AN OMINOUS POSITION.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 934, 29 September 1910, Page 5

AN OMINOUS POSITION.

I; THE MEDITERRANEAN AND THE : EMPIRE. In a recent.'article in tho "Daily Mail," /.which attracted great attention, Admiral Mahan pointed- out that over four : iifth3 of • tlie ; British ' battleship : force: ! is : at present > in:; the; "Home"': and •"Atlantic", divisions. The, "Mediterranean fleet has' fallen< from eleven battleships ; in.' 1899 : to, six in 1910, and theseof distinctly interior power. .Meanwhile ' Austria 1 and Italy have been steadily: increasing .their. forces.. ;- 7~"'v- . ■>:/. >:■' :\ Continuing . Admiral' Mahan said ' ; the position , was ominous of a day when the Mediterranean may pass outj>i .the sphere* of Bntish . influence,/centrid,; round-'the r ■British Islands exclusively. :; "This will symbolise, ,if..it' doesi.not>,at price- occoni; ■ ! 'pany,; the passing of ' the "Empire'). fM rt a hostile forije in the/Mediterranean controls :not : only an interior; line—as compared with, the Gape route—but an in-terior-position, .'-from, which:'it is opera-', tive. against the Atlantic as well as in .'the'- East;. ;:y> v.,'--■'■"■"lt'is' difficult to overstate the effect of . this upon'the'- solidity: of the, Empire, for •tha.'Mediterraneanjis one' of .the 'great central'; positions* of the mjititiine world; A weakened- Mediterranean . force is the ■ symptom'that:neither as"principal'nor.as, /ally may Great Britain .-be"; able to play ; the, part .hitherto "assumed by her in. the great drama of which -j;he" awakening of the East is the, present act; .while among the dramatis pprsonae are Egypt India, Australia; and New Zealand."