The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1910. "WAR NOW.'’

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2716, 22 January 1910, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 1910. "WAR NOW.'’

An extraordinary public avowal of Germany’s political necessities was contained in a lecture delivered in Berlin early last month by Herr Maximilian Harden, the well-known journalk--. TLa 'warned Germans against 'wasting energy on internal political controversies such as the Prussian suffrage reform, when the country was surrounded by enemies ,who were only waiting to fall upon it should it become impotent through domestic turmoil. Through the pettiest cause, he said, things might any day come to an open rupture with England, -a rupture born from the need of a nation of sixtythree millions, increasing at the rate of a rmillion a year, to nourish itself. Herr Harden declared that .Germany’s proper policy .was one of “open cards.” He asserted: “Wo must have the courage frankly to go to England and demand from her Avhat we seek and what Ave require. If England refuses to stand and delh r er Herr ‘Harden recommended that Germany should go to war —“now, at once, and not Avait until too late, until England has carried out her encircling policy to a finish.” Herr Harden also referred to the economic danger aAvaiting Germany in the case of a Tariff Reform victory at the coining elections in England. This 'speech does not in itself furnish proof of Germany’s hostile intentions towards England, but the fact that it 'has been made publicly .should be quite sufficient to place the people of England on thoir. guard. That the reality of the German peril is at- last beginning to sink into the minds of Englishmen js indicated by the important part ‘which the naval' issue has played in the present British elections. The extraordinary popularity of Lord Charles Meresford’s victory can be taken as nothing less than a whole sealed appreciation of his action in drawing attention to the Aveakness of the Govern-

ment’s naval policy. Only the repeat-

cd and unequivocal (promises of the Premier and his Ministers, that the Liberals would keep the British n'avy supreme have saved them from utter rout. Such -men as lierr Harden can only he kept from their desire to plunge into war, by the Imperial authorities placing the British navy in a position of such unmistakable superiority that the .most confident and aggressive section of German’s rulers would think twice before inviting a conflict. At present there are Some among the Germans who honestly believe that they have no need to wait until 1912 or 1915, in order to he in a position to attack Britain with confidence. They believe that by reason of superior training of anon and officers, by their complete knowledge of Britain’s coastal defences, and their 'marvellous preparedness, they are fully compensated for their present inferiority in numbers of war vessels. We do not believe this, but the fact that they do, constitutes a grave element working against the peace of the world.