THE NATION'S PERIL.

Auckland Star, Volume XLI, Issue 170, 20 July 1910, Page 9

THE NATION'S PERIL.

£E6 the Ea<torJ Sir,—Your able leader on the above subject places the situation lucidly before readers' of the " Star." The Prime Minister of the richest community on earth gives- forth.-'utterance: —"That the .burden, of the Naval Estimates is.almost more than the country can bear," and ." that every new Dreadnought delays some social reform." How Germany will crow over such a statement, coming from the highest authority! Fortunately, however, we, as Englishmen, know that the pronouncement is a political lie, that tile building of Dreadnoughts, though unpleasant for the taxpayer,, can no more ruin the country that turns them out than the construction of Cunard's sixty thousand tonners can beggar Belfast. Shortly -after the advent of the Dreadnought scare, the writer suggested that England might continue facile princeps in naval: construction by raising , an internal, loan of millions sufficient to build fifty battleships within five ye-are, thus letting Germany and her more or less impecunious partners of the Triple Alliance 'know that when dollars were wanted they had not a hope. The manner in which party politicians whine at Home over the rise of the Kava-1 Estimates would almost make one imagine that the money expended in the making of Dreadnoughts was absolutely withdrawn from in place of being put into circulation. 1 venture to state that a Dreadnought obligation would be over-subscribed for in I/ondon half a dozen times over, 'i'he three millions or so required per annum as interest could be raised by a 5 per cent tax or surtax on foreign manufactured commodities, which, if not sufficient, might be supplomentod by a tribute on aliens. If this Dominion can afford to borrow externally the wherewithal to build a Dreadnought in England, surely Britain can float an internal loan sufficient to secure out of her own dockyards an ironclad insurance.—l am, etc., H. J.