ADMIRAL SCOTT'S LECTURE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIII, Issue 20, 11 September 1885, Page 14

ADMIRAL SCOTT'S LECTURE.

fDMIKAL SCOTT delivered an able and interesting lecture on our defences to a large and highly respectable audience in the Garrison Hall, Dunedin, on Wednesday evening. As all will have read ibis lecture before these words which we now write are printed, we deem it unnecessary even to summarise it. The gist of it is that the proposed expenditure on defences and war material is quite unnecessary and would amount to a wanton waste of public

money. We are not experts enough to pronounce an opinion on the Admiral's contention But his statements seem not only plausible but really well founded, and his position in the Navy gives his views great authority. Ihe meeting endorsed his views in every way, and passed strongly worded resolutions deprecating any great future expenditure on warlike preparations, and sanctioning the opinion that with the aid of a few not very expensive pieces of ordnance and armed cruisers on the Coast, our volunteers are amply sufficient to protect us fiom any assault likely to be made by an enemy, even though that enemy might bo a nation as powerful as Russia. We hope these resolutions do not embody too sanguine a view of the situation. But we can pronounce no opinion, and we trust that the Government will well weigh authorities of all sorts before finally committing themselves either to the views expressed by the resolutions or to the large expenditure contemplated. There can be no doubt that great reliance can be placed on the patriotism and courage of the Volunteers, and other citizens of New Zealand, but the question h, can mere Volunteers be expected to be able to cope with well trained and seasoned regular troops ? If they can, it seems absurd not to trust the defence of nations to Volunteers instead of standing armies. However, as we are not qualified to pronounce an opinion on this subject and must leave it to be discussed by experts, we shall go on to the consideration of another phase of this meeting. We thought we discovered in the tone of some, at least, of the speakers a tendency to edge in a word or two in the direction of protection to native iudustry, and certainly there was an unanimous expression of conviction that economy should be the guiding star of all. As to protection we can only say, this is a much vexed question and that it has not saved the nations which have adopted it from the prevailing dullness. No nation has gone in for this policy more thoroughly than the United States, and no nation is at the present moment duller than they are. Here our depression is caused chiefly if not entirely by low prices for agricultural produce arising from competition, the increased value of gold consequent on its decreased production, and uncertainty produced by the unsettled state of the silver currency. And the depression proceeding from these causes has been immensely aggravated by our enormeous expenditure during the last seven years on education. The country has been borrowing money in hundreds of thousands of pounds to build unnecessary school halls for infants in the large centres of population and to provide educational advantages for the children of well-to-do people whilst the consolidated fund has been unduly burdened with an expenditure that should have been borne by parents instead of by the country. The policy of New Zealand has been altogether the reverse of what it should have been. Free education has been provided, and largely too, out of borrowed money, for all who can avail themselves of it, and th»* all are vastly the greater number, whilst iv in many instances the parents of these children find it difficult to provide food for them. If the Government had permitted well-to-do people to discharge their own obligations to their children, and spent the money now wasted on them, in providing reproductive work for the unemployed, the depression should not have been much felt, nor should there have been either the exodus of tradesmen and others which we have all witnessed with so much regret, nor the agonising distress experienced by not a few fami.ies. It would be a good thing if expenditure of borrowed money could be stopped, but can it, without immensely aggravating the present distress, or is it wise to leave any of the works now in progress unfinished ? And yet what is to be done ? We really do not see that anything else than the reduction of the education expenditure is possible. Hundreds of thousands of pounds can be saved annually, without lessening the attendance at schools by a single child, 'lhc country is not called upon, nor is amone, to provide free education for the children of people who are well able to pay themselves for their education. We say, then, let these well-to-do people pay for their children's schooling, and let the State pay for children whose parents have not the means of paying for them. It is monstrous that the entire community should be compelled to borrow money at high interest to educate the children of traders, merchants, professional men, and strong farmers, or that all the unmarried people of the county should be compelled to pay for the free education of members of rich and well-to-do families. This is the sort of thing that heaps up interest, adds debt to debt, and renders the Government unable to give employment to willing hands on reproductive work. We know we shall be charged with wishing to

patronise ignorance, but we regard such a charge with the contempt it deserves. We are too conscious of our real desire to see the people educated, and have been too long habituated to make large sacrifices in order to promote the education of the poor and helpless, to be much troubled by the calumnies of the prejudiced, the ignorant, and the interested. But we affirm that those who wish indeed to see the people properly educated will endeavour to see them brought up iv selfreliance, in Christianity, and under a system that breathes justice — not injustice and tyranny — in all its features.