THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1908. FINANCE AND THE NAVY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3062, 5 December 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1908. FINANCE AND THE NAVY.

In the "Quarterly Review" appears an important article entitled "Our Endangered Sea Supremacy." "As a naval Power, England," it is urged, "stands at the cross-roads in her history. She is face to face with a crisis which threatens her naval supremacy. Whether it be or be not admitted that the Dreadnought marKed a fresh era in naval armaments, the outlook is one of extreme gravity. Since this ship made her appearance, embodying new principles of offence and defence, the British Government have built, or ordered, twelve of the largest battle units; Germany has begun ten ships of more or leas corresponding character; France and the United States have authorised six each, and other nations have not been inactive." This statement of fact is in itself sufficiently grave to cause deep-seated anxiety; but a more serious feature of the outlook,

it is held, is the attitude which the s British Government has assumed to- ■ wards armaments generally, and the manner in which Mr A squith ' and his colleagues, in endeavouring to placate the Socialistic section of < thair supporters, have forced the < United Kingdom into a position of extreme financial difficulty. "Finance is in truth the key to the naval situation." Attention is called to the fact that for three years apparent surpluses have been secured by postponing necessary expenditure on the navy. "On new construction alone economies, either misleading or temporary, have been made, amounting in the past three years to upwards of £9.000,000 sterling, in comparison with the expenditure in 1904. There have been other economies in the naval votes of this period which are due to improved administration, but the sums which have been diverted from the construction of new ships have not been legitimate permanent economies. Prom year to year the Government has chosen for its own ends, to ignore the naval crisis which has been approaching. No provision has i been made for the adequate maintenance of the fleet in future years, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer threatens that, when he comes to prepare his new Budget, he will have to make a raid upon 'other people's hen-roosts'; in other words, capital and income are to be further plundered, and the victims are to be told that the operation is necessary in the interests of the fleet. The general idea which apparently underlies the Government's plans is to relieve the working classes of all part and lot in the defence of the country by returning to them in oldage pensions and other doles the sums collected from them in indirect taxation, in place of the old Radical complaint of ''taxation without representation' we shall have the extremely dangerous and immoral condition of 'representation without taxation,' except soohasthe working elasses pay voluntarily over the bars of public houses and clubs. In these conditions a British democracy, practicably freed from financial responsibility for-its acts, must prove a positive peril tto the peace of the world. In the hour of passion, such as now and again sweeps through a nation, it would possess the power to foment war without the restraining influence which either persona l service or taxation for war exert a."