The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MARCH 14, 1910. SETTLEMENT AND DEFENCE.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIIC, Issue 14154, 14 March 1910, Page 4

The Timaru Herald. MONDAY, MARCH 14, 1910. SETTLEMENT AND DEFENCE.

" Our best guarantee of being able to successfully defend our country is not gomg to be found in the reports of distinguished soldiers, but in the solution of the land problem—of peopling our country to the last available acre. of making the soil yield its maximum return to labour and industry. Between these questions of land settlement and defence there is a close connection, and it will be a futile waste of time and of money if a step forward upon the military path is not followed oy a radical extension of activity in the other direction/' The "Xew Zealand limes " in saying this has said a wise thing. If there is any one ■•threat" against' the peace of the British Empire on the part of a certain \Yestem and a certain Eastern nation, which especially concerns Australia and >7ew Zealand, it is in the need of these nations for territorial expansion—for colonies. If ever the peace is broken by either of them, with Britain as the i other party to the quarrel, the danger |to these antipodean dominions iB the | danger of attack with a view to conquest and absorption, for the sake of their unoccupied and not-half-occupied spaces. Filled up with people to something nearer to their carrying capacity there would not be the temptation to conquest that there is to-day; end if there were ether reasons for attempting conquest, the larger popuI lation would be the very best of oppos- | ing reasons. The fact that about 300 I persons were anxious to obtain one or other of the 27 subdivisions of the | Tripp estate, is better evidence for the success of an attempt to get the land well occupied, than has been given in favour of any scheme of armed defence. In spite of a very general opinion that the land was too dear, there were more than ten times as many applicants as there were lots to be applied for; and if suitable parcels of land were made available, that experience would probably be repeated I again and again, and for a long time to come. Then the more people there are on the land, the more can be profitably employed in the towns and in transport services, so that the addition to the well employed settlers is not the only addition to the population, the growth of which makes for defence, apart from guns and rifles. It is unquestionably true that, in the circumstances alluded to, safety lies in numbers.