The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14. WHILE BRITAIN SNORES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 159, 14 October 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14. WHILE BRITAIN SNORES.

Dr. Morrison, the famous Australian journalist, who is correspondent in China for the London Times, is a very remarkable man. He is a scholar, diplomatist, fighter, medical man and essentially and wholly sane. He knows China and the Chinese perhaps better than any white man living, with the exception of Sir R. Hart, and he says there is no ''yellow peril" as far as our race is concerned. Although a remarkably astute and careful man, Dr. Morrison has since his student days lived almost wholly away from Britain and the Continent, and now he is again in London he has taken the opportunity of telling English people that it is "European peril" they should be thinking about. He accuses British people of snoring in peaceful laziness while [ unexampled preparations are being made in Europe to take from Britain all she holds most dear. We cannot, of course, , concede that Dr. Morrison's indictments ' of British sluggishness show infallibly that the sluggishness exists, or even that so great a man. is necessarily correct in !his view. This much, however, seems plain. While Britain's Navy is still immensely the most powerful fighting machine in the world, her system of military service is weak. Whether Britain will be able to crush this European | terror on the water remains to be seen. IThe necessity for the awakening of the military forces at Home is that it may be ready to smite the invader who has , wiped out our navy and who lands on British shores. It is not to be forgotten ; that Britain was able to send nearly .300,000 troops on foreign service eleven 'years ago, still garrisoning the Home 'Country, India and the vulnerable points of the Empire. Since that time, every possible means has been taken to show .that Britain must be wiped off the map .if it does not wake up. The Briton—and this need not be counted unto him jfor righteousness—refuses to be "guyed" ,into soldiering, by absurdities like "An Englishman's Home," the sheaf of illwritten books threatening invasion, the screams of retired admirals and the hosts of arm-chair generals. We believe that official Britain is keeping much cooler than its excited critics, that knowing the Territorial idea has utterly failed it knows what to do as a substitute, and that conscription will come. We believe j that as the Briton is the best disciplined man in the world that he would rather be forced into soldiering than "guyed" or frightened into it, and that the citizen army will be a very large one at the first distant shot. It seems certain that critics believe the quietness of a people is sheer sleepiness. Quite apart from a tolerably efficient if small standing army, Britain has at least a quarter of a million ex-soldiers who are neither in the reserve nor in the Territorials. The efficient army cannot be computed on the basis of the standing army, the Territorials or the reserves, but upon the basis of all able-bodied men who have ever home arms. In times of trouble every old soldier would yearn to be in it, but at present none of them seem to be standing at the street corners talking in hushed whispers. We believe that conscription is the only method available by any great nation for the adequate training of a' sufficient army in time of. peace, because there is no real incentive to "soldier" in peace time. But we do not belkve, even though Dr. Morrison may say so, that the only people who see the writing on the walls are the outsiders. Britain still pins her faith to the deep water, and will probably try to stem this European peril (when it comes) on the high seas. The colonial system of defence that is going to make for us a perfect army will not occupy very many days of a soldier's time during the year. If Britain's poor little fleet can stay awake long enough to interest the "peril" for a week before it ultimately marches on London, maybe the sleepers won't be so tired after all. AH the critics seem to be angry because Britain refuses to get into a blue funk and does not knock off doing the biggest business in the world to "form fours." We in New Zealand must necessarily believe, because jaundiced persons are always hammering it into us, that the first foreign nations that says "Hands up!" will | control the Empire. The European nations at the moment are exceedingly interested in their very complicated domestic affairs, and we sincerely hope they won't wipe our big Navy and our little Army out until they have quite settled their internal differences. A few odds and ends of wars at the present time would do an immense amount of good. They would, for one thing, decide the point as to whether Messrs Bull and Sons were really snoring as stupidly as a great Australian alleges.