LEADING 



ARTICLES. 



4 8- 



must be converted. What is wanted is sys- 

 tematic propaganda throughout the German 

 Empire, explaining to the people that their 

 prejudice against Great Britain is due to 

 a misunderstanding. The right-thinking 

 men of both countries should join hands 

 and take up this task without delay, other- 

 wise both nations maj drift towards a 

 catastrophe. 



GERMANY'S AMBITION. 



An illuminating article, having for 

 its theme Germany's alleged ambition 

 to dominate sea and sky, is reproduced 

 in the Fortnightly Preview above the 

 signature of " Excubitor " : — 



The course of recent events is particu- 

 larly interesting and significant. Last year 

 a new Navy Act was passed by the Reich- 

 stag. The measure increased the establish- 

 ment of ships in accordance with a six- 

 year schedule of shipbuilding, and made pro- 

 vision for an immense increase of officii - 

 and men so as to keep nearly four-fifths of 

 the German fleet always ready for immediate 

 action. The effect) of this measure, if it 

 had been followed by no action on the part 

 of Great Britain, would have been that the 

 smaller German fleet, being on a higher 

 status of commissioning, would have been 

 at "its selected moment" on an equality 

 with tiie British Fleet at " its average 

 moment," and even in some circumstances 

 it might have possessed such a margin of 

 superiority as to make a naval Avar against 

 Great Britain not a desperate gamble, but 

 an operation attended with insufficient risk 

 to act as a deterrent. 



The British Admiralty renlied by an- 

 nouncing that for every additional Ger- 

 man armoured ship laid down over and 

 above the former Law, Britain should 

 build two ; and they also presented Par- 

 liament with a scheme for the expansion 

 of the personnel. Whatever hopes had 

 been entertained in Germany of overtak- 

 ing Great Britain in the race for sea- 

 power were thus disappointed, since the 

 new German shipbuilding scheme was 

 discounted on a two-keels-to-one basis. 



But a new weapon has been forged, 

 and can be used, under certain circum- 

 stances, as a means of attack : — 



Tha motive underlying German aerial 

 policy is unmistakable. It is hoped by the 

 aid of this new arm — and particularly by 

 the aid of long-range airships — to neutralise 

 British naval superiority. 



The dominating fact, which it is perilous 

 for us to ignore, is that in a year or two 

 Germany will have two squadrons of air- 

 ships, heavily armed, and capable of carr\- 

 ing considerable loads of high explosives, 

 stationed at Cuxhaven. immediately oppo- 



site the bases of our flotillas of destroyers 

 and submarines, and within practicable 

 navigation distance of all our great naval 

 ports. Moreover, she is developing also her 

 service of hydro-aeroplanes, and is thus 

 providing herself on a large scale with 

 battleships, scouts, and mosquito craft of the 

 air, in the firm belief that thus she will 

 render ineffective our superiority in battle- 

 ships, scouts, and mosquito craft of the 

 sea. 



All of which speculation may of 

 course be true, but assumes that Ger- 

 many has only one thought — the crush- 

 ing of England. A more probable op- 

 ponent is rather further distant across 

 the Atlantic. 



A LACK OF CONSIDERATION. 



Air. Price Collier is candour itself, 

 and his series of articles in Scribner s on 

 " Germany and the Germans " are free 

 from either cant or ill-will. The pre- 

 sent contribution contains a whole 

 philosophy on neighbourliness, in which 

 Americans, British and Germans alike 

 come in for some very sound advice, 

 and Mr. Collier thus analyses the 

 causes which make for national dis- 

 agreement : — 



Theological protagonists are notoriously bit- 

 ter against one another, but we have all 

 found many of them amiable companions 

 ourselves. It is the fellow next door, who 

 wears purple socks, or who parts his hair 

 in the middle, or who wears his coat-sleeves 

 longer than our tailor cuts ours, or who 

 eats his soup with a noise, or who has damp 

 hands, or talks through his nose, who irri- 

 tates us and makes ud wish occasionally for 

 the unlimited club-using freedom of the 

 stone age. It is your first cousin, with in- 

 curable catarrh and a slender income, who 

 is too much with you, and who spoils your 

 temper, not the anarchist orator who 

 threatens your property and almost you life. 



"What do these Germans want?" asked a 

 distinguished Cabinet Minister of me. 

 " They want consideration," I replied, 

 " which is the most difficult thing in the 

 world for the Englishmen to offer anybody." 

 '" But. you don't mean to say," he con- 

 tinued, " that they really want to cut our 

 throats on account of our bad manners!" 

 I cannot phrase it better, nor can I give 

 a more illuminating illustration of the mis- 

 understanding. This is exactly the reason, 

 and the paramount reason, why nations and 

 why individuals attempt to cut one an- 

 other's throats. Whatever the fundamental 

 differences may have been that have led to 

 war between nations. the tiny spark 

 that started the explosion has always been 

 some phase of rudeness or bad manners. 



