AMERICA'S BIG NAVY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14704, 3 June 1920, Page 2

AMERICA'S BIG NAVY.

(By libbert Blatehford.)

Taking advantage of my recent confession that I do not know everything, a correspondent bluntly informs me that I do not understand human nature. I wonder who can have told' him. I have 'met men who professed to understand human nature and to understand women, too, but I have always found them give the race, and especially the women, such a character that I have wanted to apologise to the gorilla. For my part I do not pretend to understand human nature, and I realise that I shall never be credited with such understanding, for I am an incurable optimist, and to get credit for a profound knowledge of the human heart one must paint it as "foul as Vulcan stithy."' Truly, shepherd, the position of an optimist in these shaken years is not an easy one. The world as it 'appears to-day is in a state to scare all the faith and cheerfulness out-' of Mark Tapley. All the nations of the earth seem to be growling and showing their teeth, and the daily papers reek with records of crime and violence. "When Noah embarked on the Flood he saw a Yorksliireman standing up to his knees in the rising water. Noah asked him if he did. not repent his refusal to join the Ark, but the Yorksliireman answered: "Thee be blowed. Noah, it's bahnd to clear up." That Yorksliireman had in him the roots of wisdom and understanding. The skies are black to-day, and storms are lo6ming on every horizon, but I believe it will clear up. I believe we shall muddle through. I have : not 10-t my faith in human nature. I always tackle the claim that human nature is bad as I tackle _the charge of drunkenness brought against the British people. If the people are so drunken and so idle, who does all the work? If human nature is so base and wicked, how does society hold together, what makes our cit'es and villages safe, how do we still hold fast to freedom, what is the foundation of credit, who thinks all the good thoughts and does all the good deeds? I suggest that when we have "acknowledged and confessed our manifold sins and wickednesses" there remains in the human race a. deep if latent fund of goodness. "When we have recognised and laid bare all our follies and vanities, there remains a solid and sober human reason to which we can appeal. Mankind has just . come bleeding and ' amazed through four years of agony. What can we expect but soreness and unsteadiness We shall pull through. It will clear up, Noah! But. we must help. It is a sacred «luiy to speak words of gentle and moderate counsel to a frantic work! in the hour of our trial. The latest fashions in ladies' hats, the prospects ot" the great fight between Monsieur Carpentier and Mr Dempsey. and the struggles of Mr Asquith to regain political power may be matters of thrilling interest to those of us who are interested in such things; but we must not relax our efforts to prevent the world from perishing under a wave of criminal insanity. Whether or- not we eri-, . thuse over the attempt to rehabilitate the Liberal party it behoves us to plead and to work for an understanding as to how that peril shall be avoided, i The peoples are unhinged and excited. They are not vile nor violent, but they do not understand. Take as an example, the latest news from America. The United States has • voted £55,000,000 for naval construction. The Americans are determined j to have a navy stronger than the British Navy bet'ori- 1924. Why? This great American N-ivy is being built, as we are frankly told, ,in rivalry with our Navy. With what purpose 'i Do the American people imagine; that ■our Navy will ever be used against them ? Do they believe that the British nation would commit the crime of forcing war upon the United States? Or do they contemplate the possibility of their making war on us? . Unless there is a visible"' danger of an Anglo-American war. the building of this great American armada is - a simple waste of monej\ There is no other naval Dower . against which such a force would be required. And the; American; big-Navyites do-not pretend

! tlic-ro is. America has decided to l.mikl j gigantic navy in rivalry with ours. This is what I mean when I urge. | plain exposition of any peril of war, and candid discussion as to the I grounds of the suspicions, or angers, j cr jealousies which may develop' into , a demand for war. i If Americans think an Anglo--1 American war so probable as to demand the creation of an enormous navy, they must have in their mind; j either a doubt of our intentions or ,an intense antipathy to u.'\ or they ; must imagine they discern some con- ! flic-ting interests between- us and them of a nature so difficult and- serious as not to admit of peace ib!e -solution. So I put before our renders two opinions. I say. first, thnfc I c-annct conceive, and I do not think any British citizen or statesman can' conce've of any circumstances arising which would incite us to enter upon any avoidable ituarrel, much lens a war. with the United States. And'l say, in the second place, that I am quite at a loss, and I think all our people are at a loss, to discover any cause of offence or of rivalry of such a nature as to justify America in de-. daring war upon us. Anti-British feeling is strong in America, we know, but between such national antipathies and the waging of a horrible war there is, or ou.ftht to be,.a wife gulf. American Aiiglo(phobiii._ sometimes takes unpleasant and questionable shapes, but no anti-British speech, or vote, or article will incite in us a desire to rain down poison gas and liquid fire upon American homes and women and children whom we liavp never seen and against whom we have none but kindly feelings. Jf the Americans do not like us, then "thev like us not, perdye," and we shall* have to do without their friendship. but we shall not therefore be seized with an insatiable desire to cut their throats or blow them and their cities to fragments. And if they on. their part are so incensed against us that they seriously contemplate the wholesale murder of our people I suggest that it will bo wise to put before them the nature and the consequences of modern scientific warfare, so that they may decide soberly whether anv real or imaginary faults of ours would justify them in the perpetration of a. crime the horror of which has never been equalled in the historv of the world. It is not the fact tlujt America, has decided to build a great fleet which concerns us, but the fact that she is going to build her ships Against us. There is another aspect of the question. Might one ask if America is going to build ships against us. are we •to commit the folly of building ships against, her P Because what I said about the Heedlessness of a great American Navy applies with equal force to our Navy." There is no nation likely to be hostiie to us which has a navy that could meet ours/ Are we then to begin a ruinous race of armaments with a. people of whom we find it impossible to think as enemies? If America, wants a bii Navy she will have it, and having got it she will probably he happy, but we have rio money to waste upon mad efforts to /'go one better" than the United States'. The situation between America and ' Britain is not at all the same as the prewar situation between Britain and Germany. I may bei told again that I do not undearstand human nature. but I shall still venture the opinion that the relations between- the United States and us will never grow so bad as to excite either their people , or ours to tte frenzy of war. . ■ • In do not believe that the British or' the American people will ever be guilty of such a crime, provided that the nature of the crime is. brought home to them and that they understand. : ,Since I began this article I have received a very interesting letter from a Stockport reader on the subject of America and the League of Nations. My correspondent does not approve -of the League of Nations, neither do I in its present' form, nor do ,1. presume to, offer any alternative plan. -Myobjeet: is to make clear to the peoples of the. world certain facts and developments, i Germany has made > war more hor-' rible and wicked than it ever was., Modern science is making it rapidly 1 worse: I want the peoples to realise what an appalling tragedy the next great war will be, and I want them to ask themselves whether there is any

i existing or probable cause of quarrel between nations which could justify resort to the atrocity of modern scientific war. I said before that war does not advantage even the victor. I said we have just won a. war, and I hope we may never win another. I add now the reminder that to be victorious in a modern scientific war a nation would have to perform such deeds of ' ruthless and inhuman violence that its people would go melancholy mad over the contemplation of their own bloodguiltiness. I ha.ve neither the time nor the talent for the construction of elaborate treaties of peace. That is work for other hands. My concern is to get the nations to see that war lias become so cruel, so murderous, so inhuman that no cause can justify or excuse it, and no sane person can take part in it. And, to return to the subject of the American naval programme, I mean to say that the; spectacle, of two great nations walking round each other' like a couple of savage and jealous dogs, snarling and .baring their teeth, is a sight to make the angels weep. If we can get the American and British people, to understand the nature of the monster modern military science is creating they will .be compelled to admit that war has become impossible.' Then we shall adopt the attitude of -President Wilson, expressed in. the .quaint form that "there-is such a thing as being. too proud : to fight,'' or at least we shall acknowledge that -there is-such a thing as being too good to. ;fight. ; r , : ; Or am I wrong again in my reading of human nature, and is mankind so incurably and so utterly bad as to be beyond reach of truth or reason ? J: am congenitally unable to accept that counsel of despair. ■:.;lt is quite possible, of course, tliut America's naval challenge may be accepted seriously by some of little faith, and that we may be urged"to build more and more huge battleships, and to concoct more deadly gases. Would it be too much to ask that one of the many millions of poiinds earmarked for a foolish race of armaments with another State' might be devoted to the task of awakening the people of -thp world to. the peril in which they stand ? Thus crusade against war i? one that can be run on simple lines. We could do a. lot of propaganda for a, million pounds, and a. million pounds is not a ouarter 'of the cost of one. superDreadnought.