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NAVY LEAGUE NOTES.

»■—- [Contributed by the Navy League—Otago • Branch.] "The peril is that in these new lands, empty of all visible historical memorials, we may forget the stock from which we arc sprung, or fail to realise that in its history we have a true inheritance."—W. B. Fitchett, author of 'Deeds that Won the Empire,' ' Fights for the Flag,' etc. "We have to maintain fleets all over the worlds Germany keeps all her fighfing Bhips at home. We cannot, we dare not, and we shall not allow that two-to-one standard of comparative naval strength to be infringed upon, even if it cost us our last copeck to maintain a margin of strength necessary for our safety, tor our daily bread, for our very existence. In the direction of weakening our naval position be yond the two-to-one standard nothing can be done;"—W. T. Stead. OBJECTS OF THE LEAGUE. To create public interest in a question that is of.vital import to each individual citizen. To seek to impress upon the people of the DominioiU.hat their existence as a selfgoverning, iriaependent community is de•pendent not upon New Zealand legislation, but upon the continuance of the supremacy' of the British Navy. To help morally and financiallv those who, at the heart of the Empire, are doin* their utmost for the Navy. ° To insist on the imperative need that exists for unceasing vigilance, and to solicit the practical help of all classes both ; in service and in kind. THE GERMAN NAVY. When Napoleon and his staff were riding over- the victorious but ghastly battlefield of Borodino, one of the generals uttered a sympathetic remark on the pitiful scene of death and carnage around them. " You cannot have an omelette without breaking e gg s " was the retort of "the man on horseback." The comment was typically brutal, but it was also true. There" can be neither war nor preparations for or against war either on land or sea if the people are not prepared to pay the price. And out of this'the doctrine of passive resistance has grown. "How easy to avoid war if men everywhere would refuse to fight!" And some possibly believe that this could be done. But until men and rulers, autocracies and republics, monarchies and democracies are other than they are, the wise nation will, as the surest way to preserve the peace, build battleships* for the sea and create armies for the land. This, at least, has been the German wav. Germany wanted a navy; she believed or affected to believe that her commerce was threatened, and that her future destiny was on the sea ; and at the outset she boldly faced the question Are you willing to pay the price? You cannot have an omelette without breaking eggs ; you cannot have a navy without spending money. Will you 6pend it? The answer was Yes. —How it Began Captain Mahan's 'The Influence of Sea Power Upon History' is said to have had far-reaching effects in Germany. From this book the Germans learned that the of security and supremacy was to be found not on the land, but on the sea. Therefore said their Em- - peror : To the sea we must go; and as the Emperor said, so has it been. The Germans generally are at one with their Emperor in this matter. The British Navy League, which was founded in 1894-95 in London, -was and is a comparativelv small society. But •when the German Flottenverein was mooted, the idea caught on and spread like wildfire. The Empire rang with the idea of a navy as supreme and,:'puissant at sea as was "the army on land. In a few years the League "numbered a million members, and its annual Oiauticus') is claimed to be the most important semi-official publication of the German Admiralty. Whatever money has been asked for has been forthcoming. "Budgets may be haggled over, clipped, or shelved,.but the building of the navy proceeds apace. Foundries and vards,'mines and railways, docks and shipping are workIjnig night and day. To the clamor and protest, the taunt and the sneer, the official world pays no heed. The programme n.s been approved, and the programme v ■■■ continue. —The Emperor's Exhortation.— Speaking on March 1 on the occasion of the centetnary celebration of the Ministry of War the Kaiser concluded a characteristically glowing and eloquent speech with the words : ' May the fateful epoch at which the Ministry of War was founded ever remain an exhortation never to slacken in the work for the Fatherland and never 'o deem any sacrifice for its glory and welfare too great or too heavy ! Then will the blessing of the Almighty rest npori the labors of the Minist:. of War for all time to come, then 1.111 Germany victoriously ride out all the storms which the decree of Providence may bring down. -May God grant it! And this sprit is not the Kaiser's alone, it is as intensely felt in varving degree md form by every loyal German, and it seeks its expression in the construction of a navy .which, whether it be meant to realise German ambitions on the Adriatic or in the North Sea cannot be ignored by the.greatest of her commercial rivals unless that rival is prepared to let go by default. & —A Question of Tonnage.— Great Britain's superiority to all oth-"-Powers, in ocean tonnage was recently, v forth by Mr Winston Churchill in -n'e House of Commons. In answer to a question the President of the Board of Trade submitted a table showing the tonnage of eteam vessels (of 100 tons grofs and" upwards), and sailing vessels (of ICO tons net and upwards) owned in each of the undermention countries on June 30, 1908 compiled from Lloyd's Register : • ■- x . Steam. Sailing. Country. Net, Gross. Net.

great lakes. To protect this magnificent volume *of shipping and her Oversea Dominions from aggression Great Britain require-, a numerically strong fleet. That i 6 admitted. But for what reason is Germanv constructing what may prove to be th° neatest rival the English Navy has vet known ? —ls Great Britain Beady.— So far as the Fleet is concerned there is no reasonable doubt that to-day Great Britain is equal to holding her own with a margin over against, any reasonably probable combination. ' The Times '' expert writes : It may be said that relatively and actually the British Fleet was never better equipped for its purpoee than . now but before long circumstances which operate to weaken all fleets will P u u^ at a Sr eater disadvantage than those Powers which possess smaller navies. Every vessel must in process of time become obsolete, and twentv years have been regarded as a fair measure of Jite for a battleship; but owing to the advent of the Dreadnoughts, the period of obselescence will be "approached more quickly. At present, for example, we con , test with Germany be Dreadnougnt ships, but when^Germany wouw"L an a . U^?-B nn fleet "to line it would be suicidal to oppose to such a force vessels of the mixed battery tvpe. i u n^, ye3B ' basis the Majesties should still have an effective life of about seven years, whereas the probability is that in a good deal less than seven-years time not only the Majesties Ko+ti V™* ~1 ucc f edi ng batches of battleships Wl ll have ceased to be classed as capital 6hips. —An Agency for Peace.— The German Navy is regarded as a menace to the peace of the world • that of Great Britain is not. The'world has no fear of the British Navy beine I converted into an instrument of aggre*-

sion. Of this we hay» ample testimony, the chiefest being the Navy s own record. The 'Army and Navy "'Journal of New York,' replying to the 'New York World's' imaginary tales of warlike preparation and provocation recently wrote : Let ns again point the 'World' to Great Britain's crushing superiority on the sea. For decades England has had a navy stronger than those of any other two Powers, yet what war has ever been brought about through this preeminence on the eea ? On the contrary, it.has tended always for the conservation of peace. Since the war of 1812 England has been engaged in only two . wars affecting the white man—the Crimean War and the Boer War. Ac-1 cording to the; logic of the ' World,' her ; Navy should have been a provocation. It has been nothing of the kind, al- ' though, as in the case of '• Message on Venezuela, there have been many instances in the last fifty years when England's predominance on the i ocean might have led her into war if her Navy had not been an agency for j peace.. The moral of which is that while it is ' possible to give a reason for British naval supremacy it is not clear why Germany hce committed herself to her naval programme, and it is obvious that England must be guided in her battleship pro- i gramme not by what she herself desires, but by what her rivals are doing. Hence 1 the cry " more Dreadnoughts." ' j 'THE NAVY'JOURNAL. ! The organ of the British Navy League ' for March devotes over a pare to the New Zealand branches of the League. I These include accounts of Lieutenant! linoxs visits to Invercargill, Gore Pic I ton, and Nelson. In addition ' The Naw ' pays the 'Lake Wakatip Mail' the complinicnt of reprinting the greater portion of its leading article of December 22 1908 entitled ' The Navy and the Empire ' '

Tons.--Tons. Tons 1 U. Kingdom 9,960,399 16,336.869 981.489 U. Stateet 1,081,442 1,654,049 1,192,857 France ... 825.024 1,416,937 466.907 Germany .. 2,353,367 3,839,378 39a', 767 Italy . 554,472 903,567 381,658 Norway ... 823,332 1,351,647 631.231 Knssia . 448,965 735,350 219.167 tExclusive of vessel s trading on the

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19090419.2.12

Bibliographic details

Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 3

Word Count
1,624

NAVY LEAGUE NOTES. Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 3

NAVY LEAGUE NOTES. Evening Star, Issue 14037, 19 April 1909, Page 3