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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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C.O. 885
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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necessary, modification, and I hope I have made it clear what is intended. If there is any further information required I shall be only too pleased to answer any questions that may be put by those present.
The SECRETARY OF STATE: May I ask you one questión, Mr. Seddon; I only want to understand clearly what you have proposed. You have spoken at the conclusion of your remarks of an indirect contribution which you would be prepared to make, and have added that you thought a direct contribution could not be granted, but I do not understand that to apply to the existing contribution.
Mr. SEDDON: Oh, no; in fact, as you will have seen by the other notice of motion, we have-as far as New Zealand is concerned, I am' empowered to say that we are prepared, the altered conditions being such as they are to-day as compared with those which prevailed beforc-we think there ought to be an extension in respect to the Australian squadron; there ought to be an improvement in respect to the class of cruisers.
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The SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes.
Mr. SEDDON: And that being so, correspondingly, and on the same basis, we should be prepared to pay an increase.
The SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes, that is what I understood,
Mr. SEDDON : wished to make it clear there was no intention of waiving or annulling the agreement with respect to the Australian squadrou, and in lieu thereof making a direct grant to the Imperial Navy. That is the point I wished to make clear.
The SECRETARY OF STATE: Sir Edmund Barton asks what is the precise date at which the agreement expires?
The FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: It continues until the----
Sir EDMUND BARTON: It was for 10 years, and then there was to be
a termination on notice, and the notice was two years, was it not?
The FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: Yes.
The SECRETARY OF STATE: Then may I ask one more question, and this time from Lord Selborne ? Let me understand, Lord Selborne. The memorandum which you have put before us deals exclusively with the Australian and New Zealand position, and although you say it is applicable to Canada, there is no question of detail as applicable to Canada. Have you any statement that you propose to bring forward?
The FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: Not prepared at present. It is easy to apply the same principle to the North American problem.
The SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes, but it would be impossible for the Canadian Ministers to consider such questions without knowing what the alteration which you suggest in the character and class of the ships would be, what the additional expense would be, and what is the contribution that you think it would be fair for them to bear.
Mr. SEDDON: I would ask one question from Lord Selborne. I find myself face to face with a serious difficulty on the legal position under the Act-I presume the Australian Act is the same as ours. The agreement was for a given period of ten years, and then subject to notice, an agreement was made at the beginning of the Act, and scheduled in the Act, but our Auditor-General refused to allow me to pay the contribution last year on the ground that the Act was definite for ten years and that the agreement under the Act would not entitle us to pay. There was some delay, until I was
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able to pay it out of the Consolidated Fund, and that was the legal question. They say it would require an amendment of the Act.
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The FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: That is a new point; I will look into it. I had not thought of it.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: I think, Mr. Chamberlain, I understand the proposition of Lord Selborne so far as Canaria is concerned, though he has said he has not prepared it nor put it in print; and if I understood his remarks correctly, he stated that the figures put before us referring to Now Zealand and Australia might also apply mutatis mutandis to Canada as well. I understand, therefore, the proposition made by Lord Selborne is that New Zealand and the continent of Australia should make a direct contribution in money to the Imperial navy of a sum amounting to 367,000. The words
are:--
"To maintain on the Australian Station some such naval force as was discussed between Rear-Admiral Sir Lewis Beaumont and Sir John Forrest. the form which the proposals of the Admiralty would probably take would be a squadron necessitating a total expenditure by the Commonwealth and New Zealand, as given in the following statement and appendices :-
"A payment by Australia and New Zealand of 367,000l. per annum, which the shares would be:-
Australia
New Zealand
£304,515 62,485
£367,000
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As I understand, Canada would be expected to make some similar contri- bution which would not be less according to the larger population of Canada, I imagine, in the computation of Lord Selborne, than 500,0007.
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The FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: The net result of the sketch scheme applicable to Australasia works out at about 28. 1d. head
por of population.
Sir WILFRID LAURIER: Well, I have only the figures given here. Without going into the total expenditure per head, Mr. Seddon in his remarks enlarged upon the position taken up by Lord Selborne and has gone into the question of military expenditure. Mr. Seddon, I think made some remarks in connection with the observations made by Mr. Chamberlain the other day in his very able speech which had also occurred to me. You stated, Sir, in your opening speech that the contribution for Great Britain for Imperial military and naval expenditure was 29%. per head of the population and that the contribution of Canada amounted to only 2s, per head. I think it is a little larger, but it is not worth while going into the subject. At all events, it is about 28. per head; there is a little more, perhaps, but I take it at 28. The Australian colonies contribution would be a little larger. But if you permit me to observe upon a remark you made the other day, it seems to me, if we made a comparison between the small colonial expenditure and the large British expenditure, an initial mistake was made in this, that it is impossible to judge of these questions by assuming that the level in develop. ment and in wealth of the colonics is the same as the wealth and development of the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom to-day forms one of the largest -I do not speak of the Empire, I refer to the United Kingdom itself-one of the largest nations in population in Europe, the third, if I mistake not. Its population is exceeded only by the population of Russia and Germany. In Canada we have It exceeds the population of its old rival, France.
an immense territory, ten times over the territory of Great Britain. Wo have five and one-third millions of population. We have to create everything in Canada; we have to develop everything in Canada; and we have to take out of the Dominion Treasury sums of money for a class of services which is borne in the United Kingdom by private individuals and private capitalists. I do not know, I spent under correction, that the Government of D 2
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