zealand with words that apply and appeal to both sides of the Tasman. His land and ours are constrained by circumstances to look at the question from the same angle. They share a geographical remoteness from Europe and the Homeland. Their conditions are those of countries in the making. Upon the safety and freedom of the highway of the sea their prosperity critically depends. By them, in consequence, defence has to be considered mainly in maritime terms. They have not always adopted the same means to give practical effect to their growing sense o.' duty to share the burden of naval defence. Australia long ago took the way of maintenance of a local naval unit, while New Zealand preferred a less individual method of contributing to the cost of her secui'ity. We fiave since followed in her wake, and the bility of closer co-operation between the two countries in a naval programme has lately become almost self-ervident. Mr. Bi'uce promises to facilitate the mutual framing of a policy. There should be no hesitation in availing ourselves of his overtures. Together, Australia and New Zealand, acting always in intimate loyalty to the guidance of the Admiralty, can do much to keep British interests inviolate in the South Pacific, and so do something to preserve peace in the world. In his apt phrasing of an adage often, misinterpreted in dialectics, Mr. Bruce has rightly said that to preserve peace it is necessary to prevent war. The statement is anything but tautological when the practical bearings of the question are considered. Mr. Bruce has referred to armchair critics. There are armchair, idealists also, good souls whose knowledge of affairs is as deficient as their motives are admirable. In a world where bullies and brigands and madmen are not yet extinct there is still a need to be on guard against predatory onslaught. The time will come when the good sense of the world will make war effete. It is surely coming, but slowly. It will not be hastened by turning arsenals overnight into museums. Peace is under necessity to lie down armed. Righteousness must be panoplied awhile. Least of all can the British, countries in the Pacific afford to trust in sentimental hopes alone. Side by side with international co-operation in blazing the trail to world-wide fraternity must go the organisation of means to keep ill-will respectful to international law and order. And the burden of this policing and protective organisation must inevitably be borne, in great part, as it has been hitherto, by British shoulders. It is a heavy burden, however much the parleys and agreements of international conferences have done to lighten it; and the outlying Dominions, realising afresh their growth toward political and economic majority, ought to lift as much as possible from the back of their parent country. Australia and New Zealand, Mr. Bruce ventures to say, are the only Dominions that have taken the question of defence seriously,. Certainly their expenditure ptr head on naval defence bears out his claim: while the Homeland's quota registers 25s 7d per head, Canada spends Sd and South Africa 2d. Compared with their contributions, Australia's 17 s 2d is magnificent, and New Zealand's 6s 9d far from discreditable. Our own Prime Minister has recently emphasised the great drain upon material resources that is inevitable in the years of our national youth. We require money to develop our industries, as well as to open up our hinterlands to productive settlement. Yet no one, with any recollection of the way in which our heritage in these islands has been given to us and any realisation of our profit from a safe ocean road to needed markets, can be. unaware and heedless of the claim that Imperial defence presents. To the utmost limit of our capacity and the requirements of the immediate future, we ought to share the burden imposed by circumstance and duty. Mr. Bruce, in characteristic fashion, has spoken for himself and his Government. Soon Mr. Coates, newly seized of the necessities of the case, will bring to bear the opinion that the Imperial Conference has matured. Throughout these two lands, set in adjacency and imbued alike with British ideals of patriotism and service, there should be readiness to follow leaders impressed no less with the need of reasonable preparedness for war than with the desirability of prevailing peace.