GROWING COST OF DEFENCE

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8612, 24 December 1913, Page 4

GROWING COST OF DEFENCE

As in New Zealand, so in Australia, the rapidly increasing expenditure on defence is causing thoughtful people to raise a very reasonable warning note of caution, if not protest. We had in this small country in the lasr financial year—ironically enough, the first year of “Reform”—a huge jump in the cost of domestic defence from £400,000 to £500,000 (in round numbers), or a rise in twelve months of 25 per cent. In. the Commonwealth the people are finding both their sea and land defences a much heavier financial burden than was ever contemplated. The Melbourne “Age” has been investigating this question, and finds that in proportion to population Australia spends more on defence than either Servia, Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium, and Boumania. Our contemporary points out that the schemes propounded by Admiral Henderson in respect of the navy and Field-Marshal Kitchener in respect of the citizen army have been only a couple of years in' force, but already the people are faced with proof positive that these schemes will have* to be remodelled as the only perceptible alternative to plunging headlong into a ruinous morass of debt.' “A couple of plain facts will make this clear,” says the “Age.” “According to the Kitchener estimate, our military scheme was not to cost us as much as £1,884,000 until its seventh year. W e are only in the second year and the Kitchener figures have been exceeded by £1,000,000. But since, as Sir John Forest has told us, the Kitchener scheme, if it be continued unamended, must automatically cost ns an extra £200,000 per annum, it is evident that wo are merely on the threshold of financial troubles menacing enough to startle the seven sleepers into wakeful action. . . . Nothing is more certain than that financial calamities will speedily overtake ns if we do not promptly call a halt and cut onr coat according to onr cloth. Consider the progress of our defence expenditure. Four years ago it amounted roughly to about £1,000,000. Last year it had risen to £4,331,498, and for the current year we are pledged to £5,746,853. The estimates of Kitchener and Henderson have not merely been exceeded; they have been beggared. A defence burden of £2 per head is staring us in the face, and we shall have to carry it unless we do without delay the only right and reasonable thing. Undoubtedly both schemes must be revised and trenchantly curtailed. They are beyond our capacity to liquidate and to operate; and, here is the most cardinal truth of all—they are beyond onr requirements.” Does not the spirit of

these comments apply with some force to New Zealand? Our domestic scheme of defence —which has the approval of the great majority of the 'people, for it is a good scheme —is more costly than was expected, and the recent growth in expenditure is disturbing. There is certainly a call here for the repression of extravagance. As for our part m naval defence, under the preposterous policy of the Hon. James Allan, we shudder to think what it may involve in the shape of debt and taxation.