IS OUR COUNTRY SAFE?

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13193, 2 June 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

IS OUR COUNTRY SAFE?

MY TOHU.VGA. Tin: sensational romance, "The Invasioi (1 of 1910, ' by William Le Queux, now ap e jiearing as a serial in the Ni-:w Zkaj.axi n Hi-;raM), only puts in a popular form ; !t question which i« beginning to excite at d tention not only in the United Kingdom 0 where the plot ot this particular story i d laid, but throughout Greater Britain, a. Possibly Egyptian Copts, Hongkong Chin 1 ese, Burmese, Malays, Hottentots, Zulus y Cingalese, Hindoos, Beluchese, Polrnes d iatis, Fan tecs, Esquimaux, and a few linn if died other , varieties of those who dwel t beyond Mesopotamia, are also interestec 1. in the fate, of the Empire and possibh r 'hey are not. A horse can't always know when he has a humane rider and pre sumably would like to be sent to the sale yard every time it feels the spur; but wt y don i usually consult it when discussing s family business and so we needn't worry r about what Hottentots and Hindoos think » of an Empire in which they are only in 1 eluded because they can't help it and in which there is every reason to suppose ,_ they won't, stay two minutes longer than l they can see their way out. What is v most important to each and all of us—or 1 should be—is whether our own British country is safe, meaning by British country any and every part of the Empire in which the Britisher is able to live a [ thoroughly British lite. That is Out 5 Country. And this is the immediate pro--5 blem of the day: Is Our Country safe? '-theoretically, Our Country.is quite safe k as long as the Navy holds unchallenged , command of tlio sea, because in every part 1 of the world the English-speaking lands 1 are separated by navigable water from any 5 possible invader. For the Americans are not "possible invaders" of Canada in the I common-sense meaning of the term. They [ are as English-speaking as we are, and . more so, for there has never been a cent of Yankee money spent on teaching in any but English schools, a good national example which the British ought to have copied long ago. Nor could any military i invader find his way into South Africa without crossing water any more than lie could into Australia fir New Zealand or the Old Country itself. So if we take it for granted that 110 hos- , tile-fleet- could keep the sea against the British Navy we make, short work of the query: Is Our Country safe? But without belittling the Navy it is certain that we. trust altogether too much to fortune when we trust to the Navy altogether. We ignore the evidence of history. Wc fly m the face of facts. It lias frequently been possible during great naval wars for the enemy to transport bodies of troops by sen in spite of British navai superiority. This was not usually done, tor the very simple and obvious reason that after the Normans grafted upon it their military system -the simple little country up in' the North Atlantic was a wasps' nest, whose swarms plundered and born, home the honey' of every land. Before- the days of standing armies : an inI yader •might "as well .have put his head into a wolf-trap as . hav-e ventured into the land .where the gray goose flew, and it is notorious that Elizabeth, shrewdest of all English Sovereigns, placed her great reliance upon the landsmen . and not upon the seamen of i->ugland. Her seamen most nobly proved themselves to be. as brave-as they were' piratic, but what Englishman can' doubt . the .. welcome the Spaniard would have received from the nation that rose at -message-of- the beacons? "For the lathers of Elizabeth's Englishmen had marched to Flodden and their grandsons; rallied in arms to King or Parliament as their humour took them, and proved themselves under Cromwell the finest fighters the world' ha.s ever known, lhus we come to the standing-army times' ushered in by a period of such naval weakiioas hilt the British fleet could not keep the Dutchmen out of the Thames. at l ' ie ' Hmous sieges endured by Gibraltar, at the fierce struggle 'for. India, at : the aid and succour given by the French to the American colonists! ' There was 110 "command of the sea" in tb'is—at least, no such command as would be regarded as securing us against- invasion today. .. But the 1 standing army" had hypnotised the world. The old "armed nation" had gone, its fighting done by the professional soldier, for' whom it " was thought 110 citizen soldiery could lie a match. England's "standing army" and England's subsidised allies kept England's enemies busy 011 the Continent, and left them with neither the men* nor the energy to employ in invasion. You hired soldiers in those days as now you may hire a «asmeter; and .England of the G?or<;es hired Germans for the American' War. with what l esult you may read in a little document given to the world in 1776. For the descendants of the Cavaliers, in Virginia, and of the Cronnvellians, in New England', were English enough to fight- with a" good appetite under conditions that gave them ample time to-recover from every defeat. We are told that Napoleon's experience ill Egypt is proof of the necessity of securing the command of the sea, before risking transport over it, and we are reminded that the Washington Government would not move upon Cuba until the Spanish fleet was located and penned up. But fortunately we are Hot all fool enough to agree with the experts that- naval war is plaved like chess. They ought to know better than the inexperienced—but they don't. One has cither to be expert or idiotic to compare the effect of landing in Egypt with a landing in gland, or the situation of an American Government at war with Spain to the situation of a. Continental Government at war itil England or ail Asiatic Governmentat war with these colonies. Why. Cuba wasn t worth the loss of a single American regiment, while a. deadly blow at England would bo worth the risk of half-a-dozen army corps to any one of the military nations who count their army corps by the score. While we have the' hard fact that Japan rushed into Corea. and. Manchuria while Russia still had a fleet in being and succeeded because she did not follow the maxims of experts. If Germany may possibly leap, upon England it is infinitely more possible, that Js.pan or China might some day leap upon New Zealand and Australia, for alter all the English and the Germans are united by a, thousand threads of communication, while between the Australians and' (he Asiatics there is an impenetrable wall of racial antipathy. We can talk prettily to one another, but who would know what a,ll Asiatic Power was doing if the order went out to do it, on the strict q.t. 11l the simply organised society wherein every village is industrially self-sustaining and every town is organised to resist perpetually expected attack war lingers long and victory sways for years in the balance" But when civilised society becomes complex, having the great town as its heart, and' when millions depend for their daily bread upon uninterrupted industry, it is manifestly possible for a military nation to raid a non-military nation and strike it suddenly down. A-quarter of a million invaders) thrown upon English shores or a hundred thousand thrown upon New Zealand shores, fully equipped, ably led, recklessly hurled upon the commercial and industrial centres, might pull England down and endanger the occupancy of New Zealand —if we were not able to meet them face to face the moment they landed. It is within reason that even while England possesses the strongest navy alloait such raids might be made, for the great military nations have made every ' man a soldier, can put millions into the j field and can afford to hazard whole armies ! 011 a, great chance. At the present lime the ; ; English speaking are the only civilised States in the world whose entire populations ' - are not trained to arms.' As long as we could not meet 011 any equal footing any, . possible raiders, navy or 110 navy, we call- . not consider Our Country saile. ~ [ :