The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, AUGUST 1, 1902. GREAT BRITAIN’S POWER.

Gisborne Times, Volume VIII, Issue 491, 1 August 1902, Page 2

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. GISBORNE, AUGUST 1, 1902. GREAT BRITAIN’S POWER.

Oca cablegrams to-day give some interesting information as to His Majesty’s arrangements for the great event next week. An article written just before the date originally fixed for the Coronation has been kindly supplied to us by a friendi and should surely cause a thrill of pride in all Britishers. We are asked : When was the sound of deep calling unto deep heard with such “ heart-shaking music "as in the salute with which the Fleets of the Empire spread out round all the compass of the sea will proclaim to the whole wide world the Coronation of the King.’ There have boon endless suggestions as to the method by which tbo great festival symbolising all tbo tradition and hope of the race might receive the accompaniment of some entirely unique, apt, and impressive celebration. The scene within the storied walls of the grey and glorious Abbey will be tile supreme sum of national memories and inspirations bound up with the visible transmission of the sovereignty of a thousand years. Each of the professional pageants in London will be one long spectacle of reunion between his Majesty and his people. The Naval Review at Spithead will bo one more reminder of the lesson we cannot too often remember—that power, like charity, begins at home, and if we are strong in ourselves all other tilings shall we added unto us. Tbo glittering Durbar at Delhi will be an Oriental version of the Field of the Cloth of Gold arrayed on behalf of the Monarch who holds “ the gorgeous East in fee," though crowned so far away. Throughout the dominions of King Edward flags will be flown and festooned, reviews and parades will be held, and the race will bo woven together by rejoicing as by a garland. All these ceremonies and spectacles will bo a repetition in an enlarged and enhanced form of the features by which Royal State and loyal enthusiasm are exhibited upon the highest historical occasions. But the desire for a supplementary device which should convey in some wholly unprecedented and effective form the complete and single sense of Empire was still left unfulfilled. In the new era of Imperial life which has beon opened in a creative and auspicious hour by the results of the war, how could tbo spirit of British unity and sovereignty be conveyed in a way which would mako a simultaneous appeal to the imagination not less of the Colonies than the Mother Country, and not more to ourselves than to all the world ? The answer has boon found in the idea of the salute round the globe to be given on Coronation Day b,y the squadrons of the King's Navy throughout the Seven Seas. The stupendous symphony of the guns will throw a chain of thunder round the planet, and remind us onco again that, strive as we may to embraeo their meanings, the British Empire and British seasupremacy are conceptions ever compelling our minds to make wider and still wider efforts to realise the indescribable magnitude and splendour of the heritage we hold in trust. A favorite fashion has introduced into; the terminology of international affairs pbrase3 like world-policy and w "C l 'ld power. These are .convenient additions to the vocabulary for general purposes. Iu the strict sense of the word, there is still only one world-power, and that is the sovereignty of Britain. When “cannon to cannon speaks thunder to thunder" the mighty homage of King Edward’s Fleets, rolling from shore to shore, will add yet another impression of Empire to all our experiences qnd will make us feel, as we had never felt before, that England, with a foot on every Continent and a fleet in every sea, is the one and only Power which, as the old ballad lias it, can “ rise with the sun and ride with the same until the next morning he riseik again.” Compared with the significance of our universal ensign, even the realm of Russia, stretching in one vast block of territory across two Continents, is limited and local. We alone, of all peoples, have done in earnest—even if in absence of mind, as Sir John Seelej used to teach us—what the Persian envoys were told to do in irony when the mocking Athenians cast them into tho well. We havo taken all wo wanted of “ both land and water.” -

Never sineo gunpowder was invented by Rogor Bacon and artillery by Borthold Schwarz has a Coronation been attenod by anything remotely approaching the homage of iron throats which has superseded the old clashing of shields. From Spithead at tho appointed hour tho first tremendous signal will be given by the “ far-flung battle lino ” of a hundred ships. The full-mouthed message will be taken up and passed from port to port along tlje'British coasts wherever a vessel of the King's Fleet lies at anchor. At Gibraltar the guns oi tb.e Royal Sovereign and of the cruisers detailed to join her for the occasion will echo across the Straits from rock to rock that British sea-power still stands sentinel at the entrance of that classic sea which remains the strategical centre of our naval system. The Mediterranean Squadron, which Sir John Fisher has just handed over to Sir Compton Domvile, after raising it to the highest pitch of efficiency it has known since Nelson’s time, is now the most potent and splendid fleet under one command that ever flew a flag. For the Coronation the sixty modern ships of which it -'■its will be distributed from point to ini- /‘'Ores whicli have been the cradle hiatni-Tr The salvoes of tho main or nistOLy. _ n i Xc ft-rt J 'fcerraneau Sauadron cii\ ision ot the JMcu ~ c n will boom out at Malta. —. , J’ King Edward’s Accession will he 0I “ S 0

the hills of immemorial Crete. The note will bo repeated at Constantinople, at Cyprus; at Smyrna, the gate of Asia; and Alexandria, the gate of Egypt. It will pass through the lied Sea to Aden. It will be transmitted from the gunboats that watch the scorched littoral of the Persian Gulf to the vessels scattered through the Indian seas. Far to the south the worldsalute will reverberate in Table Bay. Onward to the east, across a trackless space of ocean, it will be continued in the harbors of the vast Australian Commonwealth, and again in those of gallant little New Zealand. The voice of the powerful command now assembled upon the China station will emphasise the re-assertion of British prestige in Far Eastern waters, whether for the satisfaction of our Japanese allies, or for the benefit of those who regard with different feelings the fact that England once more has free hands to defend her interests in every quarter of the globe. Upon the other side of the Pacific, the guns of the Navy will awake the echoes of the Canadian coast at Esquimault, while three thousand miles away the ships at Halifax will be giving the signal to the Atlanta shores of the immense Dominion. So the whole circle of Empire will be expressed by the most wonderful girdle of sound which man ins ever yet put about the earth. Nothing imaginable jcould have been better calculated to interpret at once the glory an I the genius of that vast political system over which the Coronation will solemnise King Edward’s sway. We have seen in the South African War that the Navy

ami the Navy alone, is the fundamental and indispensable agency by which the Empire subsists. Even in our warlike emergencies the most purely military in appearance, our Army would be of no more effect without sea supremacy than would be the arrow without the bow. Given the undisputed and indisputable command of every ocean by the ships of Britain, we can launch the striking power of our arms towards any point of the compass. In the South African trouble, where all our military strength has b j en locked up for nearly three years, we have seen that the force of the Navy has been sufficient to keep the foreign hostility

which has surrounded us in cheek, and to ensure the free pathway of the seas for the Colonies springing to our aid. But if the power of the Empire is concentrated in its Fleet, the power of the Fleet is concentrated in its guns. Now more than ever, more than when the superior metal and better service of Drake’s ships crushed the Armada, the essence of sea-power lies in the efficiency of naval artillery. The deep note of the naval guns in the salute round the world will be the very voice of the might of Britain, and the supreme suggestion of the sense ot Empire associated with the crowning of the King.