Trouble Ahead.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2070, 25 January 1898, Page 2

Trouble Ahead .

The ‘Star’ speaking of the Eastern situation says : —lhe whirlpool of European international hates and rivalries has swept Eastwards with surprising swiftness, and now threatens to overwhelm China. How can we, here in Australasia, tell how. soon we,--who regard ourselves as so safely anchored within the regions of perpetual calm, may not find ourselves in the vortex. It is impossible that the Europe n Powers, who hate Great Britain so cordially, can look on that great Isle of Continent so sparsely settled without a single twinge of envy. They, too, have—or will soon have—surplus populations which they would like to see settled in those great spaces of the planet which England has so industriously annexed for hei’self. And if the./ opportunity arose, does anyone think that they woi l ,h Lhesitafee for an instant to swoop down on us and gobble us up? Not they ; they are probably only watching for the opportunity that the decisive victory over great Britain would present to thanu We are so confident of the might o£ the Empire that_we never tro rble ourselves to imagine what such a disaster might entail, and if we did try. to picture .that scene we would probably fail altogether to paint it in its awful reality. We, of all nations, cannot' alf'-rd to.be beaten ; but the day must certainly come, when our stren th and. prowess will be" put to the supreme test in the field of battle., they-arh being tried in the commercial arena. Against these trials nothing will? avail the Empire more surely thau that power which is the growth of unity,