Military Expenditure.

Poverty Bay Independent, Volume I, Issue 89, 22 December 1885, Page 2

Military Expenditure.

In a ’ate address at G’astonbury, Somerset. Mr Jacob Bright thus referred to ’he increase of military expenditure. The subject is one of much impor'ance to these young colonies, especially at the present time, when the thin end of this wedge has inst been entered, and a large expenditure incurred in useless military works when the coun.trv L almost in a state of bank-tuntc-y :—And now there is only one ether thing to which I think the attention of the public should be greatly turned, and that is our constant and enormous increase of military expenditure (checrs\ and our habit, which does not always appear to be an inton', but a sort of habit, by which the country is dragged sometime? into small wars and sometimes into very great wars. Now, if the people them c elvcs wi'l not lake note of ’his question of expenditure, if they will not attempt by forming a strongopinion and exerting it upon their candi-

dates and upon their party leaders, 1 know not huw the remedy can be applied, be» cause it cannot be done by repealing Acti of Parliament or by passing Acts of Par* liament. It does not arise in that way ? it arises from some small question which some stupid man probably, whom the Go* vein men t has appointed to deal with it, and has utterly mismanaged it, and newspapers of the two countries write violently, and so, little by little, it grows to a question out of which arises the present notion with regard to national honor. It seems extremely difficult to avoid war, and then your treasure, that you heave earned by the sweat of your brow, by >our day’s labor continually through years, the blood that circulates in your veins, for you find all that is jeopardised and sacrificed in circumstances of this kind (cheers). Then you have your newspapers telling you what glory you have gained, and your illustrated papers have every description of savage conflict exhibited to your eyes and the eyes of your children, and thus the infernal curse goes on from generation to generation. So inveterate is the evil that it matters no great deal which party is in power, for during the period from the Reform Act, since which the Liberals have been much longer in power than the Tories, it is not that there is no difference in their principles, for there is a great difference in those principles, but you will find that whichever party is in power, such small opportunities for war are taken hold of by a Government, and it is a curse which happily generally destroys a Government. But there are other persons to whom it is a great benefit. It gives you pensions, it gives you peerages (laughter). It gives you all kinds of promotion, it gives you popularity, glory, and honor, when sometimes there should be nothing but nothing, but condemnation and shame (cheers).