THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1911. THE GROWTH OF NAVIES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14629, 15 March 1911, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 15, 1911. THE GROWTH OF NAVIES.

What is to be the limit of that monstrous growth of naval armamenture which began when Germany first attempted to become the possessor of as large a navy as that of the United Kingdom That the limit is not yet nearly reached is evident from the fact that the United Kingdom has not yet built a ship with borrowed money, although building from loan has been adopted as the financial basis of the naval policies of Australia and New Zealand. Germany is already building with loan money, a tacit admittance that the pace she has set cannot be maintained excepting ; by drafts upon the future; nor is this extraordinary when we realise that during _the__ D.ast_ seven years

Germany's annual expenditure on new naval construction bis increased by 166 per cent., while the British increase has been only 16 per cent. Were Germany alone to be taken into consideration we might assume somewhat reasonably that she is nearing the limit of her navy-build-ing, for navies cannot be permanently or continuously constructed with borrowed money; but for the j time being Germany is not only maintaining her shipbuilding programme on the highest scale, but is drawing into the race her treaty allies, Austria and Italy, while the minor States of the world are industriously ordering Dreadnoughts, submarines, and cruisers, which will undoubtedly be sold to some favoured bidder when approaching war inflates the value of warlike material. Taking the Triple Alliance as an entity which will upon occasion act as one body, we cannot imagine British naval construction halting unless the Empire possesses a distinct advantage over this obvious combination. As the distinct advantage in question is fctill wholly problematic, we must expect that British construction Estimates will continue to. show an increase for years to come, and that a naval construction loan may have to be resorted to in order to alleviate an almost intolerable burden. The present prospects are certainly that British naval expenditure will increase, and that the affiliated colonial expenditure will become more marked. There is no immediate limit to this vast squandering of the wealth of civilisation, and consequently no visible limit to the monstrous naval armamentures of which all mankind is complaining.

For long the British colonies were content to rest in peace behind the naval shield of the Mother Country, but the pressure of naval necessity has reached us at last. New Zealand is paying an increased subsidy, is providing an Imperial battleship, and will probably find herself impelled to make further and increasing contributions of one kind or another to the naval defence of the Empire. The reason is as plain as it is overwhelming. The closing of the road to market would ruin us, and the loss of oceanic supremacy would expose us to the most perilous form of alien invasion, particularly perilous owing to our short-sighted failure to settle our islands with the British population they would easily carry.. New Zealand simply cannot afford to look on while Britain is overwhelmed by the deliberate shipbuilding policies of other countries and Australia is subject to the same compulsion of necessity. Whether the Australian ships form a contingent of the Imperial Navy, or are treated as a distinct unit, they are costing millions of pounds sterling, and will range themselves beside the Imperial Navy in our common quarrels. Canada is being similarly forced by circumstances to build warships, construct bases, and to drill crews. The squadrons of the Atlantic will soon be repeated in the Pacific y what with American, Japanese, Russian, Chinese, and Chilian warships, not to speak of our Imperial squadron with its Australian support. Two or three years ago the idea of a dozen Dreadnoughts marshalling for battle conjured up a vision of appalling things, but already Dreadnoughts are being counted by the score, and it will not be very long before a hundred Dreadnoughts may be found in the fighting lines of the ambitious nations. The limit of this huge burden of armamenture is apparently # nothing more nor less than the limit of the patience of the navy-building peoples. It is easily to be conceived that the time may speedily come when the effect of this gigantic preparation for war will compel war, when nations will practically refuse to be restrained by the diplomacy of statesmen, but will resort to war as a way of escape from crushing taxes and unendurable tension. Over and over again, wars have thus been precipitated, and there is nothing more calculated to make war popular and inevitable than to make civil life burdensome and intolerable by the monstrous cost of an armed peace.