Ashburton Guardian Magna est veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1913. A ROYAL PEACEMAKER.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XXXIII, Issue 8724, 25 November 1913, Page 4

Ashburton Guardian Magna est veritas et Prævalebit. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1913. A ROYAL PEACEMAKER.

It is doubtful whether the opinions of Canon McUrlich on Germany's naval aspirations are worth the prominence given them in the cable from London yesterday. It is certain, at least, that but for the attack of nerves that Lord Beresford states the Empire is suffering from the views of this clerical critic would have attracted scant notice. It is, however, nothing new to find international affairs discussed with all the confidence of apparent intinlate knowledge by critics who have plainly not digested their facts. "The time is coming/ says Canon IJlrich, from the commanding height of his position as a chaplain at Horn- j burg, "when Germany would! fight for supremacy at sea, but would not make an aggressive move until practically certain that she would come out on top." And he adds that "' but for the Kaiser's personal influence Germany would have attacked France during the crisis two years ago.'' There is very little connection between Germany's ambition to be mistress of the seas and a campaign against France; but there is a correlation between the spectacle of the Kaiser holding his War Minister in check and the Canon's assertion that Germany would not move -until she was assured of victory. At the, opening of the Hague Palace ofj Peace Mr Andrew Carnegie referr- j ed to Kaiser Wilhelm as "the! Kingly Peacemaker," and, in-, spired by this tribute to a monarch whose quarter of a century's reign has been singularly free from armed conflict, a New York journal seriously suggested that I the Nobel Peace Prize should be awarded to the Kaiser! But as an apostle of the teaching that to maintain peace a nation must be prepared for war, tho Kaiser has no peer amongst the rulers of the world. He has raised the German army and navy to a strength that the Emperor Frederick, notwith- ] standing his ambitious ideas,] would never have dreamed was j | possible. When the' Kaiser came to the throne Germany was merely a geographical expression for a collection of kingdoms and duchies; and though they had been welded into something like cohesion in policies and interests i by the great war with France, it-' w"as still a great task to knit I them into a nation with but one i aim-and object. If the Kaiser'si influence has been, for peace, _ it j probably has been because, with the instinct of a great statesman, and the caution of a natural I strategist, he "has seen the. diffi-j cutties that Napoleon, either failje3 to recognise or preferred to ignore. The, aggressor who fails to count the cost of a campaign may make history, but he leaves a heritage that succeeding genei'i atibns find it hard to outlive. The Kaiser > may not be disposed to take chances until he is "certain of coming .-out;, on top," and he knows that there is little hope of that time arriving while Britain's progress at sea is being accelerated. It is possible' that the vagaries of Britain's naval construction may have given birth to a German hope of sea supremacy. Twelve years ago the British Navy was predominant in every ocean of the world, and along the shores of every continent. To-day it is superior only in the North Sea. In 1902 there were 55 British warships on the Mediterranean Station: to-day there are 20. On the North American and West Indian Stations there were 14; to-day there are three. At the Cape of Good Hope there were 16; to-day there are three. And the totals on the Pacific and Australian Stations have been redded so far as purely Imperial vessels are concerned. •Where there were 160 ships on

foreign and, colonial stations in 1902 there are now but 76. Whether these figures form a basis for German aspirations, or whether the Canon's impressions are merely the irresponsible views of a badly-informed critic, they furnish a reason for the belief that the Admiralty's conviction is that when an attack is made it will be at the heart of the Ein,pire, and not on the outposts.