COMING NAVAL WARS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue LIII, 25 May 1908, Page 2

COMING NAVAL WARS.

ALARMIST VISION OF A FRENCH

EXPEBT.

"The Coming Naval Wars: America and Japan, Britain and Germany," is the title' of an interesting pamphlet by \ M. A. M. Laubeusf, forber Chief Constructor o£ the French Navy. The author is persuaded that tie question of supremacy in the Pacific will soon be settled by heavy guns. He foresees a truce until the Japanese Dreadnoughts now completing are ready for sea. It will be a purely naval war, and Japan could stand the financial strain. "The battle of millions" between Britain and Germany must equally, in M. Laubeuf's opinion, end in a naval war. He observes that the Power which is the first .to build battleships of 25,000 tons, of high speed, and huge armament, will at once relegate to obsolescence even the existing Dreadnoughts. But Germany is not pursuing that line of action. Her newest ships axe nothing more than imitations of British vessels. What, then, will be Germany's plan for wresting the mastery of the sea from Britain? M. Laubeuf finds bhe answer to the question in the German credits for submersible vessels, of wEich Germany may have as "many as sixty ready ( or action in 1915. Before \war broke out German submersibles would sail for the British harbors and ships. Sufficient damage would be done to equalise the battle fleets of the two countries. A landing of German troops might follow, and then, in Lord Salisbury's phrase, "English history well bo ended."

So much fox the GermaJn side. But what will Britain do? M. Leubeuf thinks that wax is more likdy to he begun by Britain. Seventeen groat ships, he points out, must be built in the mext four years if the British naval force is to be incontestaoly superior to the Germans at the end of 1911 as it is at the present time. Will Britain continue to spend two millions to Germany's one, or will she, with a sudden crushing blow, Break the power of the German fleet before it reaches its full developement ?

"Those are the alternatives from which British statesmen must make their choice within the next few years."

M. Leubeuf is convinced that Britain will suddenly attack the German fleet, will break it as she has brokem the seapower of Spain, Holland, and Frainoe, and, that dene, will return and crush the victor in the war between America and Japan. "Thus Britain's mastery of the seas would' be assured for another fifty years. Bui may not the maritime nations, tired of the British -yoke, combine to cast it off for ever?"