AN UNFAIR PROPOSAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXII, Issue 20, 13 September 1895, Page 17

AN UNFAIR PROPOSAL.

A question of taxation mast always be of interest to the people concerned in it. We cannot, therefore, hear altogether with indifference that a proposal has been made to the Imperial Government to invite the colonies to contribute towards the support of the Royal Navy. The taxpayers would probably care little about the condition proposed as a set off — namely that the colonies taxed should have a voice in the administration. The project, indeed, does not seem to meet with general approval in the old country. The limes, we are told, condemns it as unwise — but though it condemns a demand for a naval defence tax, it speaks approvingly of a voluntary contribution " as an earnest of Imperial sympathy and approval." Whether, meantime, the tax was enforced by a demand from colonial Governments, or voluntarily granted by them, the results towards the taxpayers would be pretty much the same.

What, then, are the rights of the case ? Or what is the nature of the cla m that the Imperial Government has in this matter on the colonies ? The danger to these colonies arises from the Imperial connection. What is it, for example, J that keeps France in New Caledonia, or makes her, if report speak true, hanker after the annexation of the New Hebrides? Is it not lest England should command a preponderance in these seas that might seem to belittle her own standing as a gr-at rival nation, or to mtei/e.e with her interests as such ? We may conclude, too, that her present undertaking in Madagascar is not carried on without thoughts of a similar kind to influence her, or without her having a design of placing or keeping herself in a position of closer equality. Germany, too, if she has a desire for colonial expansion or foreign settlement, may be laken as influenced by like motives. Even now the Berlin Press are calling out that, since, as they affirm, England is about to acquire an island off the coast of China, Germany also must secure a naval station in the East. It is, in short, we say again, their Imperial connection that places these colonies in any danger that they may be in from hostile attacks. Tbat in the event of war, in which England should be engaged, they would actually encounter such a danger is manifest. All doubts as to the pai tto be played by them, under such circumstances, for example, have been put an end to in the eyes of foreign nations by the expedition that went from Sydney to the Soudan at the time of the late war. If there had been any doubt before, which perhaps, was hardly possible, that demonstration must have put an en d to it. The necessity, then, of providing for their own defence, apart from the service of the navy, by which, as the Times seems also to acknowledge, England must in any case preserve the sovereignty of the seas, has been im josed upon these colonies by the Imperial tie. This has already subjected them to a very heavy expense, and, as Colonel Fox's recent report seems to show for New Zealand, a good deal more remains still to be expended. The recommendation, therefore, of the Defencs Committee would appear to be extravagant. Ihe proposal of the Times, too, though more delicately put, is hardly less deserving of resistance. The burden of the colonies, with a promise, or a threat, of constant increase, v already sufficiently onerous, and it is borne by Imperial imposition and in Imperial interests. Colonial tax-payers should listen to no proposals of the kind alluded to.