DANGER AND ITS LESSON.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1292, 22 November 1911, Page 6

DANGER AND ITS LESSON.

There are, we believe, not a few thoughtful" New Zealanders who have read in the recent disturbing cable messages about Britain's relations with Germany a lesson of the utmost importance to this country. Nothing is more clear than that German policy has at last produced the result that Britain is constantly on the verge of war, and able to hold Europe in leash only by the weight of her naval armament. At any moment war may suddenly plunge Europe and tho rest of the world into confusion. Is this not a situation that New Zealanders should lose no time in realising? We have on several occasions touched upon the meaning of war to New Zealand, being careful always to avoid an alarmist tone, but the Government has shown no disposition to take any heed of that possibility, and it is in our judgment time to speak quite plainly. Once the facts of our situation are grasped by tho public, we feel certain that they will not bo forgotten. A war between Britain and Germany will not be, what most, people fancy, a matter only of big guns in the North Sea and scattered collisions in the Pacific. It "will be a war in which Trance will be eugaged also, for there can no longer be any doubt that the Anglo-French entente has behind it a secret treaty under which Britain engages io afford France military as well as naval aid in the event of a collision' with Germany. Such a war will not be a short one; it. will last long and will throw into chaos the commercial and financial balance of Europe. What will be New Zealand's easel In tho first place, our export trade will be seriously affected, and our imports as well. Loans will be well nigh an impossibility. We shall have to try and do for tho first time what Ballance saw it was tho highest aim of statesmanship to enable us to do. namely, rely upon ourselves. Had his policy of self-re-liance been adhered to, instead of being cast away for a, policy of almost complete and helpless dependence upon the British moneylender, New Zealand coiild to-day have looked, not with equanimity, of course, but without dismay,_ upon the now daily increasing possibility of a trade-paralysing war. As it is. we have been enjoying to the full the prosperity born of high prices • for our produce and abundant borrowing, and have been encouraged i by our Government to live cxtravi agantly and as if there was no pros- : pect ahead of us but permanent ; peace, high prices for our products, i and an endless supply of_ loan- ■ money. What will happen if war ; breaks out and we are thrown upon i our own resources'J Sir Josehi . Ward said at Devouport last year : that the mere stoppage of public

works would cause widespread bankruptcy and a wholesale exodus of lliu bono iiiul sinew of the nation. From thai, wo can judge how much preparation has been made during twenty years of "Liberalism" to moot, tho greater shock thai no mini can now deny may burst upon us at any moment. Wo should have to pay our way, to earn by the sweat of' our brows the interest on our huge tlrhl instead of gaily paying for it largely out of fresh yearly loans, to go without the. luxuries of life, altogether and also without somo of the necessaries. For we. should have to provide, out of our own b!iour. what wc have for years provided (Ml of loans. It would be done, of course; but at _ what cost of hardship and suffering I We should present no little resemblance to the grasshopper who snug away the summer days and found himself unprovided for in the dearth of winter.

Every patriotic New Zenlandcr should realise that, late as it is in the clay, a beginning must be made to set the national bouse in order. It cannot he done all at once, hut a beginning must be made; and he is an enemy of his country who dares to deny that, with tho European writing on the wall plain for all men to see, the beginning must be made- at once. The serious trouble that fell upon the country as the result of the American financial crises was warning enough of the precarious tenure by which wc hold the "prosperity" that has been built up by nearly twenty years of boomster "Liberalism." Yet the Government says not one word of the need for prudence. The PnniE Minister is eloquent upon the letters of approval that "big men" at Home wrote to him about his queer performance at the Imperial Conference; but what has he to say of the readiness of New Zealand to face a spell of war t Not a word 1 He overflows with high-falutin platitudes upon the Empire and the need for union and loyalty; but does ho ever suggest that New Zealand should cease to live almost entirely upon loans and practise selfi reliance? If he does, nobody ever hears him. Yet ha must know that at any moment loans may be cut off, and, what is more, renewals made difficult, and the country plunged unprepared into the cold waters of self-dependence. Nor does he- give any sign that he will ever, so long as he is in power, abandon the fatal policy of boom and borrow. On the contrary, he shouts louder and more loudly that the outlook -'s rosier than ever. He does not dare to mention what would happen to .us in the event of an Anglo-German war. He would not say how he would finance the country. As we have, said, events call to all patriotic New Zealanders to begin now to struggle out of the morass of extravagance, and debt, and dependence on a set of circumstances that a German diplomatist's pen may at any moment sweep away.