PREVENTION OF NATIONAL WASTE 129 

 this phase of the question ; and the future no man may 

 read. 



Germany has declared that she is determined to have 

 a sea-power that wih at least rival our own: and what 

 Germany says, that will she do. She is wealthy, powerful 

 and ambitious, and certainly capable of performing 

 what she promises. 



The remarkable and rapid growth of her vast mercan- 

 tile marine has startled the world, and what she has done 

 with her trading vessels she can and will do with her war- 

 ships. Germany is the power to be reckoned with here, 

 and to pooh-pooh the idea of that country being the 

 cliief factor in the situation would be weak and foolish. 



The incident of the Bundcsrath and the General (Ger- ^uS 

 man steamers) during the South African War, furnished and Policy 

 Germany with the exact opportunity for which she was 

 seeking to increase her sea-power. She has long seen the 

 necessity for increased naval armaments to protect her 

 rapidly growing over-seas trade, and this boarding inci- 

 dent was the spark to the powder; the inspired Press 

 made the most of the matter, and this comparatively 

 insignificant affair has been so cleverly " engineered " 

 as to have become a great national movement, having 

 for its real object the supremacy of the Fatherland. 



Germany has already got together a powerful fleet of 

 warships which stands as a menace to our own shores ; 

 and as she has done this in the remarkably short space of 

 six years, we may well be anxious about the immediate 

 future. 



If, under the vastly altered conditions in the status of 

 European sea- powers brought about by Gennany's atti- 



9 



