NAVAL COMPETITION

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6450, 22 February 1908, Page 8

NAVAL COMPETITION

Ih a cable message in Thursday’s " Times ” it was stated, on the authority of the Berlin “Daily,’’ that Britain is endeavouring to conclude an arrangement with Germany for the limitation of naval armaments. If the suggested agreement fails it is said that Britain will begin the construction of five Dreadnoughts in 1909. It is to be hoped that tho message has made no mistake with regard to tho terms of the alternative, for unless a radical change can be effected in the national sentiment of Germany, she will not modify tho scope of her naval programme. If the impulse at the back of tho progressive policy of Germany wore only tho Kaiser, or thci Kaiser’s Government, there might be room to hope for compromise, but the movement is one that carries the endorsement of every section of the Parliamentary *• Bloc.” According to the careful authority who supplies the notes on foreign affairs to the “Fort-

nightly Review,” the Gorman people, as a whole, are unflinching and unswerving in the pursuit of their naval purposes. The Socialists make no effective opposition, and dare not attempt to offer it. The Catholic Centre upon this one point alone is at one witli the majority, Not only are Conservatives, -National Liberals, and Radicals in agreement; the Radical fractions, once corresponding to the Anti-Nationalists of Britain, arc now explaining to their constituents that they were in favour of naval expansion even when Bismarck was lukewarm. There is no such enthusiasm and solidarity in Britain, whore moderate, Liberals even are making an appeal for reductions in the Navy Estimates in favour of old-age pensions.

Much has been made of the presumption that the Gorman finances will not stand the strain put Ufion them by the demands of the navy builders, but the writer already quoted points out that our financial critics are labouring under delusion. What hampers the Imperial authorities is not the difficulty of raising money from the German taxpayers, who have, really a lighter burden to carry than most of the European peoples. Their national debt, while not comparable with Britain’s, is largely made up of money borrowed for reproductive purposes, 92 per cent, of the railways in the Em-pire-being State-owned. The financial difficulty lias been created by the dual system of taxation, under which the Imperial authorities levy the indirect taxes, while the Federal States collect all the direct imposts. This system must, sooner or later, be changed, and, meanwhile, the ability to pay the annua! cost of a navy greatly larger than that now maintained resides in the people. So muoh for Germany’s resources. What she is actually doing may bo gathered from a tabulated statement in the semi-official “Marine Rundschau.” From this it appears that whereas the Gorman Navy Estimates for 1893 totalled six and’ a third millions sterling as against Britain’s 24.3, the relative figures in 1994 were 10.3 and 37.6, and in 1907 13.9 and 32.0. For next year the German estimate is 20.3, and for 1911 23.1. The British figures for those dates aromas yet problematical, but if the relative proportions are to be maintained, it is pretty clear that the Government must wholly disregard the outcry of the economists. Between 1898 and 1011 an increase of 300 per cent, is shown m the German figures, while ours, on the known basis, have only advanced 50 por cent. There is muoh in the facts presented to make us Britishers thoughtful.