ANGLO-GERMAN SEA POWER

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 54, 5 March 1914, Page 6

ANGLO-GERMAN SEA POWER

Thp disturbance in the Navy Estimates owing to the failure of Canada to commence the construction of the projected three battleships strengthens the case of those who urged that the Mother Country's building programme should depend on itself alone, and that gift •hip* from tho Dominions should be re-

Government launched its proposals it ' did not reckon on tho opposition of "the Senate, but all its efforts have been effectively blocked by that body ; and | consequently Mr. Churchill announces-a large new item in the Navy Estimates' for the acceleration of ships under construction for the Admiralty. Surely it is not sound poKey for tho British Government to base its programme on the assumed sanction of a Dominion Parliament to some step entirely within its own jurisdiction. Another factor is that though, under the proposals of the Canadian Government, the three superDreadnoughts are to "form an essential portion of the Imperial Navy," they are also "subject to recall by the Canadian Government if and when Canada, should decide to organise a national navy." No. doubt Canada would not recall them without notice ; still, the fact that they can be recalled is another argument infavour of making them, when they materialise, extra ships. In that capacity, they would be an addition to the» defences of the Motherland and of the Empire. But if, like the New Zealand, they are absorbed in the -British building programmes, no additional strength is provided. • Gift ships, treated on that basis, are a relief to the British taxpayer— which ma.y be an end in itself — but from the sea power point of. view constitute no progress. Notwithstanding the financial pressure in Germany due to the army increases, the relentless President of the Navy League, Admiral yon Koester, announces a new campaign for more ships. 'No good a.t all appears to have come from Mr. Churchill's naval holiday proposal. What the First Lord suggested was that Britain and Germany should build no battleships in the following year, but this arrangement was to exclude gift ships provided by th 6 Dominions and ships intended for the Mediterranean. That proviso meant limiting the non-building of battleships to the North Sea. In the British view, the reservation in favour of gift ships and the Mediterranean was considered to be sufficiently set off by the fact that in that important Sea two members of the Triple Alliance, Austria-Hunga.ry and Italy, are busily building. But, in the event of war, Britain could at once move her Mediterranean ships against Germany ; while the sending of Austrian or Italian super-Dreadnoughts to Germany's aid would depend on the circumstances and the honour of her allies. Berlin may justly claim that the equation hardly works out. A tendency has been noticeable among the Germans to create a suspicion that in these proposals Britain has been trying to "get to windward" of Germany, and the same spirit appears in the remarks of Count yon Reventlow on Mr. Churchill's suggestion that the size of capital ships should bo limited by agreement. The Count alleges that the British Admiralty has systematically under-stated the size of British capital ships, and that Germany awaits a. real and not a, paper example. So convinced is one side of the bad faith -of the other that compromise efforts seem to be mainly productive of suspicion and irritation, which by the armament interests are carefully cultivated. '