The West Coast Times. MONDAY JUNE 17, 1912. MEDITERRANEAN PROBLEMS.

West Coast Times, 17 June 1912, Page 2

The West Coast Times. MONDAY JUNE 17, 1912. MEDITERRANEAN PROBLEMS.

The Imperial Minister for War states that when the Overseas Dominions have organised their naval and military forces, the Empire will become the most powerful military and naval nation combined that tho world has ever seen. “Time,” Lord Haldane tells ns, “is on our side;” but during the transition -period it is necessory that wo should realise how perilluusly near the verge of war is the march of international politics. ib< vastness of the British Empire, am the existence of the corresponding!; huge machinery by which it has beei built up and is still maintained, giv to it a strength and stability which i lacking in smaller and more accidents organisations. Yet this very size o the Empire brings it face to face wi hj problems in every part of the world, nor can any great problem be ignored bv Imperial statesmen or by those British democracies which aro the mainstay of the Empire. In tho Pacific wo have the Asiatic problem, common to New Zealand, Australia and the North American coast, concerning

hvliicli it maj xamjj no owes much of its acuteness to our colonial neglect of land settlement. Nearer Homo, there is the North Sea problem, involving the collapse of the Empire if the United Kingdom docs not keep her age-long supremacy of the narrow seas. India has its frontier problem; South Africa has its Black problem; wheroever wo turn there are Imperial difficulties and Imperial complications, constantly demanding the watchful care of Imperial statesmen and everywhere aggravated bv domestic unrest and uneasiness. Among thorn, Meditcranean problems have lately been increasing in magnitude, and now threaten to temporarily eclipse others and to occupy something approaching their former importance on the stage of intornationol politics, 'Hie decline of the Mcditeirancau problems which once agitated and disturbed the whole European world was due to the decline of tho Powers seated around the great inland sea. The Mediterranean, like the North Sea and the Pacific, depends for its political importance upon tho rivalry displayed there between great and nearly balanced nations. When Greece triumphed at Salamis, when Home overcame Carthage, when Venice boat back the Turks, when Nelson beaconed Abonkir Bay with burning ships, the Mediterranean was the arena of those deadly and far-reaching combats which change the destinies of mankind because on its shores wore «in+.oo which siimed at world-wide

Ie dominion. The approach of Russia, and the evident necessity of barring l against her “tho road to India,” kept the ■ Mediterranean in the forefront (iff Imperial politics until towards the dose of the Nineteenth Century, but Uoaconsficld barred Russia at the Danube by throwing in her path a group of independent States,, and when the eyes of tho Tsars turned to Manchuria tho old “Eastern Question” ceased to interest. France had not only become an ally, but had renounced world conquest. Italy was engaged in the task of national regeneration. Spain had failed. Austria abjured maritime ambition. From the Pillars of Hercules to tho Suez Canal nothing challenged the peaceful niovc- — meats of British ships, whoso guardians hold both ends of the great sea and were entrenched midway at historic Malta. Mediterranean problems slept, hut they are reawakening with inevitable changes in Mediterranean conditions. The recent visit to Malta paid by the Imperial Prime Minister, the First Lord of tho Admiralty, And the Consul-General of Egypt was significant enough to set every European capital on tho watcli for extraordinary happenings. To tho endless series of possibilities thus presented for discussion, and to the manifold -.surmises thus created, may be ascribed the rumour that Italy intends to band over to Germany one of the islands recently captured from the Turks. Other European Powers would certainly have something to say before such a transaction were permitted, and tho international prospect with Germany as a Mediterranean Power need not be discussed until the rumour is confirmed. What is more important at tho moment is the fact that every leading European Power is beginning to consider its position in the Mediterranean and that Britain is taking steps to strengthen herself in that sea. We aiv told that Franco can command the Mediterranean on behalf of the Triple Entente, and we know that tho greatest of Imperial soldiers and organisers is in Egypt. But the Tripolitan Walls as far from finished as it was six months ago, and from tho complications which may easily result before it i_ safely ended a general European war might easily develop. In that undesirable event the Mediterranean as well as tho North- Sea may well be the scene of naval conflict and far-reach-ing strategy.