186
Wed
Home Government undertaking the cost of their Naval defence
the proposed rules are just and reasonable and provide
a simple Machinery for Ear-Marking certain Colonial assets
which should be available, if required, for Colonial
defence expenditure.
If further comments that the principle underlying the proposal has, speaking generally, always been
followed in dealing with Colonial Military Lands.
That the principle therefore is not new, but that the
proposed machinery for giving effect to it is more systematic in its action than previous practice.
The Colonial Office since its original acceptance
of the principle has objected that the Military only
enjoy the user of these lands and can not therefore claim
the benefit of their fee simple value but only the value
of the user; that as the lands are only surrendered when
they cease to be required for defence the user has then
no longer any value and that therefore there is no
value to record.
This argument might be valid if we claimed
that the value should be paid over by the Colony to the
Imperial Exchequer for Imperial purposes, but it is
clearly inapplicable when it is remembered that it is
the duty of Colonies to provide for the cost of their
own land defence, and
that the value of Military lands is only to be earmarked as an asset available towards, and
limited to...