MR. MASSEY’S PREDICTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 2044, 21 October 1919, Page 2

MR. MASSEY’S PREDICTION.

The Prime Minister’s speech on Ike question' of the government of Samoa in the House last .Friday evening was a well-informed one, and made a good impression; on both sides of the House. In his dosing words he made it clear that? they were not hiking up the whiteman’s imrden in Samoa for immediate gain, but that if was necessary perhaps for their own ultimate preservation to have such strategic positions in the Southern Pacific. The opening of the Panama Canal gave' an added importance to such possessions in the Pacific. Then they had Admiral Jellicoe’s report in which recommendations of tremendous importance were made. “I have a feeling,” he said,’“that the next war may be a naval war, and that the storm centre may be in the Pacific. There is fortunately no cloud on our horizon now, hut we must be prepared, and we cannot leave our preparations', to the last moment. We may not he able to do all Admiral Jellicoe recommends — I don’t think we shall —hut we'can do. something, and should that great day arrive, I. believe we will unite as solidly in naval warfare as did the armies of our Empire on the western and other fronts, where they did justice to themselves, to their race, and to the countries to which they belonged.