BRITAIN’S MIGHT.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 January 1919, Page 5

BRITAIN’S MIGHT.

SEA POWER WHICH HAS SOLVED THE WORLD. (From the London Express.) Throughout many centuries of history every Power m Europe, with iho sole exception of Germany, has challenged our sea-power and paid the penalty, we bearing the cost, and freedom and civilisation r.nip.mg the reward.

The bitter resentment shewn in Germany in 1914, when 11'•■tain, in defence of the sanctity of treaties, Entered the lists, arose from an appreciation by those military longshoremen that they had to measure their artificial and mercantile sea power against that of a people whose every instinct savours of the sea.

Germany’s whole plan was upset when England, to her dismay, entered into the lists ip 1914, and for four long years the mailed fist has struggled hard to seize the trident, and now has definitely failed. In his vast scheme of world power ho rested his right flank on the North ftca. his left on the Persian Gulf, and sought by pressing down to Salonika to establish midway a Mediterranean bridgehead which should take Gibraltar in reverse and threaten the flank of bur line of communication eastward .

He laboured by means of railroads and alliances and submarine effort to smash us and conquer the world, for he knew (and he knows it better now) that a necessary cpndition precedent to world dominion is the elimination of Britain as a sea Power. It is well that we should without boasting- speak at this crisis in the world’s history of the part we have played, for there is the risk at the moment, in our appreciation of the undying courage of the Belgian people in martyrdom, of the soul-stirring work of the immortal French Army, of the magnificent effort of the soldiers and people of America, and of the yonderful record of' our own de voted troops, that we may overlook all that our sea power has meant and still means.

To what does the world owe the smashing of the right flank of German ambition on the North Sea? To what does the world owe the annihilation of their Mesopotamian dream or their world strategic belt? Why has it been possible to maintain for four weary, years, until the psychological moment the force which first held and has now pierced their world

scheme centre? There is but one an-

swer—i.e, the might of B'ritaiu ou the sea.

The destiny of our island peoples is ocean borne, and in our conception of that destiny we have over and over again preserved not only the freedom of the seas, but also that of many lands.

Once again humanity has been saved from tyranny, and in coming years when. ,mcn ask what saved the world, there is but one answer —“The might of Britain on the sea.” We are told in the story of creation that God called the lands into being from the depths of the sea. The Genesis of Germany’s ambition lay in envy of the sea power of Britain; its Finis, now in sight, has its epitaph—“ She defied the might of Britain on the sea. ’ ’