DISARMAMENT.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 759, 7 March 1910, Page 8

DISARMAMENT.

GERMAN ADMIRAL'S STRONG . VIEWS. At a. recent Navy League gathering in Eeil Grand Admiral von Kooster, the president of tho league, following a lecture by Professor Harms, made a statement on tho naval disarmament question which, in ™ew of the fact that the speaker has been Commander-in-Chief of the Battle Fleet, has' held nearly all of the highest posts open to a German naval officer, and enjoys close intimacy .with the present chiefs.of the naval administration, may be taken as representing, fairly accurately the view of the Ministry of Marine. Admiral von Koester said:—

"I can only say that I have recently been much occupied with this question (naval disarmament). I have read with interest all the articles published on the subject, and I have not found one that offered anything which might serve as a handle to any practical proposal. We ought to disarm!.ln the first place we will take the doctrine that only the absolutely stronger can disarm. He, however, will not to so (laughter). Then the vanquished can disarm. About the hardest condition which the conquerer can impose is when he says to the vanquished: Disarm.!' And we Germans know best of all what that .means, when we remember the bate. and bitterness compulsory disarmament then created.

"We now come to the third principle: international disarmament; but what docs that mean? An international disarmament among all the nations—it must necessarily apply to all nations, for we do not build our fleet against a single enemy, but against any one who wants to tackle us (der uns an den Kragen will), and therefore, there, most be an international agreement among all peoples. Do you believe, that that is at all possible? Eor such a purpose there would have to be a permanent .congress, which would have to be perpetually calculating in this fashion:—'From to-day .you have-the right to build so many ships. . Now you may build another torpedo-boat because your economic interests have grown, your exports, have risen so-and-so much.' At all events, for . me,- international• disarmament is a wholly dark idea upon which I am entirely unable, to procure any- enlightenment.. . • ■■.',• .

"A scale is lacking to serve as a stan'dardof disarmament. If a comparative study were made.of the way in which the various .fleets were'.built up in tlie nineteenth century, how they expanded and again , diminished, it would be seen .that the process is a changing one, that it varies even from year to year, and naturally 'varies : all- the more when countries make economic, progress. I consider, therefore, that f disarmament can only mean the paralysis of : free development. There is, as, Professor Harms has shown, a fourth principle of ' disarmament—disarmament based. on alliances. Now, if one wants. an ' ally one must be up to the alliance, standard, of power. To comply with that rale a ynation-must-. bring something with it into the alliance—an army or a fleet. I{ it has neither -and brings nothing .with it then "it is not worth.acceptance as an ally.

"But even if one were willing to take an ally, that would not relieve one of one's own. duty of ■ the need of spending money on thenarniy and the fleet, for alliances aro ; of : eternal duration; Alliances appear to-day and are gone to--morrow, and the political horizon changes constantly from day to day. , To-day may be sunshine—to-morrow blackest darkness. But how does this fact appear in relation to the development of a fleet? A fleet is so complicated a machine that it. takes decades—l might say half a century—to, brine one to .full and entire development.- Even if ships can be quickly built, the organisation, .the building up of the system,,is-a.'tkiugitTiat requires many.; years. Therefore, even in the case of an alliance one would still have in order to provide for .the eventuality,of fresh complications, to build and arm- a, fleet and' to carry it.to its full development. That is my view of the disarmament question." :. ,