BRITISH POLICY.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 16, 11 September 1912, Page 4

BRITISH POLICY.

The “Spectator” declares that the Government have chosen a policy which can only be described as that of egging Germany on to further efforts. The proper way to meet German competition is not to keep just ahead, and thus lure Germany to one more effort, but to set forth in bold characters a permanent policy. A grim determination to see the thing through, expressed by meeting every German bid by a big rise rather than a small one, ip bur policy, and the policy that will pay in the long run. “Our policy in the Mediterranean,” adds the “Spectator,” “will bring into being a still greater force against us. Our position as regards Italy lias received a shock from which it will take a long time to recover. Up till last May the Italians believed that our sea power would always be maintained in the Mediterranean, and in private, if not in public, recognised that some day it might have great consequences in the shaping of. their ultimate policy. Now it is to be feared they have not the same confidence that they had before, but are haunted by the thought that supremacy in the Mediterranean is not a fundamental of our policy, but that a change once made so recklessly and so unnecessarily may be made again. Mr Church ill’s blunder was probably the worst false step we have made in naval policy for a century, and it will take ns many years and much expenditure of naval strength to live it down.”