The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10. THE GERMAN NAVY: ITS "RAISON D'ETRE."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 335, 10 March 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 10. THE GERMAN NAVY: ITS "RAISON D'ETRE."

Brief mention was made in the cablegrams at the latter end of January to the speeches delivered at an important meeting of the German Navy League at Kiel. These speeches, full particulars of which appear in the Engish files to hand by the last mail, snow with unusual clearness the '"raison d'etre" of the Imperial Navy, and the attitude of the advocates of sea power in Germany towards the question of disarmament. The occasion of the meeting was the lecture on "England and Germany" given by Professor Harms, who occupies' the Chair of Political Economy at Kiel University. Among nis audience was not only the president of the Germany Navy League, Grand Admiral von Koester, but also the third son of the Emperor William, Prince Adalbert of Prussia, who is an officer of the German Navy. Thus the meeting may fairly be said to have received the stamp of official sanction which in the cas<e of Germany is all-important. Professor Harms appears to have begun his speech by a laudation of Protection as the source of Germany's increased wealth and expanding trade. He then went on to make a suggestion which the correspondent of the Times s'ays is looked upon as inconceivable by the bulk of thoughtful Germans, and is cer-

tainly an impossibility,—namely, that Britain "might forestall this growth of power of her industrial rival by going to war" with her. The Professor considered, however, that a position of security against this problematic war or aggression was not unattainable, "Jot England's position in India and m Egypt and the exposed situation of Canada compel her to practise extreme caution in regard to the concentration of her forces on one spot." While admitting that uftder present conditions the burden of taxation which is imposed by the construction of a navy in audition -to a great army, is not justifiable in theory, Professors Harms says that Germany is living through one of those periods in which a nation is required to make sacrifices to the limit of what is possible. "If the belief prevails in many quarters that the German people finished its great tasks on the battlefields of France, that is a fatal mistake in which we cannot long indulge with impunity." We do not, of course, wish to infer too much from the speecli of a angle speaker, but in view of other evidence as to the tendency of public feeling in Germany, one cannot resist the belief that Professor Harms does represent a very large part of German opinion, and, what is far more important, expresses the views of people who exercise a very great influence upon the governing caste. What we have to consider in the case oi a bureaucratic State like Germany is not the voters—the people at large. These count for comparatively I little. The men who matter are the, men who have their hands vpon the

levers that control the great Govern | merit machine. If the German people could have been polled on the policies of the attack upon Dnmark, the war! with Austria, and the deliberate ani calculated actions which led to the war with France, they would almost certainly have condemned them root and branch. This' fact, however, did not in the least prevent Bismarck and those associated with him planning and carrying out the policy of expansion and aggrandisement which led to Germany occupying the position she now occupies, and to the placing of her policy upon lines which it has followed ever since Roughly speaking, the aim of the new Bismarckian school is to do on the sea and in the world's sphere what the old Bismarck school did on the land and in Centra] Europe—namely, to give Ger many the dominant place. The new Bismarckians, like the old, do not be lieve that their ends can be attained through sentimental or idealistic means. It their policy is to succeed it must be through blood and iron, and through political action which many onlookers would designate as brutal and unscrupulous, but which Bismarck himself would hav« denned as •real," and dictated by common-sense and worldly wisdom. As the Lonu;m Spectator, which reviews the whole of the speeches, says, this' policy, rightly or wrongly, cannot be carried out without taking away from the British people something which they possess now, and which they have hitherto believed, and we think will continue to believe, is absolutely essential to their welfare, nay, their very existence, and that is supremacy at sea.

The Spectator continues:—"ln ralswig the question which haunts a certain number of German minds—i.e.. that we may do the so-called common-Sense ffikg ami not wait for Gorman naval preparations to be complete—we adm.t that we arc touching delicate, naiy,

dangerous ground. We should theretorc like to take this opportunity of saying! once more that we are certain that the j British people could never be induced to adopt what we may call the Bis-' marckian plan of insisting that the struggle for sea power shall take place

while the Germans are notoriously so, much weaker than we are. But even: if we thought it would be possible *o induce the British public, which we are' sure it is not, to change their minds, in this respect, and to attack the Germans before their navy programme is complete, we should refuse absolutely to advocate that course. The best proof j we can give of the sincerity ot >»ur - words is the fact that we, and, what is far more important, all other responsible advocates of a supreme navy In this country, are pledged to the alternative policy—the policy of so greatly increasing our own armaments that Germany will not be able to catch us up and that our present relative supremacy will be maintained, if that is done, there can never he any valid reason for precipitating a war. If, however, we advocated a Bismarckian policy lor Great Britain, it would not be necessary to ask for more "Dreadnoughts' to be laid down. W| should have a far shorter and easier, and apparently cheaper, way of dealing with the German Navy. It is because we are one and all determined to have no thing to do with a Bismarckian policy that we insist that our shipbuilding •programme must be very greatly enlarged. We want to deal with the German competition, not by the short way, the war way, the way of attacking her while she is relatively weak, but by the longer way and the peaceful way of

so greatly increasing our own armaments that she will have to abandon the struggle and a conflict will be avoided." To summarise the matter, there are two ways of securing thai command.of the sea which all Britons* are agreed must be secured to ua. On« is by destroying the German fleet before it has attained dimensions sufficiently great to put our sea power in jeopardy. The other way, and the way all sane British Imperialists and defendersl of our sea power advocate, is a scheme of naval construction so large as to neutralise, and more than neutralise, German competition, and to maintain our present relative position of supremacy. All friends of peace and of the maintenance of existing relations with Germany should rally, then, «o the cause of a supreme Navy, and should make it clear that it is in this way, and in this way only, that we intend to deal with and defeat German rivalry. The policy of disarmament by agreement, as Admiral von Koester shows, is purely chimerical. Even in the most favourable circumstances agreement as to armaments would only be. possible if there were but two naval Powers existing in the world. The door for agreement as to armaments being closed, there is only one policy for us which is compatible with international comity and goodwill, and that is the policy of outbuilding and outmanning the Germans in their attempt to wrest from us the command of the sea.