The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11. THE INVASION DANGER.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 234, 11 February 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11. THE INVASION DANGER.

The British Prime Minister recently stated a well-known fact with all due seriousness, and showed that Britain could not hold her own on British soil if a foreign power succeeded in beating the British Navy and in landing its armies. The assumption is that i there is always a possibility of the defeat of the Navy. The utterance of bald truths by statesmen are always considered important, but in relation to the Navy they seem to be useful in keeping the national conscience up to concert pitch and in aiding the determination to maintain the "two-Power" standard. When statesmen explain the obvious in regard to the eventuality of an invasion of Britain (possible if the Navy were defeated), they practically condemn methods for increased internal protection. The British military policy is one fecog-. nising that the only need for an army is that it may be despatched oversea to fight on foreign soil. The possibility of a successful invasion does not occur to the naval and military scientists, who believe that the Navy is capable of fulfilling every requirement. The British national feeling is formed by individual' leaders, and the consensus of opinion, therefore, is that universal military service is absolutely necessary because the Navy makes invasion impossible. The cabled resolutions of small societies which protest against the idea of military service really cannot affect the issue, and merely emphasise the contention that resentment of forced service really does exist. It may be believed that if it were necessary to compulsorily enlist men for the Navy the British nation would cheerfully consent, because it is the unchangeable British belief that invulnerability can only be secured by making a mighty navy still mightier. Apart from the declaration of statesmen, the people are guided in their estimate of the invulnerability of the Navy by the money voted for it. If the British person reading comparative figures finds (as is the case) that in spite of the enormous increase in the German naval expenditure, Britain votes almost exactly double the millions per year, he may be pardoned for believing that expenditure spells safety. Believing this, he is satisfied that universal soldiering is unnecessary, and that to maintain an expeditionary army is as far as military necessity extends. In every case where there is universal or compulsory, service in the Old World, the nations employing it have greater need for it than Britain, mainly for the reason that they arc approachable by land and Britain is unapproachable except by sea. The German army, which is held up as a bogey to every Britisher, would be unnecessary if .Germany were insular. .It might be argued that if it is unnecessary i for the British Isles to possess an army capable of smashing an invader, it is equally unnecessary for New Zealand to train the bulk of its manhood for defensive purposes. The conditions are not analagous, for there are no difficulties in the way of invasion should a great Power desire to come ashore in this country. Therefore, as we could not prevent a raider landing we would have to tackle him when he got ashore. Lord Roberts has lately said that General lan Hamilton's written arguments in defence of voluntary service and in opposition to compulsory service* are wrong and mischievous. General Hamilton, although a soldier, is earnestly ?onvinced that if the Empire is in danger it must be saved by sailors, and however wrong and mischievous his beliefs may be they are the beliefs held by the majority of the British people at Home. While the sister nations of the Empire, recognising their comparative defencelessness, are putting their military houses in order, so to speak, they all with one accord attach greater importance to naval protection than to any other' moans of maintaining safety. Australia, Canada and South Africa have nuclei of navies already, and it is only to the increased weight of armaments the Empire will look for safety, but to the moral support which emphasises the oneness of interest actuating each member of the group. Aggressive nations desiring the subjection of Britain can no longer assume that they are fighting the inhabitants of the Bri-

tisli 'lsles. They must coerce an organisation, world-wide in its character, and actuated by a single impulse. New Zealand has as yet no intention of possessing even the nucleus of a navy of her own, but the naval arrangements made for the safety of this country are complete enougli to place it on a par with Australia.

nasties of a ludicrous kind. The people who have not been the victims of adventurers who obtain financial assistance by claiming to be "well-born" generally smile at the success of their operations. It is no smiling matter. This worship of caste is always more pronounced in alleged democracies than anywhere else, and it is natural for a democrat to kowtow to a bogus baron as it is for a negro slave to prostrate himself before the senior warrior of his tnoe. It has been proved that countries which are sturdily democratic offer the finest fields of endeavor for bogus "swells," and it is almost possible to admire the ease with which folk of the kind induce brainy celebrities to take them at their own valuation. One often hears of the selfconfident individual who starts on a tour of the world with nothing but a paper suit and no money. The device of assuming relationship to the British peerage is much the better way of gaining the confidence of democrats, who can generally sort out the real from the false if they are not dazzled by the flash of a suppositious coronet.

SPECULATION VERSUS CULTIVA- I TION. Wc are familiar with the assertion that British farming methods are hopelessly behind those employed in this country. These notions are usually brought to New Zealand by people who go Home on holiday, and return fully convinced that the Dominion has nothing r to learn. If New Zealand has nothing to learn, the criticisms of the eminent agriculturalists who comprise the Scottish Commission now visiting this country are unnecessary and useless. The Commissioners have been in the South, where, if rumor speaks truly, intensive farming is carried on to a greater extent than it is in this island. The Commissioners inferred that the methods of the best southern farmers are not so thorough, or so scientific as the methods of the best Scottish or English farmers. If this is true—and there is no reason to doubt it —there must be a reason. The colonial farmer is not less intelligent or at heart less industrious than his Scottish or English relative, much of his land is as good or better than that farmed at Home, and certainly there cannot be so great an exhaustion of soil in this new country. The British farmer is a farmer and not a speculator. He generally lives and dies on the same farm and "hands over the lease or the fee-simple—if he owns it—to his children. He does not buy a farm or lease a farm in order to merely hang on to it until some stray valuer, at the instigation of boomsters, assesses it out of all proportion to its worth. If the farming in New Zealand is poor it is simply because land is regarded more as an exchangeable commodity than as a medium for the growth of produce or stock. Of necessity, should the population increase this speculative tendency must decrease, and with land at a price consonant with what may be taken from it, owners and lessees will mend their methods in order to make the largest margin of profit. As long as it pays better to juggle with land than to stick to it and force every possible blade out of it, so long must farming methods be in many cases haphazard. The presence of farmers who go in for intensive scientific farming would make no difference, for newcom" ers are soon afflicted with the blight. The Minister of Lands lately repeated the formula that everything possible must be done to attract'increase in settlement. Therein lies the remedy. As soon as the settler tries to beat his fellow man in production and not at a bargain so soon will the finest Tesults be obtained from a country pre-eminent for its productiveness.