THE FUTURE OF THE NAVY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 73, 19 December 1907, Page 6

THE FUTURE OF THE NAVY.

The appearance of Mr. W. T. Stead amongst the advocates of greater naval activity is such a 'surprising event that we shall be all agog to know the reasons that have transformed the antimilitarist preacher of disarmament into a navy enthusiast beside whom the Navy League is almost a Society of Bashful Men. That Mr. Stead stiil ■'counts" when he leaves his emotional cloudland of 'sentimental absurdities is clear from the approval which the grave "Spectator" and other journals have bestowed upon his latest proposition. His idea is as huge of meaning as it is,brief of expression. "Build two British battleships," he says, "for every one of Germany's." On paper, it would appear that the British Navy is already so vastly superior to the second largest, that Mr. Stead's demand is an- extravagant one; and it is possible that the papers which support him feel that it is extravagant, but i join in the chorus because, with Sir i Henry Campbell-Bannerman. in power, all demands for naval improvement will be.seyerely "taxed," as the lawyers would say. There are, however, two very disturbing facts which reair^ffi'ak'e , tlie I,f ? r two-to-one" proposal a moderate one. In the first place German naval activity has, for a decade/, kept pace-with that of Great Britain; and in the second place the old 'towering'. majesty of Britain's maritime force is shrinking under the enormous naval development of all the powers. A- German writer, " Nauticus" —the .foremost European statistician of battleships—recently printed some striking tables showing what th 6 world has been doing and spending on its navies. On April 1 of this year Britain had fifty-seven battleships of_over 10,000 tons, and thirty-two cruisers of over 0000 tons: Germany's navy comprised twenty battleships and six cruisers.- " Nauticus" forecasted the po.sition on April 1, 1911, and he found, from available information, that Britain would then possess sixty battleships and thirty-eight cruisers, against Germany's twenty-eight battleships and ten cruisers. Germany, that is to say, has a larger programm'e than that of Great Britain, and so, too, have America, Prance, and Japan. In 1898 Germany expended 126,000,000 marks on her "navy, the expenditure of Britain, reduced to German money, being 487,000,000 marks in. the same year. But whjle Germany spent two and a quarter times as much in 1907* as in JLB9B, Great Britain's naval expenditure increased by only 50 per cent. To be exact, the increase in the German budget, 152,000,000 marks, was practically equal to the increase in the British budget, which'was 154,000,000 .marks. The "two-to-one" policy would obviously, therefore, involve an enormous increase in Great Britain'sexpenditure on her fleet. At present the British Government is contemplating an old-age-pensions scheme which is expected to involve an annual expenditure of over £25,000,000. Such a scheme would natui'ally make any large policy, of naval expansion an impossibility, and the Government will have to choose, therefore, between an indulgence of sentiment, on behalf of a section of the community and a provision for the safety of the nation itself. Mr. Stead has been converted from his fanciful dreams of an immediate brotherhood of nations, and there is, therefore, hope for the Government.