THE NAVY ESTIMATES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 764, 12 March 1910, Page 4

THE NAVY ESTIMATES.

We have not had long to wait for the protests of the British Libera] Press against the magnitude of the Navy Estimates. The admirers of the Daily New will find it a little difficult to decide from the tone of its comments, recorded in a cable message to-day, whether the House of Lords or the Navy is the object of its warmest detestation. "Both Britain and Germany," it says, "are witnessing a fioroe struggle on the part of the_ rich to make the poor pay the price of this insane competition, which leads to tho creation of irritation, hate and craven fears." Even the Daily Chronicle, is indignant, and the Government will have to rely for press support 'on the Times and the Unionist journals. To those who, while they deplore the increasing burden of naval expenditure, yet realise the folly of the disarmament, idea, tho Government's decision to adopt a vigorous policy will not appear more satisfac-. Tory than tho principle laid down by Mr. M'Kekna in replying to a Radical member's inquiry whether "the recent friendly statements of the German Government" would influence the British Navy Estimates in tho -direction of retrenchment. "The

Navy Estimates," said Me, M'Kenna, "were not based on the assumption that other nations meant to be ' unfriendly. They were framed to preserve our standard of naval power." No utterances by German Ministers, he pointed out, indicated any intention to modify Germany's expenditure. The German Chancellor, it is true, was very emphatic a few days ago .in affirming Germany's frankness and mildness, and her concern only for "the free expansion of her economic and social forces"; but he did not suggest a cessation of naval activity, or even a slackening of it. The real view of responsible Germans can be detected in, a speech delivered in January by Grand Admiral von Koester in commenting with approval upon a lecture by Professor Harms, the Professor of Political liconomy at Kiel University, who said that Germany must "make sacrifices up to the limit of what is possible, since it is "a fatal mistake to suppose that the German people finished its-great. tasks on the battlefields of France. The Grand Admiral could see "nothing in the least degree practical in all the talk about disarmament"-

The Powe-.- that'was absolutely strongest could disarm. But it did not do so. A conqueror could compel the conquered to disarm. Nobody knew better than the Gorman people what that meant. There was a third conception-the so-called internattonal disarmament. Germany was not building against a single opponent, and therefore any international agreement must be an - agreement among all the nations. Did.they.telieve that Japanese and Russians, Turks and Greeks could ever agree upon a definition of their navies? International disarmament could mean nothing except the paralysing of free development. It was sometimes suggestea that there was another way—the way of alliances. But the truth was that wanted an ally he had to be strong and bring, to the alliance either an army or a navy. .

Although, as a prudent "Big Navy" man, the Grand Admiral was careful to say that only the "hotheads" tailed to see that Britain could not be caught up, ; and that Germany did not want a navy equal to Britain s, he admitted that Germany must have' a navy strong enough to protect her against "all conceivable attacks. Such a navy, obviously, must be one capable of challenging .British supremacy on the seas. There ? re °nly two ways of securing that supremacy—either Britain w h a t the Spectator calk _ the Jjismarckian policy ,J of Emashrmariy before she goes much iurther, or else she must build on such a scale now that her rival will have eventually to abandon the struggle.