The Daily News. THURSDAY, JANUARY 12. DISARM?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 221, 12 January 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, JANUARY 12. DISARM?

There is no subject being so freely discussed between sections of people of all armed nations at the present time as disarmaments, and the reason it is being discussed is that Germany intends if possible to reach a point when it can be as aggressive as Britain. The "peace at any price" party in Britain is a growing but not ji controlling factor, but it is either unable to view the matter from the point of view of Germany or wilfully shuts its eyes to the facts. The party which on the score of expense wishes Britain to call a halt in its naval programme assumes many things, but the main assumption is that Germany must agree to allow Britain to retain command of the sea without let or interference. That is to say, that Germany must agree to do what Britain has never done—cease expanding territorially. Germany's great and pressing need is for colonies, as we have frequently endeavored to explain, and if she cannot obtain expansion by diplomacy there is the mailed list left. The philanthropic person who in his love for his fellow-man wants to see limitation of armaments because he hates men to be killed and* money to be spent, might easily be regarded by Germans as utterly selfish. If, as was recently pointed out by the London Spectator, Germany opposed a British scheme for army reorganisation on' the ground that Germany must at all costs obtain and retain command of the land, the British Radical might easily regard tile proposal as utterly impossible of fulfilment and grossly unfair. Shortly, it would be a blessed boon if, guided by British Radicals, Germany agreed to be a good boy and promised not to expand or to covet any more land. The limitation of armaments' advocate, in believing { it possible, assumes that human nature must alter at his bidding. He makes a lot of noise about it, and but for him the nations would go on their way in a quiet, decent manner, making all necessary provisions to effectively cope with the passion for expansion, or to check it. Germany says: "No question of the limitation of armaments could be considered unless it is accompanied by a readiness to come to a political understanding." In a powerful article on the subject, the Spectator explains what the meaning of a "political understanding" is. Here is an extract:

Gorman statesmen mean now exactly what they meant a year or two ago when they told us in oven more threatening language that we were trying to 'hem Go many in, that they would never stand it, and that any Power who dared to try to hem Germany in should feel the weight of 'the mailed fist, and so on. The talk of hemming in and the assertion that limitation of armaments can only be obtained by a political understanding with Germany, if translated into plain English, amounts to nothing less than this. Britain can only have the kind of understanding with Germany upon which a limitation of naval armaments can be based on condition that she gives up the understandings arrived at with I'ranee and Russia—understandings the effect of which, though the British Government have shrunk from putting them into such simple terms, are as follows: If either France or Russia, or both, should be attacked by Germany and her allies, 'we should go to their assistance. for we dare not allow Germany to dominate the Continent and have Europe at her mercy."

There is the whole thing in black and white. 'Germany desires to dominate Europe, and is annoyed with Britain for the support she gives to the Powers named, Britain is the spragg i n the wheel of Germany's progress. German leaders are cool, far-seeing and practical, and as strategists difficult to .heat. So Germany is pained beyond expression that Britain should endanger the peace of Europe by encouraging France and Russia to reject the reasonable and kindly overtures of Germany. At least, Germany asserts that they are reasonable and kindly. Germany does not neeessa rily desire to go to war with anybody, but, as we have said, she intends to expand or burst. The fulniinations of the disarmament people can have no effect, unless Germany kindly consents not to expand. Germany many obtain expansion by diplomacy or by threats, and she wants a lot of ironmongery behind her whether she uses diplomacy or force. The kindly folk who tell Germany to keep on being hemmed in and all will be well do not look at the position from the point of view of the hemmed in. Britain is not hemmed in, and nobody in Britain ever suggests that' her colonies should be deserted and their people returned to the old land in order to lie nice and peaceful and well heimmd in. The British people who counsel other nations not to expand forgot British history, which is a history of constant aggression and expansion. The

gift of colonisation has been held by many nations during all the ages, and there has been little colonisation without armed aggression. Morally, Germany has as much right to blow a passage for herself into new land and to a dominating position as Imperial Rome or ancient Spain or modern Britain. Perhaps if human nature changes within the next decade or two the natives of the world will be "'scrapped" and the peoples of the globe may sit clown with folded hands. But the occasional voice of the exhortcr to peace and quietness is as a voice crying in the wilderness. The exhorter does not want to give away anything himself. He only advises that the other fellow should not copy Britain's past methods.