MR NORMAN ANGELL.

Southland Times, Issue 17014, 12 April 1912, Page 3

MR NORMAN ANGELL.

ABMAKETJTS DEBATE AT THE CATrIBKIDGE UWIOir, LOXTiOX, February in. Mr Norman Angcll. author of "The Groat Illusion." trick rart In the debate at the Cambridge Union last night. The motion proponed .by Mr Verburgh, M.P., president of the .Vary Lcasrue, was "Tint the safety of the British Umpire and its trade can ho .secured only by an unquestioned British naval supremacy maintained on the basis of two heels to one.” This was opposed by Mr Xorman Angell. not, as he explained, because he was a non-resistor or opposed to armaments—he thought a country was entitled to defend itself against attack to the last penny and the last man hut because the motion inferred that a Government and people had done iheir duty when they had secured superiority in armament in the way suggested ; whereas they had only done half or less. Tiie two peoples must come to understand the facts which lay at the bottom of their relationship, or fight. Such overwhelming superiority as that claimed by the motion made it impossible for German diplomats in the event of international bargaining to talk on terras of equality. This was not, as had been suggested, a luxury, but. in terms of existing ideas in international politics, a matter vital to the national future of a great people. Admiral Mahan himself bad declared tluit the supremacy of Great Britain on the seas

—■——W—» meant a perpetually latent control of German commerce and policy. A nation expanding at the rate of a million a year could not do thus, if we ourselves were right in our views, accept passively the dictation of a rival. Englishmen would never accept such a position. Why should they expect Germans to do so ? The policy of insisting on overwhelming supremacy and disregarding altogether the necessity for arriving at an understanding would end either in the exhaustion of the two peoples concerned or in their collision. Neither result would secure the safetv of the Empire or its trade, but would', on the contrary 7, place it in great jeopardy. It was in a completer realisation by the two parties of the real facts of international relationship that had achieved for Great Britain security against a still greater Power than Germany, one which spent still more money on naval armaments, and one much more able to injure us America. What had been done with America could be done with Germany. The British Navy League and the German Navy League should devote at least part of their energies, to conferring together to arrive at a mutual understanding concerning the policy behind armaments. If they did that and they could do it they would be doing infinitely more for peace than they were. Until such efforts were made a part of their objects the speaker doubted whether they should have the support' of either patriotic Germans or patriotic Englishmen.