CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 258, 10 March 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

WARSHIPS AND THE MAN. Every Home paper is full of wearying statistics about Dreadnoughts, their' columns ring with the cliing of armor plates, and the headings be'ch defiance. We have carefully'searched the available information in relation to the thirty-six Dreadnoughts that are to be launched by various nervous or bloodthirsty nations next year, and have found no single reference to a man. These triumphs of ironclads are, it is generally thought, going to give to the nation that owns the most of them naval supremacy. It seems seldom to occur to the careful compilers of figures in relation to these leviathans that a Dreadnought is as useless as a pricked bladder without men. We know that ten of t.housands of rasn are feverishly working night and day to accomplish superb masterpieces of fighting machinery. We know that the greatest scientists, the finest engineers, the best mechanics, the most eminent naval architects are spending their lives devising and completing man-slaying engines. Figures really do not matter in this connection. The average citizen who wades through warship statistics does not get much joy out of them. His real concern is, "Who's going to win?" Perhaps the average citizen has had his ideas about naval fighting obscured by the shoals of statistics, the weight of armaments, the number of ships, and all the rest of it, so that he has not considered the human part of the arrangement. When one thinks that each of the new warships will be manned by enough strong men to people a large town and that the special duty of every one of the men in every one of those floating towns is to destroy and not to create, the point of view changes. The building of large numbers of new warships means that thousands of men must be withdrawn from civil pursuits to be trained to man them. Every ship is a new drain on the civil constitution, a fresh tax on the county, and means that there is a larger proportion of protectors to save the protected. Have you ever thought that it is the men of a fleet that win the battles? Did the poor little wooden British ships win Trafalgar? If weight and number ought to prevail, why did not the wooden "Dreadnoughts" of Spain smash the nutshells of Britain ? The men and not the timber won the victory, arid the supreme fighter, the dominating mind, the Nelson of the occasion will win the great naval battle of the future. In the days that are to come, the nation will look less to the superlative iron plates of their vessels than to the man who controls them. It will not think in ships and bolts and thirteen-inch guns, but in men and brains and courage and skill. The superlative skill and energy that can produce a modern fighting machine can, it is

hoped, produce the men to use it. Therefore, keep your eye 3 off the figures and watch the men.

OIL AND WAR. New. Plymouth people have lately been considerably cheered !.y the presence of an oil ejpert who appt.a-s to earnestly believe that this town lias a -mrticularly oily future before it. There is at present an unsatisfied craving all over the world for oil, and it is K:in!ly too much to say that oil may add tens of millions of pounds' worth to the scrap heaps of the world. In fact, oil may make a large proportion of warships obsolete and the incalculable energy poured into building during recent years mere waste of time. In 1904-5 Britain did not race with her naval programme, and nervous armchair admirals wrote to the papers demanding to know why countless millions were not being spent in new ships. The Admiralty bore up as well as it could under the frantic advice of the "man in the street," and said nothing. But it has since transpired that the Admiralty was thinking hard about' the future of oil. Naval experts there arc who have averred that the days of the coal-driven warship are over. Is the Dreadnought doomed? If the oildriven warship is to supersede the coal consumer, then the Dreadnought has no real utility. It will have to be unbuilt. Naturally, navy men favor oil, if its use can be proved to be advantageous, because oil can be stored in infinitely less space than coal. Funnels will be a thing of the past, decks will be clear of obstacles to gun-fire, and "the geography of naval power will be changed by the substitution of oilfields for coalfields." Ther* must be a revolution in strategy and speed; obscure places not having coal, but possessing oil, will spring into prominence; and the nations will fight for possession of bores. Under such conditions it requires no brilliance of imagination to picture New Plymouth as a huge city, unique in importance because of its ott. It is not difficult to believe that New Plymouth may even become the base of warlike operations between nations desiring to obtain a footing at Moturoa. It is conceivable that ugly vessels without funnels should poke their way into this port for their periodical drinks of oil, and that Moturoa might save the Empire. Presuming that the nation that controls most oilfields will prevail over the nation that has none, it seems likely that oilfields will occupy much attention in tlie near future. When Taranaki steel plates, moving war-wards by the aid of Taranaki oil, help Britain to retain command of the seas, even the memory of Waireka may temporarilv fade.

TEE REAL MEXICO. In the course of an interview in Sydney some days ago, Mr. F. H. Jackson, an Australian mining engineer who has spent five years in Mexico, endeavored to remove from Australian minds some misapprehensions in regard to the country he .had just left. It is something more, lie says, than the land of revolutions and the homo of riots. There is a great deal of money in the country, and it continues to flow'in freely. Until quite recently the Mexicans were behind the times, but they are beginning to move ahead rapidly. Railway construction is being pushed forward and the lines are being nationalised. Mining is making great strides, and in Mr. Jackson's'opinion Mexico is the finest mining country n the world. Silver is, of course, the' principal produce, but gold is beins worked extensively. Formerly the Mexicans did not understand the treatment of gold, but the introduction of the cyanide process has opened the way to great development. Throughout the country new mines are being worked by foreign capital. The mining laws are excellent, though unfortunately they have caused

considerable discontent among the natives, who thiuk that iforeigners are favored at the expense of the Mexicans. The truth of the master is, Air. Jackson says, that the Mexicans enjoy the same privileges as foreigners do, but are too lazy to take advantage of them. They are especially hostile towards the people of the United States, believing that they are anxious to gain control of the neighboring country. The anti-foreign riots that occur.are really anti-American riots, and those who are concerned in these disturbances generally respect the lives and property of British, German and French residents. The .Mexicans desire to attract population from other parts of the world as a means of counter-acting American aggressiveness. Mr. Jackson considers that the revolutionary disturbance which began in November and still is dragging along is of no great importance. The people are tired of the present administration, he says', but the revolution is ill-organised and alfects only a section of the people. In the south it was not regarded as serious when he left a few week ago, and he sees no reason for anticipating that it will check the progress of the country.