UNITED STATES FLEET. WARSHIPS TO BE LEFT AT MANILA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 31, 6 February 1908, Page 7

UNITED STATES FLEET. WARSHIPS TO BE LEFT AT MANILA.

Dy Telegraph.— Press Association.— Copyright. NEW YORK, sth. February. It is reported at Washington that when the Pacific fleet returns RoarAdmiral Evans will leave at Manila ' four powerful cruisers or four of his Aveakest battleships, or possibly both. THE OBJECT OF THE CRUISE. In a London paper recently there appeared an interesting article, "The j American Fleet and the Pacific," by ! Sydney Brooks, who, inter alia, remarked: — "Even now the purpose, object, scope, and duration of the movement remain wholly conjectural. Is ths Atlantic seaboard to be denuded of battleships simply that the citizens of San Francisco may be regaled with the sight of the most powerful fleet that tho United States has ever assembled? Is it the official intention that the yesssls, after their months of churning, shall merely bum a certain amount of coal off the Golden Gate, and then return whence they came? Or will they, when th* leave- San Francisco, point west ihstdatl of south, Crews the 1 Pacific, and drop anchor in Manila I Bay? | "Or will a sufficient number of them remain oft' the western coast of the continent to form the nucleus of a permanent Pacific squadron? Are we to understand (hat tho voyage marks the beginning of the systematic assertion of American powor in tho Pacific, and hint* at what will prove to be tho final disposition of American naval fortes — a small squadron in the Atlantic arid a far larger one in the Pacific? Has it been planned simply to rivet the many links of sympathetic co-operation and good will forged by Mr. Root during his recent South Aflitviban tour? Is it intended as a demonstration, of the strategic necessity for tho Panama Canal and 6f the inadequacy of the present naval forces of tho United States for tho protection of her . two const-lines'? Or has it any connection with the often-ruhioured lease, or purchaso from Mexico by the American uovernment Magdalena Bay? These are but f>, few of tho problems raised by this unexampled cruise. I do not propose to discuss them in e'etnil but merely to indicate a poilt of view from which the voyage may i>p regarded, as dite simply to tho compulsion of f-icts, and as not less the product of circumstances Ihan was the British scheme of nival reOigahisatioii and distribution a few years ago. CENTRE OF INTEREST SHIFTED. 1 Within the last derado the* Atlantic as the centre of America's political and strategic interests has steadily declined, and the Pacific has as steadily risen. It is hardly too much to say that sinco the conflict with Spain the menacs of War, never a very heavy one, has been dissipated along the whole length of the Atlantic coast-line. As a possible cause ot. embroilment between tho United Slatss and ,any European Power, the West Indies have virtually ceased to exist. The problems thej present aro no longer inter-national but domestic. Again, the revolution that has taken place in Anglo-American relations is another and potent guarantee for the peftco and security of tho Atlantic sen-hoard. FiftaUy, the practical acquiescence on the part of all European Powers in the Monroe doctrine has removed South America from the lirt of possible causes of war. Ko American interest would be endangered if tho naval force in the Atlantic were reduced to little more than a mere police squadron. On th& other hand, within the last ten years the Pacific has risen enormously in th? scale of American interests. Sinco 1898 the United States has strewn ths Pacific with s'tepping-atoneS from Hawaii to the Philippines. She has built up ftn export trade to the Fat' EaSfc worth, I 6rtppose, £40,000^00 a year. She has landed an arriiy on Chinese territory. She- haft been drAWn, Willy-nilly, into* the Vortex of the Fftf Eastern question. She has played in the Cvohitioii of that question an active, often a- loading, always a distinctive, pail. She has formulated policies aud tnken a hand in moment' ous negotiations. Shi has definitely enrolled the Far East nmong the objects ol hrr diplorrlntic solicitude. She lifts becorhe, in short, ft Far Eastern Power herselt.