IS IT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE ?

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXV, Issue 3802, 12 April 1913, Page 7

IS IT TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE ?

BRITAIN AND GERMANY TO CONFER.

MAY BE SPELL IN RACE FOR ARMAMENTS.

WHAT A GERMAN PAPER GAYS

[UNITED PEESS ASSOCIATION — r O P v RIGHT.]

(Received April 11, 11.20 p.m.) BERLIN, April 11. Tlio “Taglische Rundschau” declares that at the conclusion of the Balkan hostilities Britain will make a definite proposal to Germany with reference to naval Construction for 1914-15.

PROPOSED NAVAL HOLIDAY NOT WELCOMED IN GERMANY. ‘ ‘GLIB-TONG UED, BLUSTER! NG BRITISH MINISTERS.' ’ [INDEPENDENT PEESS CABLE] LONDON, April 1. The pan-German press, which is mainly responsible for anti-British feeling in Berlin, is outdoing itself in its vituperation of Mr Churchill, whose suggestion of a naval holiday is frankly believed to be a foul plot to cheat Germany, and under the guise of a friendly agreement to bring her under the British yoke. One Berlin paper, “Die Post.” says: “Mr Churchill’s speeches are always distinguished by inconsistency and insincerity. This occasion made it particularly easy for his critics to dispose of him. We are not going to overthrow the naval law at the holiest of glib-tongued, blustering British Ministers.” The “Post” describes Mr Churchill’s proposals not merely as “sheer fantasy and of a most grotesque and absurd sort,” but as something much worse.

Count von Bevcntlow, Germany's foremost naval critic, writing in the “Deutsche Ta-gesjseitung,” accuses the First Lord of a felonious attempt to influence the section of German opinion that opposed naval expansion. Mr Chtuvnili’s tactics, declares the Count, are disloyal and insincere.

The “Taglische Rundschau” ascribes what it calls Mr passionate love-making to Germany to a fear that the cost ot armaments will strangle Britain before it does Germany. The paper figures it out that when Germany has 61 Dreadnoughts Britain must have 130, and acids., “for Englishmen to proceed will bleed them white. The prospect is one calculated to blanch even Mr Churchill’s brazen face.” Many of the more reputable German papers have not yet commented upon the proposal. The “Lokal Anzeiger,” although opposed to the suggestion, is content to say nothing stronger than that it is a Utopian idea. One point made by Germany is that a'naval holiday year would precipitate a crisis in the shipbuilding industry ol both countries, and would amount to a self-inflicted stroke of economic paralysis. For this reason alone Mr ClrurcT.ill’s proposal is regarded as impracticable.