THE COLONIST. SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1916. THE PERIL OF SEA-POWER.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14153, 15 April 1916, Page 4

THE COLONIST. SATURDAY, APRIL 15, 1916. THE PERIL OF SEA-POWER.

The easy, outlook and extravagance of living begotten of security are vigorously denounced by Mr. Archibald Kurd, the noted naval expert, in the "Fortnightly.. Review." He declares that our naval success is'our greatest peril. There' is practically no unemployment at Home, wages generally are exceptionally high, and the war is popular with the wage-earners. The nation is, nevertheless, confronted with Increasing economic embarrassment. On the one hand trade is being crip-1 pled, with the result that the country is becoming-poorer day by. day—using up wealtn at a prodigious rate; on the other hand it, or rather a large section of it, is enjoying a periodrpf apparent prosperity - and spending freely the War wages and war allowances, forgetful that a country which is ceasing to produce wealth to the normal extent, and whose expenditure will fall little short of £1,600,000,000- in the present financial year, must have a rude awakening unless it mends its ways. The end of the war is hot yet in sight, but end it will in our victory; and if we are not'to mortgage the coming peace the whole nation must turn itsattention. ;to, - the task of effecting economies. >Ye can only hope to bear, without- fainting, the burdens which the struggle will cast on us if determined efforts are made to cut., down the cost of administration, central and local, to save in our homes, and to preserve our commercial position in the world. If the: triumph of our cause is accompanied by the impoverishment of tho nation to an extent that it cau no, longer maintain an unchallengeable fl ec t_and that is a possibility, for. naval power is likely to become more costly owing to the awakening of the United States—we shall' emerge into the new area no longer the greatest sea-power in the world. And if our sea-power goes it will not be long before we shed other attributes of our greatness. In the riot of war expenditure it ■is forgotten, says Mr. Hurd, that the vanishing productiv.6. industries represented new wealth being created, whilst the war industries represent old wealth which. is being dissipated. The present prosperity of the country is purely artificial. It is one of the nation's misfortunes that.it has not realised the extent of the. burden it is. bearing, and the yet heavier burden which it may be called upon to bear. It behoves the nation to economise, and the individual to be parsimonious, otherwise the situation, already serious, will soon be much worse. Economic exhaustion arising as a result of the dual working of sea-power, for us or against us, is as likely to bring the war to a conclusion as. man exnaustion, declares Mr. Hurd. The postion is of the simplest: we xnust save in order to conserve our resources of money; the chief enemy, the victim of our sea-power, must spend in order to add to his resources of food and material for prosecuting the war. We may be confident that the economic strain will break the spirit of resistence in Germany long before we begin to reach the limit of our realisable financial resources. That confidence may be justified. On the other hand, we are opposed by a people highly organised atid co-ordinated, which is making war cheaply; whereas we. are neither the one nor the other, and. are'making war most expensively. The Germans by methodical methods will make their available supplies last far longer than we could do were we in the-ir position, and they can probably outlast economic conditions which to us would seem impossible; we, on the other hand, are not methodical, and we are not exhibiting as a people the virtue of thrift, nor have we hitherto ordered our manhood after any carefully-thought-out plan, skilled and, in some cases, indispensable, men having joined the Army. The enemy's peril arises from the fact that he cannot use the sea to obtain supplies; ours from the fact that we can, and that we are abusing our sea-power thus, if not imperilling our eventual victory, at any rate delaying it and making it far more costly than it need be.