NOT FOR AGGRESSION.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 6451, 24 February 1908, Page 10

NOT FOR AGGRESSION.

Speaking recently at a function at Stirling, Mr Haldane, the Secretary for War, said tho Army and Navy were not to bo a means of aggression. They had got perhaps moro of tho earth’s surface to control, but they -were not to think of aggression. Their army and navy were to be a means of protecting and standing-up for what was their own.—(Cheers.) If they had a perfect organisation of the army and navy, ready to strike if necessary, then they had got something which was rapidly understood abroad. —(Cheers.) Ho was not one of those who believed ,that foreign countries, any more than ourselves, were always looking out for the opportunity of attacking their enemy. These wore flays of profound peace, and the nations had awakened to the feeling that war was a national calamity to every nation that undertook it. But while that was so. it was equally true that unprepared ness for war was also a national calamity.—(Hear,hear.) While tho armaments remained what they were, while the relations of the Powers of tho earth stood as they did, they might ho sure that the nation that was unprepared and which it was known was not effective would in human nature count for less on God’s earth than it would otherwise do.— (Hear, hear.) They as a nation had to stand up for tho rights at times of oppressed people, and they had to see to it that the British influence was an influence that could bo made effective when there was a suspicion of tho op-

pression of small nationalities. It was not without responsibilities that they occupied their great position in the world, but to make the influence of their Foreign Office cifectivo they required the means to come to tho backing of that Foreign Office.—-<Cheers.) It was therefore not a question of aggression; it was a question of the real strength of the nation being realised.— (Cheers.) It was the desire to keep this nation in tho position in which it had hitherto been affective for the work which was associated with onr name that ho was keen that we should not got behind tho standard of our time in tho organisation of our means of making our influence felt.—(Cheers.) It was in that spirit that tho new plans were concerned, not for aggresion but for defence.