Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1908. GERMANY AND GREAT BRITAIN.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43377, 24 September 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1908. GERMANY AND GREAT BRITAIN.

This above all—-to thine ovon self be true, And it must follow as the night the day Thou canst not then be fake to any man Shakespeare.

While heartily endorsing the Kaiser’s expression of a desire for universal peace, as conveyed to the Interparliamentary Congress last week, we cannot blind ourselves to the fact that so far as Britain’s relations with Germany are concerned, the only way to insure peace is to prepare for war. We are no Jingoiste, on the contrary our policy has been that of preserving peace wherever we righteously could. But the question arises “ Suppose Germany should insist on our fighting her, what then?” And the only answer could be “ Why then we must show Germany that she is merely going out of her way to get a thrashing.” Expressions of goodwill might be very comforting, if the evidence were not so remarkably much the other way. But in this case the evidence is the other way; What is the meaning of Germany’s great naval schemes ? We know only too well where the wind sits with regard to that. So far back as 1884 Treitschke said “We have reckoned with France and Austria ; the reckoning with England has still to come, apd it will be the largest apd most difficult of all our struggles.” To which we would add and if we are worth our ancestry, the mojat bootless too. As recently as 1890, the “ Deutsches Wochenblatt ” expressed the opinion that ■' Our motto should be ‘ With the whole continent against England,” upon which very amiable motto His Royal Highness our King Peacemaker has since read Germany a discomfiting comment.

feeling has made its way even into the cracker-mottoes of the German child at Christmastime in the couplet

“ When we get our brand - new

fleet ” “ Won’t we make the British squeak,” and the German child is contributing his pence to the object of getting that “ brand-new fleet ” into order for the thrilling experiment. There can be no doubt whatever that since Britain must retain her

supremacy upon the seas she must be prepared to keep well ahead of Germany. So far as the Dominion is concerned we would suggest that she should increase her annual contribution for defence purposes. We are not harrassed by the destitution which prevails in the Homeland, we are a long way from having reached, as a country, the point of diminishing returns, and we can afford to increase the amount. We may not go so far as to adopt, off hand, Sir Thomas Bent’s proposal to raise a loan for the equipment of “ An Empire Fleet to guard the Pacific.” though there may be much to say in support of such a scheme, but wo do say that for ourselves we ought to be doing more than we are. We have shown the Motherland that we would giro the best of our blood for the defence of Empire, let us show her that we are equally prepared for that commonplace practicalness which often comes harder to a Britisher than pure heroism. She will prize it none the less that it is merely an affirmation from her younger sons that they do not expect her to do quite all in this matter of naval -supremacy, but though able to contribute a trifle only, will yet make that trifle as acceptable as possible.