ARMAMENTS AND MR. ROOSE. VELT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 827, 27 May 1910, Page 6

ARMAMENTS AND MR. ROOSE. VELT.

j Yesterday's cable message rcporti ing the comments of M. Lovlind, 1 the President of the Nobel Peace i Committee, upon the German Em- ! peror's most recent appeal for peace I amongst the nations lends point to a most interesting story that comes . from New York. M. Lovlind saw : a special reason for taking the Ern- - peror seriously in the fact that Mr. i Roosevelt had been in conference - with his Imperial Majesty. It will t be remembered that the ox-Presi--3 dent's visit to Europe was heralded r by a section of the German press t with a peculiarly bitter attack , upon 1 him. He was specially warned by i one important German journal to ' refrain from meddling , with the • military and naval relations bes tween Germany and Great Britain. E The Washington correspondent of I the New York Post stated on April i 12 that several prominent men in i that city had first-hand authority i for saying that when Mr. Hooset velt reached Borlin in May he , would lay his plan for the reduc--1 tion of armaments before the : Emperor, and that when he ■ reached London , ho would i urge .it upon King Edward. ■ By a curious coincidence this information received some corroboration J from Italy. At Spezzia on April 8, i so it was reported, Mk. Roosevelt, . in conversation with the Mayor, re--3 ferred to the depressing expansion f of the military and naval pro--5 grammes of the Powers, and added f that "he hoped soon to be able to , deal with this subject, and seek to E find a plan, if not to abolish rnilii tary expenditures, at least to limit • them to a considerable degree." It ' is possible, of course, that the ex- • President was referring to his iru- ' pending address to the Peace Cora--3 mittee in Christiania, but this simf pie hypothesis was not entertained 3 by anyone, although it must have , E occurred to everybody. The New York Post, at any rate, - which is one of the sanest and most • thoughtful of all the world's news- , papers, saw no reason to doubt that s Mr. Roosevelt had the intention • ascribed to him, or to dismiss ) lightly the prospect that ho might t succeed where everyone else has - failed. "Mk. Roosevelt," it wrote, - "can approach the subject better ' than any living man; ■he has been 5 the head of a great nation, and is ' to-day attracting more attention 5 than any other personage. His suc- > cessful efforts to bring about peace - between Russia and Japan have not ■ been forgotten. That they were un- ' dertaken at the suggestion of the ) Kaiser is merely . another reason i why Mr. Roosevelt can readily apE prbach with him the question of dis- ■ armament or the limitation of armi aments." It is also pointed out that > these two "strenuous men" have for '■ years kept up a friendly personal ■ correspondence, a fact that is re- ' lated to tbe unprecedented eagerness '■ of the Kaiser to take personal possession of his distinguished friend t on his arrival in Berlin. If America, through the greatest of her citii zens, could do something to miti- • gate the fearful burden. of armaments, wo should all consider that ! tho greatest economic cruelty of the age had been softened by the 1 right hand. For ourselves, wo can- ■ not believe in the possibility of dis- ■ armamont and of the superannua--1 tion of war; but there docs not lie ■ against the theory that the pressure ' of naval competition may be mitigated the fundamental facts that deny tho possibility, of abolishing • war altogether. It is possible, therefore, that the death of Kino: Edward has prevented the sowing of a seed that might have borne useful fruit. Subject to tho influence of [ our late King, the German Emperor might have been made into ; a real friend of the movement to chock tho rush of tho nations into ■ bankruptcy; but-it is doubtful whe- ' ther such an event can be hoped for now. The furious competition in battleships and the hatred of all men for the terrible and increasing hardship that this competition creates must make many men inclined almost to a despairing agreement with the desperate solution in the Nineteenth Century for April by Sir Edmund Cox. The only alternative to the increasingly severe competition in armaments, he says, is "one which a Cromwell, a William Pitt, a Palmerston, a Disraeli would have adopted long ago. . . . . It is to say to Germany, 'All that you have been doing constitutes a scries of unfriondly acts. Your fair words go for nothing. Once for all you must put an end to your warlike preparations. If we are not satisfied that you do so, we shall forthwith sink every battleship and cruiser that you possess.' ''