THE STRATEGY OF THE EMPIRE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4740, 23 August 1902, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE STRATEGY OF THE EMPIRE

(From Our Special Correspondent.) LONDON, June 27

In. tlie current “United Service Magazine," Ur Miller Maguire lias an article entitled “Tlie Coronation: its Strategic Significance," in which he calls attention to the fact that many of the present, visitors to this country from various parts of the Empire come trom districts which are not to be found in any map existing in June, 1838, the date of the last coronation. It has astonished him to find, how great has been the change in Canada, Australia, and Africa since that comparatively modern date. “At least half of the guests" he says, “from those lands dwei. in towns or villages which did not exist fifty years ago." In reference to our position in Africa he remarks: “With the absorption of the Boer Republics practical! supreme in Africa —from Grardafui to Sierra Leone and from a lino joining these places to Capetown and Port Elizabeth. We control the Nile Valley from its source to the Mediterranean, and for the first time, since the days of of Ptolemies, we are putting the navigation and irrigation • system of that river into proper working order." After asking his readers to keep their , eyes on the Navy League map. Dr Maguire compared it with a mail of the world fifty years ago in order to show the extraordinary significance of the geographical distribution of the invitations to the Coronation. The fact that troops and stores from the mouth of the St. Lawrence, from Imli ■ Auckland, and Malta converge on Capetown and Durban is to him “indicative of profound strategic developments for the future, and puts the British colonies on flanking strategic points which oufcht to make us invulnerable.” This, however. he qualifies by saying: “They will make us .invulnerable if our politicians will only condescend to work at their business, end follow up the splendour of the Coronation ceremonies by hard work and serious study, so that Die more prosperous children of the same people may come joyously to the central isles at U-c next coronation." Dr Maguire emphasises the necessity of our preserving the command of the sea at all costs, and of understanding that the "centre of the commercial and strategic sea power is no longer in the Atlantic but in the Pacific. The questions whether or not our food supplies can be best procured within our Empire, and how it can best be protected and stored are, in his opinion, “issues that cannot possibly be neglected with impunity if we are ever to hope for success in a long continued»war with any great. Powers ,or combination of Powers, as, for example, took place in 1759, 1781, and 1797."