THE RACE FOR NAVAL SUPREMACY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2489, 12 July 1909, Page 8

THE RACE FOR NAVAL SUPREMACY.

-K von believe in peace, prepare lor war —-that is the new down of ho militarists. Well, that re a lll ; llc l^ c fol , ‘^■^ofthe”Ser ££? S?S the condition to he expected, vale devoted to preparation foi , war. Put both have the same end. liemre for war.” There is a certain inconJequenco in the slogan, “If you believe in Se prepare for war,”. me would think the logical apodosis would bo dif terenl-'lf you bolSeve in peace P™l»™ for peace,” not for war. Still. thing—it shows progress, that for military effort is peace, not war Am yet, as a Japanese paper says, any soil of an armed' peaceptepaiesforanAima godaon; and during peace, fo Armageddon it impoverishes the nations and is now fast reducing them to bank VU Let us consider the fearful condition to which U» naWons have alreadv come A few vears ago it seemed as if then tmui of crease "and debt was beyond endur- . 'l'he nrincipal nations were heaMiy Sod for ST tU had settled down to a burden of naval construction which seemed all they coukl carvyBritain depended mainly on ha fleeL and her rule was to possess a nav > iwo the sum of the navies of any The Powers and ten per cent. more. J teidimr nations all had battleships of a say 15,000 tons, «. ■ of eight or ten inch bore, they aero powerful enough. Then a.bright idea came to the British Adnuraltj « vtould build a "i "antic battleship, a * I-' bi C "er, swifter than any big Kftl«hip known, of over 20.000 tom while the biggest German battleships w r nnn tons. It should earn, hj ■ would ehoot cannon balls tw.ee as heavy as the biggest m service Ihc ball of a twelve-inch guns is neaily twice as heavy as one from a ten-inch gun, and that from a fourteen-inch gun nearly three times as heavy. It is, estimated that a modern “Dreadnought is equal to four battleships of two years ago. Great Britain was very proud of ho n o w battleship. It beat the world. But oh! how short-sighted, for how long would it last? Did it not occur to the Br ish Admiralty or to the British Treaty that what Groat Britain could do Germany and France ant e _. States could and would also do Did they not sec that the old rivalry of 15,000 ton battleships would now become a rivalry of 20.000 and 25.000-ton v»sel», with a vastly greater “T» n “! -f 1 f't. ‘ no limit to enlargement; no limit to the burdens that can be put on the pcople. What is the result of this crunural . vance? Germany was compelled to follow suit and try to surpass what Gieat Britain had done. And now we have the great naval scare in England and Mi Asquith and Mr M'Kenna telling Parliament that two years ago Germany had not one vessel that could be- compares with the “Dreadnought, while now she has fourteen, and three others being com structed ; and Mr Balfour. Leader of the Onnosition, says he has bettor information, to the effect that by 1912 Gerniany will have 21 and not 17 “Dreadnoughts and possibly 25. Great Britain is in a shivering terror, and this Government of peace is hurrying up more Dreadnoughts,” for now the fear is that Geinnnv will be supreme in navy as well as army. Such is the result of the monumental folly and criminality of Gieat Britain in starting a new rivalry, as the old horrible rivalry were not horrible en ßut h why will Great Britain and Germany, with the United States following fast* after, with yet bigger vessels and heavier guns, not agree to limit then armaments? Mr Asquith replies that more than once Great Britain has asked Germany to do it. but she has replied that she must consider her own inteiest. . What does that mean? Only this, that she must be ready to fight Great Britain on equal or superior terms, and so.this arming for peace must go on. It is hopeless, as tilings now are, for there is no end but utter collapse, unless nations can bo brought to agree to what the friends of peace have so often urged, but what the nations refuse to consider, and which is well expressed by the Japan Mail: “Yet it may even be that in this very costliness lies the best hope of ultimate restriction, if not abandonment—that the sighing of the nations under the heaviness of the burden may at last find expression in the creating of some centia controlling Power, drawn from all alike upon whose omnipotent will shall rest the decision of all issues which, in i s a i sence, might plunge the world in war. We may suspect that it was the anticipation of what would so soon be revealed in Parliament as to the sudden secret growth of the German armament that crave poignancy to what Mr Birrell said the other day to his constituents expressing his profound disappointment that so peaceful a nation as the United States had entered the race of rivalry for ‘Dreadnoughts” : , ~ “When I was young America set tlie example of an unarmed nation, but things have not worked out as was expected. Mr Taft’s speech on the question ot United States armaments were words ol doom. They have shattered some of the best hopes of humanity, for they show that even across in America they Have mined the ranks of the armed 1 and are to he supplied with a great navy and a powerful army. It is a miserable pi y that hopes should be shattered, and that ■we are now to deal with the United States as a fully equipped military and naval nation. . . . Wherever we go we find armament, armament, armament. We are, owing to this, reduced to the state ot people who have to keep a lookout to see i what is being done by possible enemies ot < this country; in absolute self-defence, ] without the desire to add another acre to our vast territory, we are compelled as 1 ordinary men who Mve our country to keep our shares safe by the expenditure < of an enormous and growing amount of 1 money. It is enough to make the angels < weep, but still no man who is responsible for this country can ignore the risk or 1 do anything other than provide the neces- ] sary money to keep the security of our. s

land. I can see no cure for these tenable things except the fraternization of nations ; otherwise they are doomed to this miserable game of ‘Beggar my neighbor.’ Fraternization is the only way by which we shall be able tb reduce armaments and make people say what an infamy and a shame they are.”