1270 ADMINISTRATION AND LEGISLATION [Part Vv 
progress has been made in putting the Colonies in a condition 
of defence. Until 1910 Canada possessed nothing more 
than revenue vessels for her fishery service! Newfoundland 
2as only revenue cutters. South Africa has no war 
vessels of its own, nor has New Zealand. In Australia, 
however, various circumstances led to greater efforts being 
made for naval protection. The way in this matter was 
led by the Colony of Victoria.? The head-quarters of the 
Imperial naval forces on the Australian station was New 
South Wales, and Victoria felt open to attack as there was 
practically no permanent stationing of Royal Navy vessels 
in Victorian waters. The Heads were not fortified, and the 
large expanse of Port Philip and Hobson’s Bay open to 
foreign crusiers called for a naval service for its defence. 
In the sixties, therefore, the beginnings of a naval service 
were created, and in 1885 the force attained its greatest 
efficiency, there being then in the possession of the navy 
a wooden frigate, one ironclad, two gunboats, and three 
torpedo-boats, to which in 1892 a first-class torpedo-boat was 
added ; but the force was considerably reduced in 1893, and 
at the time of federation the expenditure was reduced to 
£19,000 a year. In New South Wales there was never a 
substantial naval force; a naval brigade was raised to 
serve as a reinforcement for the navy in case of need, and 
a light corvette, the Wolverine, was made over to the New 
South Wales Government. The force, however, was purely 
a quasi-civil body, and, though in 1885 two torpedo-boats 
were built, no further addition was made to the strength. 
In Queensland naval defence dated from 1884, two gunboats 
oeing commissioned for the defence of bays and rivers 
against attacks from merchant cruisers of the enemy. The 
Fayundah, one of these boats, was maintained in full com- 
mission, and a naval brigade was organized as in the case of 
! Canada has exercised the sovereign right of ‘hot pursuit’; see The 
Ship North v. The King, 37 S. C. R. 385. Cf. New Brunswick Act, 1866, c. 2. 
* For the history of the Australian Naval Forces see the Official Year Book, 
i, 1084, 1085 ; iii. 1052 seq. In 1869 there was a proposition on foot for 
a naval force half paid for by the Colonies, to be stationed in Australasian 
waters ; see Parl. Pap., C. 83, pp. 522 seq.