Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1909. THE DANGER ZONE IN 1911!

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4439, 22 July 1909, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1909. THE DANGER ZONE IN 1911!

We are not alarmists nor are we nerve-strung. We are firm believers in the moral and material strength of Great Britain. “ German scares ” never give us nightmare; but as students of history and of the signs of the times, we fearlessly challenge denial that there is danger ahead. Those who cry “ Peace, Peace,” when there is no peace, are themselves a danger to the community. “The Spectator,” of 10th April last, should prevent every sane man from living any longer in a fool’s paradise. Commenting on a remarkable article in the April Fortnightly Review, on “ A New Way of Life,” that Journal deals trenchantly with Britain’s dangers. The contention is that we must meet those dangers “ not by battleships alone but by a new way of life.” Luxury and self* complacency must give way to sterner living. Without his thinking for a moment that Britain has begun to decline as one of the Great Powers, or that she need really fear German rivalry in commerce or in Naval Power, he holds that we must put our house and ourselves into order, to avoid a calamity. He says: “ What we have got to change is a certain light-heartedness or complacency of temper that has lately marked our people—the easy belief that everyone must admire and respect our good intentions and our DOble and humanitarian point of view. We have got in future to face the world, not as we should like it to be, but 'as it is—the world of blood and iron, controlled by men who are not humanitarians and philanthropists, but persons intensely human on the other side of man’s nature, persons who do not take what they wquld call a Sunday School view of the world, but rather the view that man is still a wild beast, that the race is to the strong and not to the well-intentioned, that victory belongs to the big battalions, not to those who say that they envy no man anything, and who cannot understand why nations should hate or be jealpus of each other.” Yes, the times are strenuous. The demands of the age cannot be met adequately by effeminancy and mere good intentions. Britain’s burden is a great one and her destiny is pressing hard upon her. Those who saw the British life Guards marchingiup Queen-street, Auckland, after the Queen’s Jubilee, were surprised at the diminutive i size of the men. Hard living and 1 scant fare have militated against the physique of the class from which our (joldjers #re drawn, and excessive luxury has SQrppwb&t emasculated the upper classes whence our officers are drawn. In fact the long immunity from a great and serious European War has made the British a prey to delusions of security and power not based on solid facts. What power and people are trying to rival us?

Germany is the greatest military power the world has ever seen. She is trying to becomo one of the greatest, if not the very greatest naval power in the world. She is rich, her people are valaripus, better educated than most others; she is an almost perfect organiser; she is Hushed with past successes; she is fired with political ambition ; she is impelled by necessity to seek fresh fields for her rapidly increasing population, and aiew markets for her commerce ; and last, but not least, she has persuaded herself that the world’s area has not been parcelled out fairly and she is entitled to see and take part in a fresh subdivision. Hence it is not merely by material resources that we can meet, and if it comes to war, defeat her, Jn England they are clamouring for a million, of compulsorily trained armed men and for more Dreadnoughts, and so far so well; but there must be a physical and moral renovation of the people; The masses do not get enough to eat, while the middle and upper classes are living in what Carlyle called “ pot-bellied equanimity.” Judgment must begin at our doors. We must so adjust matters that the bone and the sinew of the'country, who will have to bare their breasts to the invader, be well fed and clothed. Men must have a home and country worth fighting for. They must be imbued with a spirit of patriotism and devotion to duty. They must be taught to pride themselves in Britain’s destiny amongst nations, and then they will rise equal to any strain that the Motherland can put upon them. Let us too, here at the Antipodes do our part wisely and well. Let us train our young men, physically, morally, and technically, so that when the crucial hour comes that will try us so a 3 by a furnace heated seven times hotter than before, we may be found true to British traditions and Anglo-Saxon stubborness and valour. By 1911 and 1912, it is believed by eminent British Statesmen, Germany’s naval programme will be completed, and we may possibly be in the throes of the greatest strugg’o the modern world has witnessed.