READY FOR WAR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13726, 16 April 1908, Page 5

READY FOR WAR.

WAY TO MAINTAIN PEACE. CASE OF AMERICA. MESSAGE TO CONGRESS. ROOSEVELT APPEALS BOU BATTLESHIPS. By Telegraph.—Press Association.—Copyright. (Received April 15. 9.57 p.m.) New York, April 15. President Roosevelt, in a message urging Congress to provide four battleships of the largest type immediately, remarks that China furnishes an example of peace-at-any-price, while Britain's naval policy ought to be emulated. The Hague Conference and arbitration, should the nations not agree to limit naval armaments, are ineffective as a remedy, adds the President, though they ought to be utilised to the fullest extent. Disclaiming any intention to engage in a war of conquest, President Roosevelt states that America can ill afford to relapse into a position where insult must be borne in silence. If the nation built only two battleships a year America would go backward in naval rank and relative power among the great nations.

This, he goes on to say, would be unwise if America fronted merely one ocean. It would be doubly unwise when she fronted two oceans.

The message concludes: "Neither arbitration nor any other device can prevent the gravest and most terrible wrong to peoples who have lost their capacity for self-defence. If America desires to avoid insult she must be able to repel it. If she desires peace she must at all times be ready for war.''

In October last year President Roosevelt, stated that unless America was prepared to abandon the Monroe doctrine, and be content with the role of a. weak and timid ion, she must steadily build and maintain a great fighting navy. In his message to Congress in December lust he advocated the establishment of a larger army and the construction of four of the largest type of battleship; without delay, as well as defensive works, and coaling stations in the Pacific, which, lie pointed out, was America's coastline equally with the Atlantic. A few days later the New York correspondent of the Times anticipated that Congress would vote more warships, on the basis of what is termed the " two-ocean standard," in which fleets adequate to all emergencies would be kept, both in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Official information showed then that the total expenditure necessary to complete the new naval programme would be £14,000,000. About the same time the announcement was made that President Roosevelt wished £10,000,000 appropriated annually for building five dreadnoughts. Speaking on February 23 Mr. W. H. Taft (Secretary for War) emphasised America's unpreparedness for war. " Our defences," he said, " are slowly improving, and if war is averted for a decade they will be in a better positka than ever before."