PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3250, 28 June 1916, Page 69

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

} WORLD-WIDE REPRISALS. j Tiu> week'.' Wiiiie-s contains abort a couple' of (.:o!iimi!S of cube on the Pans i Conference. The resolution*, if given ' eift-ct to, will be Ear more reaching than ! any of their kind that have previously ! appeared it) the world's history. They ! viJ necessitate Great Britaiu departing from the fctisli of Freetrade, so stubbornly held L>v the Manchester school. But times have changed since Great Britain built up her greatness on Free-trade principles. In | the middle of the eighteenth eentuvy, a position emphasised after the Napoleonic I wars, Britain—and' more particular!;,' hngj land—had a lead in manufactures. Coal land iron, lime h>r flux in smelling, and clay of 'the kind necessary for making firebrick, made manufacturing possible at a cheap rate; further, the introduction (if the factory system and the absence of any factory legislation,.the unrestricted employment of children of a tender age, the employment of women, Houses of Parliament representing landholders, and later, when the Reform Bill was passed. i the wealthv commercial interests —these 'and other causes, natural and artificial, i gave Britain a lead which was unchalI longed until within recent years, who;: the United States, Germany, and Japanother nations, but these principally—by Protection in its vaiious phases began to dispute l:er position. WAR TWENTY-FIVE YEARS There are many who will vigorously '■oppose tho adoption of the programme of the Economic Conference just held, holding that we should not restrict, trade, and. that restriction will cause a perpetuation J of the ill-feeling the present war has j given birth to. We cannot help that. ! We have had a commercial war with GerJ many since the end of last century, and ! her determination to repeat the Napoleon- | ism of a century ago, her building of a fleet, and her almost superhuman efforts on land and sea are to -blame for the present position. Commercially and territorially, Germany aimed at worldpower. For her economic expansion a war was not necessary. The trade of the world was open, to her, as it was to all other nations of the world, and nowhere was Germ;; 1 ! frii.de freer than with the British Empire. Such a nation cannot be argued with or reasoned with, for it aims at a dominance no self-respecting nation can tolerate, so if, the war will result, in the formation of an international police force on land and sea —and the Allies and some of the neutral nations will be called upon to supply this —to prevent bullying, something will have been accomI plii-.hed. From a general point of view the war, which has made the conference, necessary, is an objective one as far as Germany is concerned, for her object is control outside of herself; but it may be called a subjective one, too, for, according to many observant men, it had to come from causes within not connected, with territorial or commercial expansion overseas. These students of great movements say that the lauded proprietary wanted a war to stifle the agitation of the working classes and prevent reform of land laws i and a change in the incidence of taxation ; while the protective and unfair methods adopted to expand industries and encourage exports had brought the country to the eve of commercial insolvency. Here the military caste came in by promising a war which would divert attention from 'and reform laws, which were wanted by commercial interests as well as by the proletariat, because tho cheaper the land and the less restriction on reproduction of food products, even to the abolition of all duties, tire lower would be the wages required by employees in exporting industries. On the other hand, the annexation of colonies of Holland'—for Holland was to follow Belgium—Belgium, Franco, and Great Britain, together with restrictions on the subordinate nations and immense war indemnities, would place Germany on a sound commercial footing. So both land-owner and manufacturer were to be made safe, though onposed to each other as a class, while the worker was to be satisfied with the glamour of glory and the promise of prosperity through the acquisiton of colonies and a world-wide expansion of commerce. Well, this commercial war has been going on for 25 years or move, has cost us hundreds of millions in preparing for the inevitable war, and led the German Empire into a commercial bankruptcy the consequences of which the war was to aver!. Of course, apart from worlddomination aimed at eventually, there appeared to the German mind the necessity of preventing a Slav consolidation in the immediate future. REPRISALS IN NAPOLEON'S TIME. [ reallv started with the idea of outlining what was done in tho Napoleonic wars, but thought T had letter clear the way by a few remarks', which will necessitate my running into another Chat. As a convenient starting place, I think I'll start with what followed Trafalgar, a reference to - which in the Legislature was made in Napoleon's word.-: ''Storms caused us to 100. some ships of the line after a fight imprudently engaged." Having failed in crushing Britain's Soa Power, he said, "The sea must be subdued by tho land." Rose, in his "Life of Napoleon," writes: "Whatever may be thought of " the means he adopted, the design is not without grandeur. Granted that Britannia ruled the wave., yet' he ruled the land: and the land as the active fruitful element must overpower the barren sea. Such was the notion: it was fallacious. . . ." GERMAN PORTS CLOSED. At the point of the sword Prussia came under Napoleon's iron heel, and in February, 1806, after the demobilisation of her '

J troops, Berlin, at the cost of a naval war I with England and the loss of her maritime trade—l may touch upon Germany's former maritime greatness one of these days—agreed to exclude British ships and goods from the v. hole north-west const of Germany. This is the eosumenc ' icnt oi the " C intineulal System " by which Oroat Britain was to be reduced to imBut the attempted control of the Continental trade to the exclusion •'■ Great Britain led to very curious re.-ulls. "In order to stalemate her mighty roe. lie contiol the resources of the tropics, and thus prevent that deadly tilting of the balance landwards which Napoleon {--trove j(o effect. And fate decreed that the conI quests of Englishmen, seamen, and settlers j were to be more endurin ; til an those of | Napoleon's legions. While the Frcm h ! were gaining barren victories beyond the Viiitula and Ebro. our seamen seized French and Dutch colonies, and our pioneers opened up the interior of Air traiia and South Africa." Our monopoly ot Sea Power not only gave us the colonies of Napoleon and his allies, but it also depressed the trade of neutrals. j BFJTAIX'K O.RDER-IN-COUNCTL. I Three months after Britain retorted by ! the Order-in-Cbuneil of May 16, which declared all the eo.vi between Brosl and the Elbe in a state of blockade. Perhaps j the question arise;: : Vv hat is an Order-in-Oouv.-oi'? In years long gone by il was an'order b'sued by the sovereign by virtue of his prerogative; but nowaday? it has become the custom in numerous "Acts of Parliament to authorise the permanent departments by Order in-Conned] to make t-i les under the Acts so that details, of legislation are entrusted to permanent oti.c:als," but at the same time the Order- must not 'be used to modify the laws. I fancy that, tuning the progress of the present war. Orders in-Councii have been used to modify, and in some cases, I think, to almost nullify, the work of our vigilant fleets. Next week I'll take up this subject again.