"THE JAPANESE BOGEY"

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 19, 22 January 1921, Page 5

"THE JAPANESE BOGEY"

AMERICA'S BIG NAVY IDEA.

The Scientific American, which is always very interesting and well-informed on naval topics, an.d which shows no respect for Mr. Josephus Daniels, whom it regards, as by no means an expert or a sympathetic naval administrator, published in. a recent number an interesting article on the. "big navy" idea which Mr. Daniels "has been diligently cultivating. " More , than once since, the Armistice," says the article. " the Scientific American has drawn public attention to the. fact that; although in agreement with our history arid traditions we are the protagonists of disarmament, and have proclaimed ourselves to. be the champions of riglit^and liberty as against might and enslavement, yet these same United States are to-day the only country in the.world^ with the exception of Japin, that is engaged in warship construction. ',■ Moreover, our plans for development are upon such a stupendous scale that we have no less than eighteen capital ships under construction, ij.ll of which are of far.' greater fighting power, than those of any other nation. •/ ' ■

"When the- great conflagration burst forth in." Europe and some of us urged that we should at once strengthen, our naval forces, the Secretary of the Navy, it will be remembered, deprecated strongly any such action. To-day, the mighty military organisation which brokethe world's' peace in 1914 has been disrupted, ife destroyed, and its fleet sunk at Scapa Plow or distributed' amonff the victors. Nevertheless, a' secretary who, when, danger confronted the country, refused to make preparation, now, when fclie threat has absolutely vanished, would not only carry on the huge programme of armament devised for a sudden war emergency, but he would even add jto the battleship programme..which we now hava in hand./' .;

"The Scientific American can never be accused of favouring a weak-kneed naval policy, or one that carries any colour of pacifism. For a quarter of a century we have urged that the United States should. possess ft navy sufficient for her security commensurate with her dignity; but .we possess 'some sense of proportion, we hope, and the present situation that this country of all free countries should be engaged in hupre military constructions at a time when others have abandoned them seems, to he both illogical and inconsistent with; our own national prin-, ciples. .. \

"If we wish to possess the biggest navy in the world just for the' fun of it,, well and good. But if this.determination to build the bi?gest of all navies, which was first announced in an oratorical flight by President Wilson at the time when the growing wave 'of enthusiasm aroused by tho preparedness 'movement was at its height—if this resolve, we say, is serious, the question arises—having this big fleet, whom do we wish to fight; or who on earth is it that is wishing to fight us? It can scarcely be Great Britain, for, in spite of our announced determination Unbuild a navy bitter than 'hers, she, has not only ceased all battleship construction, but has broken, up three or four very powerful battle-cruisers, whicli were under construction. Evidently, ehe regards the growth of our navy with perfect equanimity and is satisfied' that, the Irish question and a certain type of hyphenated Irish-American notwithstanding, America as a whole has no hostile purpose back of her naval expansion. ,

"This brings us to the question of the so-called Japanese threat, that bogey which, owed its inceptipn largely to the activities of Captain Boy Ed, the notorious naval attache, and is now being trotted forth arid dangled before the eye's of the citizens of the United States, whenever the Japanese immigration problem flares up a little more than usual in California. Boy Ed, of course, \was .merely drawing a red herring across the trail which led straight to Wilhelmshafen and the Kiel Canal—the more our Navy Department could be led to contemplate a bogus peril in the' Orient, the less thought would it give to the very real peril in the Occident. We call it the Japanese })oj[e.y for the reason that if there is one thing more than any other -which the very wise and far-seeing statesmen of Japan regard as altogether out of the question it is that of an attack on the United States. They know full well that, so great is the preponderance of our naval strength that the issue of a naval war would be a wiping out of their fleet as complete as that' which befel the German Navy."'