149

A.—s

iii their waters. That has been undoubtedly the case in the Northern Hemisphere since the concentration of the Fleet in Home waters. The visits made by squadrons to foreign powers and foreign cities have been much more impressive, much more frequent, and much more useful than they would if only comparatively few ships were sent at a time to particular foreign ports. Sir Joseph Ward referred to the question of pay.. That is a very important one. It is quite true that we have had trouble from the fact of the Colonial men serving at a higher rate of pay than our own British sailors. I think it was inevitable, and of course we must try to make as good an arrangement as possible for mitigating the evils of the system. At the present moment in Australia the pay is not paid directly to the men on board ship, but is paid to them through the Post Office on land, the idea being that they would leave their money in the Post Office and would not spend it with their British comrades whilst they were on board ship. As a matter of fact I think that idea has proved false. I have the figures here, which are very curious. In Australia, out of 32,300/. paid to the Savings Bank since the beginning of the agreement —that is up to the 30th June, 1906 —only 2,800/. has remained in the Savings Bank, showing that the-men have drawn out the money at once, and have expended it whilst they were on service in British ships. Therefore, they were living and are living at a higher rate than their British comrades on board the ships, and they spend their money on various things, clothes, or food, or one thing and another. They do live on a different scale and in a different manner to the British sailors who are serving alongside them, which leads, no doubt, to difficulty. I think it is an unfortunate thing, and what I should suggest would be that in those cases we should adopt a system of deferred pay, so that the Colonial sailor should not be paid his extra pay till he has fulfilled his time of service. When his time of service expired, then he would receive the \vhole payment due to him for the whole service, and would have a considerable sum with which to go away from the ship, and he could use it on land for some really useful purpose rather than fritter it away in having a good time on board ship. Sir WILLIAM LYNE : Is it not possible that that money was drawn out of the Savings Bank to support wives or parents on shore ? Lord TWEEDMOITII : Of course that may be so. Sir WILLIAM LYNE : I think that most likely accounts for a portion of it. Lord TWEEDMOUTH : I am afraid a good deal of it is spent by the men on board. I quite admit Sir William Lyne's point is a good one, and no doubt an arrangement ought to be made to enable them to transfer money to those belonging to them, and the people they have to support while they are on board ship. I ought to say that we here make no sort of reflection on Canada, and we do not for a moment accept the criticism to which Mr. Brodeur referred. We hold that Canada is perfectly free to come to any resolution. We hope to have their help, but still they are quite right to look after their own interests, in the full security that so far as the British Government can be of use to them in their defence in time of need, they may depend in any circumstances on our giving that aid with the greatest joy and without any sort of drawback whatever.

Fifth Day. 23 April 1907.

Naval Defence. (Lord Tweedmouth.)