WHY WE MUST WIN.

North Otago Times, Volume CV, Issue 13856, 17 April 1917, Page 2

WHY WE MUST WIN.

,A COLD CALCULATION OF THE VAST RESOURCES OF OUR EMPIRE.

To state that Great Britain and Jtcr Allies must win the .present war. is to; utter a double truth, says a corres pondcnt.iii "Answers.'' We' must win the war, not only because we have got to, but because we can't help ourselves. Few people realise the aina/.ing' resources on which the British Empire alone can draw. If wc had applied G jin.auy'a methods of organisation to the British Umpire we could probably have taken on all the Central Powers and half a ilozen other countries single-handed. ■ lust glance at the facts. Consider, in :hc first place, that the British Empire contains more than a quarter of the =otal population of the world.

Yes; taking white, brown, and black Britishers altogether, one.man in every •'our on tho surface.of the globe is a ■utizen of our colossal Empire. What does this mean? It mean, l ?, among other things, that in-man-power the British Empiro is six times as strong (is Austria. For every American Micro are two Britishers, while even Russia, which wo aro apt to look upon a« an .nexhaustiblo reservoir of warrior?, is uitnmnbered by us by something like two and a half to one. WHAT WE COULD, DC. .

At the beginning of the war Gormny boasted that she could muster an army of ten million men. At such a great mass of figures wo stood amazed; wo did not, and still do sM, seem to realise that, if the British Empire were treated on tho lines on which Germany would treat it if she possessed it, it could muster an army pf-sixty millions!

It has been said, however, that this Gorman estimate was an exaggeration, and that her whole army really amounted to more like seven millions That is more than ten per cent, of her entire population, Take, as .the equivalent, exactly ten per cent, of :lin population of the British Empire, mil you atill have a useful little total )f forty-three million men; In" other vortls, wc could raise a biggcV army 'han Germany, evoi. if, while jjho calls up one out of every nine of her inuibitants, wo called up only oue out of ivery fifty 1 ~~ It is true that, during the present Mr, it is too lato to reorganise things mi our far-flung Empire on the German dan, but it is equally true that wo arc ilroady sufficiently well organised to 'jo able to got all the men we need, if necessity demands. ENOUGH TO PEED THE WORLP.

Experts have pointed out that from

uilia, whose native troops have already u'quittcd themselves so brilliantly, we

'onhl obtain another million or two z mi "without that country being in the east incommoded by their absence, Again, if wc dealt with our African dependencies and protectorates' as thoroughly as France has dealt with iiers, these would yield us another million coloured troops, ■ But it is not only our resources in men that, under effective organisation, ,'ould enable us to tackle almost the ■vliolc of t|io rest of the world single•landed, Our resources in other directions are equally gargantuan, . Take steam coal, and coal of other ■Juris. In this important commodity ve are "facile priuceps," and many J our richest-fields are still to a great jxtent untouched, India's fields of .ron ore—perhaps the finest and most cxtensivo in the world—arc only just leginning to be worked. Australia and Canada could .provide enough corn to supply the needs of the whole world. V real business management of India, British Africa, and Egypt would give as enough cotton to render us independent of supplies from 'any other ■iountry, In short, there is nothing needed in war-time that we could not produce in almost limitless quantities. GERMANY'S EXAMPLE. We have tea; we have cocoa; we havo coffee; we have wool; w? have rubber; wc have leari; we have tinall in immense quantities. - And;wc produce nearly all the nickel ■■iiHlitworld, and a large proportion of .the gold, ; '■":■' •':■'.■-. ■• ; ; Whichever way,yoiv look, at it, Gci many is, compared with us, quite a penurious, second-rate Power. What she would havo accomplished with our resources at her command can,never be more than N a mutter''-for guess-work; but it'is certain that we. ourselves-will not, in the futurrJ, neglect to,-tako tht fullest 'advantage of 'our reserves. ' .