THE VISIT OF THE FLEET.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 275, 13 August 1908, Page 6

THE VISIT OF THE FLEET.

While thoroughly in sympathy with the extreme cordiality that has marked the festivities in Auckland and the comments of'the Press upon the visit of the Fleet, we have to dissent most strongly from some of the utterances which have been, born of an excess of good feeling. In their enthusiasm over the visit, some of the newspapers, in the Dominion and beyond it, appear to have forgotten the position of New Zealand in international politics, and have been writing some very foolish stuff about the relations between the United States and Australasia. Of course the obvious thing for a writer to do who feels gravelled for appropriate comment is to remember that America is a great Power with a special interest in the Pacific and with an avowed ambition to keep, if not command of it, yet a decisive share in its control; that America has lately had some difficulties with v Japan; that Japan'is supposed to contemplate the conquest of Australasia; and that, in all these circumstances, an offensive alliance between America and Great Britain would be a very good thing. Accordingly we have had the American Fleet hailed in many quarters as a hint; to Japan that she must count upon a war with America if she should seek to attack Australasia.; The visit of the warships has been made the text of many very foolish articles indeed. These people appear to have forgotten, or, remembering, to bavo contemptuously brushed aside, the fact that New Zealand is a portion of the British Empire, dependent for protection upon the power of Great Britain, and no more closely related to America, in a political sense, than to any other foreign nation.

To us it appears to be not only unwise to break forth into provocativo nonsense about America's protecting arm, and all the rest of it, but also unkind, unfriendly, and undutiful. Whatever opinions may be individually held upon the meaning to New Zealand of a'strong American force in the Pacific Ocean, there is yet a certain etiquette that should restrain these bombastic and thoughtless folk who are writing, as if the alliance of New Zealand with America were a mere matter for arrangement between Admiral, Speury and. Sir Josmi • Ward. If these people were asked to end their eloquence and propound, a practical policy to give effect to their views, what would they say 1 That Britain and America should arrange a formal Treaty of a large and weighty character, perhaps, and that the Anglo-Japanese Treaty should bo denounced. But New Zealand is not competent'to make any such suggestion. The foreign policy of Great Britain is, with one reservation, entirely a matter for British statesmen, The reservation is in favour of colonial participation iri the settlement of those portions of British foreign policy directly affecting colonial interests. We believe that the thoughtless outbursts to which we take exception will produce no good effect on tho British people. After all, Great Britain is the head of the Imperial family, and British people will not be pleased to-hear it suggested, as it was suggested in a local journal last night, that America knows us better, and is ikely to prove a better protector, than our natural parent. Everybody, of course, is delighted at any evidence of good feeling between America and Great Britain, but cordiality does not require New Zealand to give such reasons for welcoming the American Fleet as amount to a slap in the face for' Great Britain.' The "anti-Asiatic" eloquence may with advantage be left to the American Bailors. It is much to be regretted that so many New Zealand papers have not risen abovo fo'c's'le politics in their comments upon a notable and pleasant event.