THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1910. OPINIONS DIFFER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9995, 16 March 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16, 1910. OPINIONS DIFFER.

The extent to which opinions differ as to the existing position between Great Britain and Germany is really most remarkable, but probably we shall be wise if we do not attach too much importance to the utterances of those whose remarks are based upon their desires rather than on the actual facts confronting them. "Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," but it does not, therefore, follow that what is said is of a valuable character. Yesterday morning we published a cable message relating to a speech made by Prince Henry of Prussia, in the course of which His Royal Highnses said he had been in Britain in an absolutely unofficial capacity; but he had spoken to many persons of influence, and his Royal Highness assured his hearers that Britai" offered Germany an honourable and sincere friendship. The idea of an aggressive action was completply'absent from the minds of the governing circle in Britain. "But',' Prince Henry went on "that friendly feeling rests on reciprocity.

Nothing must be omitted that will i serve to strengthen it. Confidence | begets confidence. Germans have fought shoulder to shoulder with the British in the Far East, and have learned to respect them. The interests of both peoples will be promoted in the best manner by reciprocal confidences. The officers of the

British and German Navies are sincere in their friendly feelings; but the merchant services, like the military and naval, should be comrades. They have a social duly to discharge, as well as a business duty." In the same issue another cable message informed us that the "Norddeutsche Zeitung" had sagely remarked that Germany's Navy is intended solely i for the protection of her trad<a, and adds: "As Britain considers only I ner own needs, so the construction of the German fleet is based solely on the view that defence and shelter must be created for the sea interests that have grown of such great importance to Germany's existence as a State." The paper in question certainly seems to have a practical grip of the situation, and its remarks are certainly very different to those of Prince Menrv of Prussia. Contrast the foregoing, however, with the deliberate utterances of that great British statesman, Mr Balfour, and we must immediately conclude that there is veiy little real friendliness between the two nations, but that each is animate with the first law of human nature, viz., self-preservation, and the maintenance of its power, the spread of its dominance, the upholding of its national honour, and the developing ot historical traditions. Speaking recently at Hanley, in England, Mr Balfour said:— "When we left office it was in our ! power to modify our naval estimates each year by what we saw foreign nations were doing, because we were fully aware that we could build ships faster than any other nation, and that If we saw any attempt to rival us in naval strength we coulci defeat it, and defeat it at once by laying down new ships. That is all altered. We are now in a position which we have not been in within the memory of living mar, and our naval superiority in our own seas is threatened within the near future. Now, what does this imply V Everything depends upon the Navy. We exist as an Empire only on sufferance unless our Navy be supreme, and I for one, ladies and gentlemen, am not content to exist on sufference. Go about at this .moment, if you will, and consult the statesmen and diplomatists of the lesser Powers, and I am perfectly confident that you will find among them an absolute unanimity of opinion that a struggle sooner or later between this country and Germany is inevitable. Ido not I agree with them, but that is their j opinion Unless we beI stir ourselves Great Britain will be in a position of peril which it has not known in the memory of our fathers, our grandfathers, or our greatgrandfathers, and it that position of i peril should issue in some great catastrophe, which.Heaven forbid! it will be a catastrophe, once is has occurred, from which this country will not aeain easily arise." Mr Balfour may now be satisfied with the Navy Estimates, but the enormous increase in connection therewith, and that the hands of a Liberal Government is, of course, most telling « evidence of the extreme danger of the situation, and of the real feeling that exists between Great Britain and Germany.