WHY GERMANY BUILDS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 287, 26 April 1913, Page 10

WHY GERMANY BUILDS

THE BRITISH CASE. SEQUENCE OF EVENTS REVERSED. (By 11. W. Wilson in the Daily Mail). According to Mr. Norman Angcli's German informant, Germany began the creation of her immense fleet as a reply to Britain's action in reaching an understanding with France and Russia. This is a really extraordinary assertion. The Anglo-French agreement was signed early in 1804; the Anglo-Russian agreement in 1007. But the famous German Act which began the naval competition was passed by the Reichstag in 1900 — during the most critical period of the Boer War, when it seemed to the world as though the British Empire stood on the edge of catastrophe. And that Act in its preamble laid down: "Germany must have a licet of such strengtn that, even for the greatest Naval Power, a war with her would involve such risks as to imperil its own supremacy." The Act was taken by the world as a challenge to Britain. It compelled the British Government at once to abandon its policy of isolation, for it was accompanied by a declaration from the German Emperor that "the trident must be in our fist." The British alliance < with Japan, the entente with France, the understanding with Russia followed. These things were not the causes but the con-

sequences of the sudden decision of Germany to create an immense navy. Mr. (lerman friend lias reversed the siM|iience of events. The British Empire was guilty of the supreme offence of attempting to protect itself against attack. What had we done to provoke or injure Germany? For whole decades British policy was deferential to Germany. To (Jermany we surrendered Heligoland. We made way for her in Africa, in Oceania, in China, where, in the affair of the new forgotten ''Yangt.se Treaty." we were treated by German statesmen with scant regard. ft is not correct to allege that Britain obstructed her in the acquisition of a colonial Empire. Germany obtained Togoland, the Kamarun, South-west Africa, East Africa, a large slice of Papua, and an archipelago in the Pacific.

If the colonies she gained were unsuited to white settlement, which is not proved, that was because 50 years before she appeared in the guise of a world Power all the lands suited to white settlement had been appropriated and settled by oilr race and other races. There is no grievance against us here, in view of Bismarck's open and repeated declarations against a policy of expansion oversea. Hermans must not blame us because tliey have changed their mind. But we have to face the fact, which Mr. Angell's informant has studiously ignored, that (iermany, in the words of Professor Delbrueck, is a Kriogsstaat, a nation organised for war. We are told by Mr. Angell's friend that she has not made war for 40 years. That is true. But, unfortunately, she has threatened it repeatedly in the immediate past. Moltke and Bismarck were anxious to complete the destruction of France by a fresh war in 187+ and again in 187"). They were deterred because immediately Russia and Britain ranged themselves on the side of France an announced that an unprovoked attack upon her would be resisted by them. Yet Professor Lampreeht regrets that his countrymen did not strike France down on that occasion. Again, in the Delcasse crisis of lflOo, (lermany suddenly threatened France with attack, and oniy withdrew her threats because Britain and Russia promised France support against any aggression. In 1008. over the Casablanca affair, (iermany once more threatened war against France: in 100!) the "armed Michael" menaced Russia with the inn sion of Poland; in 1011 for three months Europe was kept on the verge of war by the apparition of the Panther at Agadir. These are incidents which do no reveal such an excessive devotion to peace on the part of Germany and her rulers as Mr. Angell's friend suggests. ATe should like to believe that tiermany clierises no hostility to Britain. But the Kaiser, in the. famous interview which appeared in 1008. declared: "The prevailing sentiment among large sections of the middle and lower classes of my own people is not friendly to England." Treitachke. the great (ierman historian, Writing a generation

ago, stated {hat the ••settlement" with England "must come," and would be "the hardest and the last." That brilliant journalist, Maximilian Harden, has repeated in his Zugunft, week after week, ' 'eeterum senseo Karthaginem esse de- ! lendam" ("I bold that Carthage must be wiped out"). Again, General Bernliardi, no ignorant firebrand, but the most capable of German military critics, has recently declared war with England inevitable. He admits, be it noted, that before the immense increase in the German Navy no one in England ever dreamed of war'with Germany. And thus incidentally he demolishes Mr. Angell's informant's case.

"We have revived the spectre of the guerre de revanche," says this informant. Nothing could be more fundamentally untrue. France is a nation of 39 millions; Germany of 07 millions. The odds against France are such that no French Government will ever dream of a 'war of revenge.' What occupies the entire attention of France is the task of protecting herself against the possibility of a sudden German attack, and Germany would be in a position to deliver *iich an attack if France took no 'steps to meet the augmentation in the strength of the German effective army that is proposed. In three years Germany will have raised the strength of her army from 600,000 to 805,000 men. After all, French statesmen cannot be blamed for recalling Von Goltz's famous saying that the German statesman who, seeing war inevitable and being himself ready, hesitates to strike, is guilty of a crime against his country. Moreover, I see no reference by Mr. Angell's informant to the numerous attempts which the British Government have made in recent years to check the competition in armaments. They may have been foolish. They certainly were not the acts of men who cherished any hostility to Germany's reasonable aspirations. In lflOfi we greatly reduced our I naval expenditure and abandoned the construction of a Dreadnought. The | reply was a new German Navy Aet, greatly increasing the German fleet. In 1907 we offered to reduce our hattleship programme to two Dreadnoughts. Germany made no Tesponse. In IflOS we did actually lower our programme to two Dreadnoughts. The German reply was to introduce a new Act by which four German Dreadnoughts were' laid down. Only then did we abandon the hope of reaching a naval understanding with the German nation. The last German Navy Act, passed last year, places within striking distance of our shores a fleet five-sixths of which,; as Mr. Churchill has said, will le instantly and constantly ready for war,' mobilised in time of peace. It will give Germany 29 battleships fully manned all the year round, to our strength of 33, of which eight will be at Gibraltar. Writing on the 2nd of last month, the Berlin correspondent of the Times remarked:—The' North German Gazette. the Government organ, replying to charges of "delay," says that the decision to strengthen the national defences was reached "immediately after the revolution of conditions in the south-east of Europe." The most careful consideration was necessary, because Germany had not "to bluff" foreign countries," but to build up her her defences by employing to the full all the reserves of population able to bear arms which has hitherto '"lain fallow." The Emperor arrived at a decision in the month of January, and the departments concerned have ever since been engaged at high pressure in putting the decisions into shape, so that, "if they succeed in bringing ';he Bill before the Federal Council aoout the middle of this month" they will have accomplished a remarkable achievement, j The North German' Gazette says that the Bill must become law by Whitsuntide at the latest, in order that the necessary preparations may be made for the increases of the army, to take effect on October lof this year. The writer dismisses the idea that public enthusiasm might cool down by being kept waiting, and says that no Army Bill for a long time past has been so surely based upon a "deep-rooted conviction of the necessity of the further strengthening of the German armaments, if Germany is to continue to make her way in the world." Public "impatience and expectation" are hereby explained, and they "will not be disappointed."