Will They Fight?

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLVI, Issue 10, 8 March 1911, Page 51

Will They Fight?

The “Vie Ouvriere,” the organ of tho General Labour Confederation of France, published recently a remarkable article by the well-known Revolutionary Socialist, Merrheim, who relates how he and his fellow-wtwker, Lefevre, of the Jewel Workers’ Union, were returning to Paris by the Boulogne express after a recent Birmingham congress, when they entered into conversation with a certain English naval construction engineer, who was on his way ..to'Budapest and Constantinople. The. discussion turned upon the question of respective national superiority in the matter, of naval construction, and the capability of various yards and works. “I maintained,” continues the writer, “the superiority of Germany over England in that the latter had failed to renew and bring thoroughly up-to-date her constructional facilities. The Englishman agreed, just as the Congress in England had agreed, to this view, and he then directed the conversation on the possibility of a conflict between England and Germany. ‘That would be a queer war,’ he remarked; ‘what would Austria and France do?’ Neither Lefevre nor I attempted to hide from him that England must not count too much on France, and not at all on the working population of France, which would use all its efforts against war. ‘Whatever there may be in that,’ he replied, ‘we shall have war within five years. We shall be worsted by Germany at the start, but we shall

end victors.’ ” The writer concludes that this well indicates the true state of the generaf opinion in England. War appears inevitable to the people generally. Writing in the “Matijji,” M. Edmond Thery' gives some stupendous figures to show what the burden of armaments is costing Europe. During the twenty-five years from 1883 to 1908, he shows that Europe spent £9,800,000,000 on military armaments, the total expenditure rising from £164,040,000 in. 1883 to £301,440,. 000 in 1908, a regular yearly increase’of over £5,000,000. During the period Germany’s armament bill had increased by £40.000,000 as co>-rpared with Great Britain’s £31,400,000 and France’s £12,440,000.