Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1909. PREPARE! PREPARE! PREPARE!

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4436, 15 July 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, JULY 15, 1909. PREPARE! PREPARE! PREPARE!

We most devoutely wish that we could believe the cablegram dished up in the Auckland daily papers on the Ist instant, stating that General French officially reported that the British Army was in a state of efficiency and ready for war. Ne cannot believe it. General French is an officer justly in high esteem in Britain. His past services in South Africa entitle him to the high esteem in which he is held, and we do not think that he would intentionally mislead his countrymen ; but he is only human, and therefore he cannot escape the temptation to put on Army affairs the rosy hues that the Government require. Lord Roberts said in May last that “ War is no sham, but the British Army is.” That was a severe and serious indictment. The London Daily Telegraph based a leading article of nearly two columns upon it. It claims that the territorials who are intended to supplement the army, and to be a second line of defence, have not obtained, and have no orportunity of obtaining, those soldierly qualities which alone can make them reliable in a great national emergency. They are insufficient in numbers, and the efforts of the Government have failed in getting either quantity or quality. Carefully guarding against discouraging the Territorials, the Tele" graph points out many very serious defects in their organisation. It says : “We dare not deceive ourselves in this matter. The situation, as every responsible person feels, is difficult to an extent altogether unprecedented. . . . Yet it is impossible any longer to suppress the truth without danger to the nation. It would be a public misfortune —it would be something like a crowning calamity—if, as a result of searching criticism of our whole military system, the Territorial Force should be discouraged. . . . It is irrefutably true that we are as unready for war as at the opening of the South African Campaign. It is equally true that, considering the change in the condition of the world during the interval, we are even more exposed than ever to military disasters great and fatal.” With such grave reflections before us we cannot but ask ourselves what New Zealand is doing to get ready for our duty in the coming struggle ? It is evident that we shall live in a fool’s paradise if we Goptept ourselves with trusting to the Motherland without adding our own quota to f,urn the fortunes of war in her favour. FroiP what Lord Roberts and the Telegraph say Britain, in the Military sense, is “ like a clay vessel floating amongst iron pots that may knock against us ” Shall w& then placidly drift to destruction f No f The army cannot guarantee the immunity of England’s shores, or the performance abroad of our treaty obligations. For two centuries the military defences of the United Kingdom have never been in so unsatisfactory a position. It was better in the days of Marlborough, who never fought a battle that he did not win, and never beaeiged a city that he did not take. War being one of the most remorseless of realities, sparing neither age, nor sex, nor wealth; and punishing rich and poor alike, it is madness to neglect the warnings of Lord Roberts, one of the erstwhile foremost soldiers of the Empire. Naval matters are also unsatisfactory. Lord Charles Beresford publicly avows, on the authority of ft frtenda of liis, whose knowledge of strategy and of warships building was supreme, that to put England in a state of safety by March Slst, J. 914, ten new Dreadnoughts and other vessels would be necessary.” He added that it would cost about £60,000,050 and, “ unless they acted immediately it \ypplq b e 00 late.” Let us New Zealanders urge our Government to be ready to do its duty to the Empire.