THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1907. A SIGN OF THE TIMES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXIX, Issue 8333, 16 January 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 1907. A SIGN OF THE TIMES.

The action of the United States Government, as announced in our cable messages on Monday, in making such a transference of warships from the Atlantic to the Pacific as will double the strength of its squadron in these waters, is a most significant sign of the times. It is as significant as the recent action of the British Government in creating a new naval base on \ the North Sea and in making transferences of vessels from the Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets in order to strengthen the Home Guard. For, as the latter incident indicated, the official recognition by the British Admiralty of the possibility of an attack from the eastward and of the necessity for keeping within call sufficient ships to overpower any fleet which Germany might put into the North Sea, the foriner incident indicates the official recognition by the American Government of the possibility of an attack from the westward and of the necessity for keeping in the Pacific sufficient ships to protect its Pacific States against the ambitions of Japan. President Roosevelt may not sympathise with the anti-Japan-ese feeling of California and the neighbouring States, and may be personally willing to go very far in the attempt to conciliate the abnormal susceptibilities of the coloured races. But he is too practical a statesman not to perceive that the last word in an argument always lies with the big gun and with the men who can use it, and too good an American not to take all advisable precautions for the protection of his national interests. Were the Panama Canal opened, as it probably will be opened by 1916, the taking of these precautions would be exceedingly simple, for the Canal will not only shorten the journey from the North Atlantic to the North

Pacific by at least a month for the fastest squadron, but its keys will be in American hands. There is always, the possibility of any canal being temporarily blockaded by the deliberate design of' an enemy, and either the Panama or the Suez Canals would certainly be interfered with during a desperate war if it suited the tactics of either combatant to interfere with it. But unless interfered with, and when obstructions were removed,* the Panama Canal would enable the Atlantic squadrons of the American navy to reinforce the Pacific squadrons, within a week, by means of a waterway through, which no enemy could follow them without first capturing and occupying its defences. This tremendous advantage is among the manifold causes which are inducing the United States to invest so many millions of, dollars in the construction of a worf which has so far proved too much for any private company. But until the canal is quite completed it does not exist, of course; and meanwhile there lies between Key West on the Atlantic and San Francisco on the Pacific a journey of jjmany thousands of miles round Cape Horn. America is in much the same position as Russia was when the war with Japan found her with part of her fleet in Eastern Asia and part in Western Europe. Every Japanese craft, from steam-launch to Dreadnought, is in the Pacific; the entire Japanese fleet can be concentrated without difficulty and without delay. It is this which makes Japan such a power in the Pacific, and which compels the Western Powers to take special precautions against her. One precaution is already being taken by the Englishspeaking Republic; the four strongest vessels that fly the Stars and Stripes are now on their way to the Pacific and we can see in their mission the commencement of the real race between East and West for the naval domination of this great ocean.