Defensive Unity of the Australasian Colonies.

Obsolete Weapons.

A general union of all parts with the Mother Country would augment our resources, so in a lesser degree does the amalgamation of individual portions of our outlying territory assist their defence. Nothing appears more ridiculous now than the way in which the several Colonies in Australia, all working on different lines when they decided to guard against some spectre attack, the direction and force of which they were unable to define. Misled by military experts, who should have been the last persons called on where it is a question of estimating attack by sea, they wasted their substance in providing elaborate batteries with guns of all natures; while remember a few years ago being called on to inspect some torpedo-boats for colonial defence, which were armed with a weapon we had long discarded. A union of all the Colonies in Australia with New Zealand and Tasmania, would enable the defences to be planned and worked on a common basis.—Captain Eardley-Wilmot.