Te Aroha Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, MARCH 17. 1898. A DISQUIETOUS DREAM.

Te Aroha News, Volume XIV, Issue 2086, 17 March 1898, Page 2

Te Aroha Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, MARCH 17. 1898. A DISQUIETOUS DREAM.

In an able article on strengthing- the Navy, an Auckland contemporary ia view of Mr Goschen’s speech—a report of which appeared in Saturday’s cables—lays special emphasis on the vigorous recognition by the First Lord of the Admiralty of the necessity of England’s firm grasp of the naval supremacy of the world. In the fir3t place the British Isles receive all their food supplies from oversea, and a single reverse in the home waters J would mean famine prices for the commonest necessaries of life within a week for crowded millions. What a serious disaster might mean requires no conjuring trick on the part of the imagination to conceive. The erst while Mistress of the Seas would speedily be starved into subjection, and the Christian world would become r an amazed spectator of the greatest tragedy since the Crucifixion, the downfall and humiliation of England at the hands of a semi-birbarous power : like Russia, and Faithless France, for to such a conjunction of hostile forces the stars at present point. Again : England’s navy must keep Jpace with ; Russia’s, which Power means to spend £21,000,QU0 this year, and at a ratio of two to one, for has not England a coastline, including 1 the colonies and ■ dependencies, she is pledged in honour to defend, oft thousands upon thousands of miles, whereas RTissia has no colonies and hardly any coast line. What need to- ask why Russia is preparing to spend these enormous sums -—ninety millionsof roubles in one year —if she does not intend making an effort to realize her most cherished tradition —-that she among the- nations is to be first that her glorious destiny, promised by the saints—a promise sealed by God with* the blood of those saints, is-ta rule-the world, and finally that Constantinople ia to- become the Byzantium of the Greek Church and a second Rome in the glitter of its power and dominion, No one can hide his eyes to the truth that Russia, a country about which we know little- or- nothing—the giant that has slept unnoticed in- a corner- of Europe for centuries, is wakening up, to- the amazement even of her own Czar, and with massive hands,, backed up with a cunning unequalled in European diplomaticcircles, is beginning the task of remoulding the world, and to fulfil the predictions of that extraordinary man —half prophet, half madman, but undoubted genius and man for the time in-which he lived’—the Czar Peter— Pierre le Grand 1 , by whom- the Russians swear, and whose policy they consider it, with the unquestioning faith of blind fanaticism, to be their sacred duty to further, though they iwade- through bl'ood to- its attainment. The Russian idea of colonisation ia to rule a conquered people with a rod of iron.. The subjugation- of Poland, the knotting oft half-naked women of noble birth in open market places pour encourager les autres -, the merciless butcheries of whole- families and the wholesale deportment to lingering deaths in the mines of Siberia, of men whose only sin was a noble impatience of tyranny tell their own tale. It is these things that stamp the genius of j the leaders oft the densely ignorant, priest-ridden millions of Russia. Remembering these things—which should be burnt info our memories by this time,, it is hard to read unmoved such news as was received yesterday from Oamaru-, particulars of which our readers will find published in another column, .and in which it was stated that the- New Zealand Government cartridges were so hopelessly defective that their use had to be abandoned. War, when it comes, will be swift, and unless we can beat off’ the first swoop of the eagles—scare them by a determined front—the. sun of New Zealand, -as a British colony, will have set for many a long day.