LEADING ARTICLES. 



593 



RACIAL WAR IN THE PACIFIC. 



Mr. Archibald Hurd, a well-known 

 authority on naval matters, has some 

 strong things to say, in the Fortnightly 

 Review, against the policy of local 

 navies. What, he asks, is the explana- 

 tion of the defence policy adopted by 

 Australia and New Zealand, and of Sir 

 Wilfrid Launer's bid for the votes of the 

 electors of British Columbia? 



Since the anti-Japanese riots occurred in 

 British Cohimbia, and the movement against 

 this anibitious race gathered strength in Aus- 

 tralasia, the British peoples under the 

 Southern Cross have been rapidly reaching 

 the conviction that the enemy which they 

 have to fear is not Germany, or any other 

 European Power, but Japan. They are igno- 

 rant of the political and strategic principles 

 which govern the defences of a vast, world- 

 wide organisation like the British Empire. 

 and, brooding over their future, their fears 

 increase in exact proportion as the intensity 

 of their determination to maintain their " all- 

 white " policy strengthens. Tliey are domi- 

 nated to-day by the dread of Japan, and they 

 believe — wrongly believe — that they are de- 

 fenceless. 



A " HEDGEROW " POLICY. 

 This fear has resulted in the negation 

 of the fine Imperial spirit which found 

 expression in some of the Dominions 

 during the naval crisis of 1909. Aus- 

 tralians, Xew Zealanders, and many 

 Canadians, says Mr. Hurd, are obsessed 

 with the thought of a local peril, they 

 are adopting a " hedgerow " policy of 

 defence, and are looking to the United 

 States in increasing friendship. 



They are unfamiliar with those broad prin- 

 ciples'of naval policy which to the people of 

 the British Isles are now the commonplaces of 

 every-day thought. There is not an effectivi' 

 warship at any point of the western coast of 

 the British Isles, and yet every town and vil- 

 lage is defended. Years ago, in our inno- 

 cence of the truth, we used to have coast 

 and port guardships dotted round the British 

 Isles. They have long since been banished 

 in recognition of the fundamental principle 

 that navies do not directly defend territory : 

 their aim is to prevent the enemy securing 

 the sea highways— that is the real invasion to 

 be feared. 



AN EMPIRE WITHIN AN EMPIRE. 

 Mr. Hurd seems to be in dread of the 

 consolidation of an Empire within the 

 greater Empire. He deplores the way in 

 which the vast experience of the British 

 navy is being set on one side by the 

 Dominions, but admits : 



There is no idea of disloyalty to the Im- 

 perial ideal in these local navies; there is no 

 recognition of the waste in men and money 

 which the attainment of the measures pro- 

 posed represent: there is no understanding 

 of the negation of true srtrategic principles 

 involved. Tliere is, however, a growing ap- 

 preciation of danger, and these scattered 

 peoples are therefore co-operating for their 

 own safety, thrusting on one side all the 

 strategical lore which history has consecrated 

 and which British naval officers to-day hold 

 as fundamental to Imperial safety. It is no 

 long step from an Empii-e within an Empire 

 to a cleavage into two empires. This might 

 well be the work of a moment — ^the result of 

 some sudden ebullition of feeling. It is not 

 a development which we need fear to-day 

 when the white peoples of the Pacific are few 

 and scattered and dependent upon us for the 

 money required for development purposes, 

 but the time is not far distant when they will 

 he many and unit<^d by powerful mutual 

 interests. 



A SHORT-SIGHTED POLICY. 

 Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge is em- 

 phatic in his retort to those who demand 

 that ships be so stationed that they will 

 generally, except when actually cruising, 

 be stationed within sight of the inhabi- 

 tants of the country owning them. 



"Nothing," says Sir Cyprian, "justifies 

 it, except the honest ignorance of those who 

 make it; nothing explains compliance with it 

 but the deplorable weakness of authorities 

 who yield to it." It was not, as this officer 

 records, b.y hanging about the coast of Eng- 

 land, when there was no enemy near it, with 

 his fleet, that Hawke or Nelson saved the 

 country from invasion. And he adds as a 

 former commander-in-chief of the Australian 

 station that " the condition insisted upon 

 by the Australian Government in the agree- 

 ment formerly made with tlie Home Govern- 

 ment that a certain number of ships in return 

 for an annual contribution of money, should 

 always remain in Australian waters, was in 

 reality greatly against the interests of that 

 part of the Empire. The Australian tax- 

 pa.yer was, in fact, made to insist upon being 

 injured in return foi' liis money. 



OUR FRONTIERS THE COASTS OF THE 

 ENEMY. 



Maritime defence should not begin at 

 home, but in the probable enemy's sea 

 frontier. Admiral Lord Fisher well said 

 the frontiers of the Empire are the coasts 

 of the eneiu}-. Sa\-s ^Ir. Ilurd:-- 



The l(K'alisation of naval defence is a i>eril 

 to every Dominion interest, because if these 

 small comniuniti(\s, who are weak, adopt this 

 policy, there is a danger that the British 

 taxpayer, who pays £4(>.00().00() for the navy, 

 will copy it. .\s inatt<^rs are, and have 



