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Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 119, 18 May 1909, Page 3

"What will William say to that?" William was the German Emperor; "that" was New Zealand's offer of the Dreadnoughts; the speaker was an Englishman who was excitedly showing in an evening paper the announcement of the Dominion's patriotism (wirtes the London correspondent of the Sydney Daily Telegraph). He was one of the many far-seeing Britishers of influence to-day who hail Germany's menace as a disguised booh to the Empire. Wherever you go, in London this week you hear the word "Dreadnought," and wherever you hear "Dreadnought" you'hear men who have never been out of Great Britain talking as. probably they have never talked before, even during the African War, about "the Colonies." And .as they talk of New Zealand's straight-out offer; and the equally patriotic determination of Australia and Canada, either1 * to give battleships or to relieve Great Britain by increased local defences—as they talk of this, their anxiety about Germany and their resentment against the Government disappear, and they ' swell in ■Blfeir pride and laugh in their enthusiasm and ask, "What will William say to that?" It is good to be a colonial in London just now. You feel that you are not only a partner in the firm, but that your status is recognised as it has not been hitherto. Not that London measures us by what we give or do not give. It is our capacity to give and our willingness to give that count.