Last year the expenditure upon defence in all its branches—army, navy and air—was in round figures £4,300,000, and in the~ coming year it is estimated at £4,800,000. In 1922 the Country party insisted upon cutting down all expenses for defence right to the bone, and in this it received the support of the Labour party, and the so-called Liberals, "who were attached to the Nationalist party. Labour. can always be relied upon to prevent any expenditure upon defence. Its attitude on the subject of possible conflict with other nations was very exactly described the other day by the leader of the Labour Opposition, Mr. Charlton -"The Labour party's - policy is to promote world peace. Con-_Sistently with Australia's goodwill to her kindred overseas,~ the party declares its readiness to take full responsibility for Australia's defence, but it. is opposed to the raising of forces for service outside the Commonwealth, or toy promise of participation in any overseas war except by decision of the people."
There is no room for compromise in this attitude. If New Zealand is attacked Australia must take a referendum before she goes to the assistance of the Dominion, and past experience shows that no referendum can be taken within less than three months. So far as Australia is concerned one is reminded of the lines, written in the 17th century, on the Exclusion Bill:
"T hear a lion in the lobby roar, Say, Mr. Speaker, shall we shut the door And keep him out; or shall we let him in And see if we can turn him out again While Mr. Bruce declined- to commit the Government, to any particular defence policy, there is no question that the is fully alive to the rapidly accumulating dangers of the position in the Pacific. Above all the Treasurer informed Parliament that he was keeping in hand the sum of £2,500,000 as against the possibility of the results of the Imperial Conference being unsatisfactory in regard to defence. It is suggested in some quarters that the Prime Minister proposes to use this sum to bargain with, and in others that he will offer it as a direct contribution to the cost of the Singapore base. Either idea is repugnant to the general feeling of Australia. A contribution in cash would not be popular, while Australian opinion strongly favours any defence measures being more or less directly associated -with the Australian mainland. The threatened scrapping of Australia's only capital ship, the Australia, has greatly strengthened the hands and arguments of the Pacifists, and they now contend that some submarines and. aircraft will protect Australia, while Britain can protect the trade routes. People of these opinions are unmoved by the argument that if Australia is to have a moral control. over the South Pacific she must also sup-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.