The Waipawa Mail WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1880.

Waipawa Mail, Volume 3, Issue 212, 22 September 1880, Page 2

The Waipawa Mail WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1880.

Among the subjects touched upon at the recent meeting of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce was that of the defence of the harbors of the colony, and most of the members who referred to the subject spoke as if the fortification of our principal ports was a matter of pressing necessity. From any such view of the subject, we are bound to dissent. Expenditure of this kind is necessarily improductive ; and there is perhaps no line of outlay in which such temptations to w T aste and extravagance would arise as in this direction. Great and unjustifiable expense has already been incurred in obtaining reports from professional experts on the subject ; and these gentlemen have given authoritative expression to the view already taken by all who had thought about the matter at all—that the effectual fortification of our coasts woukl be an undertaking not only out of the power of the present inhabitants, but beyond the means of any population likely to occupy the islands in future* This did not prevent these gentlemen planning schemes of defence for the principal ports, involving the expenditure of vast sums of money if ever undertaken. It is devoutly to be hoped that these schemes will for ever lie dormant, and that our already over-taxed population will not some day find themselves specially rated for the maintenance of forts and cannon, gun-boats, torpedoes, and the whole paraphernalia of land and sea “ defences/’ The palpable inefficiency of the most costly system that could be carried into effect would render the whole thing ridiculous in the eyes of the public ; but the extra taxation would be a very real and anything but a laughable feature of the scheme* Yet if something like a general protest is not made against the meditated extravagance, the public may one of these days find themselves committed to a scheme of “ defence,” plunging the country into unheardof depths of extravagance, to remain for ever unfinished, and a perpetual drain upon its resources* It is one of the evils of such a scheme that no ordinary volunteer system can support it. In the hands of any but specially trained; men, the modern engines of war are far more deadly to friends than to foes. One practical result would therefore be the withdrawal from productive labor, and maintenance at public expense, of bodies of men to garrison forts, man gunboats, and maintain the arms in a proper condition. Against any serious attack all these precautions would be worthless ; but they might have the effect of acting as a challenge and inviting attack on some occasion when European affairs were undergoing rearrangement. The insane and ruinous extravagance of European powers in the matter of military outlay (always professedly defensive) is one of the wonders of the world. The colonists of New Zealand have something better to do with their own—or their creditors’—money than to throw' it away in aping a display which after all they can never rival.