THE FRUITS OF RECKLESSNESS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 293, 4 September 1908, Page 6

THE FRUITS OF RECKLESSNESS.

Most people are by now a little weary of news about the American Fleet, but the cable messages which we print this morning cannot be passed without some notice. According to the Washington correspondent of the Pall Mall Gazeltc, " American newspapers consider that the demonstrations [in the Australasian ports visited] denote a popular conviction in Australasia that the American naval power would in an emergency become a barrier against the extension of Japanese rule in the Pacific." One American writer sees in the celebrations not a sentimental feeling that " blood is thicker than water," but "an enlightened selfinterest." " Sober writers," adds the Pall Mall Gazette's correspondent, " suggest the existence in Australasia of lack of confidence in the willingness and ability of the Motherland to protect Australasia against what is described as ' the Eastern peril.' " When we remember the tone of most of the New Zealand press comments on the visit of the Fleet, we are bound to say that the sober American writers referred to have found in those comments the only meaning that an intelligent foreigner could extract from them. Let the position of the American critic be considered. He has no special knowledge of Australasian feeling. He has to argue from such facts as he sees before him. Ho knows that the Australasian States are dependent upon Great Britain for protection against invasion, and that a noisy section of Australasian opinion has been crying out in alarm that Japan is a menace to the national existence of Australasia. ■ He seeß that the visit to Australasia of the warships of America—which was recently engaged in a dangerous quarrel with Japan—was the signal for unrestrained rejoicings in the Australasian States,:ancU for emphatic declarations in certain Australasian newspapers that the American Fleet was the true defender of Australasia. What could any thoughtful American conclude exccpt that this exuberance was something more than Australasian courtesy to the naval couriers of America? " Surely," so we can imagine such an American saying to himself, " surely these Australasians have not forgotten their position in the international map. They cannot have done so, and their acclamation of the American Fleet as their real defence against Asiatic invasion can only mean that they distrust tho power of Great Britain, or her will, to ■ protect them in such an emergency." The Americans, indeed, are drawing exactly the conclusions which we from the beginning feared would be drawn from tho unguarded articles of some of the larg'ir New Zealand journals. The same conclusions are certain to be drawn by the British people, who know and respect the Imperial proprieties. If tho obligations of honour are no longer worth considering, the more sordid dictates of common prudence might have been expected to restrain the pens that have led foreign observers to place so injurious an interpretation upon the Australasian attitude towards the visit of tho Fleet. As v-e have over and over again urged, the gravest danger confronting Imperial unity-is the risk of a strong anti-colonial feeling in Great Britain. The tendency of some Australasian statesmen is to leave that risk entirely out of account in their speeches • and actions. The disturbing, revelations of the Pall Mall Gaette correspondent will, we hope, bear the fruit of greater caution in the future on the part of Australasian publicists, and a more thoughtful regard for the Imperial proprieties.