THE GERMAN NAVY LEAGUE AND ITS IMPORT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3065, 9 December 1908, Page 4

THE GERMAN NAVY LEAGUE AND ITS IMPORT.

In the "Pall Mall Gazette" a correspondent writer: —"Nothing is more remakable to one who visits Gemany than the contrast presented by the ignorance and want of interest, in naval matters evinced by our island people with their huge coast line and oversea possession?, and the intelligence and eager enthusiasm displayed by Germans all over tha Empire. Its journal—"Dgie Flote"—possesses a larger circulation than all the other German monthly periodicals combined, and may be seen in almost every cafe, inn, barber's shop, and private house. All the year round an army of lecturers with cinematograph apparatus, on the lines of "Our Navy," penetrate the provinces and familiarise the country people with the idea of naval power. These lectures draw as many as 15,000 people every month. During the summer the league brings to the sea somtJthjng like 5,000 children of the inland towns and districts. The children and their teachers are munificently entertained, conducted over the warships, and taught the imperial bearing of all they see. Thus it is that the Germans under the influence of this persistent and skiltully directed agitation, have actually gone navy-mad, and are ready t© back without demur the vast sums continually asked for by the Emperor to remove the reproach of inferiority from a proud and ambitious people."