THE KIEL DOCKYARDS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2759, 14 March 1910, Page 5

THE KIEL DOCKYARDS.

600 MEN TO BE DISMISSED

United Press Association— Copyright BERLIN, March 11.

The Imperial dockyard at Kiel notifies ithe men that owing to the Reichstag's not having voted sufficient funds to keep all the staff working 600 mustbe dismissed in April.

DISARMAMENT.

GERMAN ADMIRAL’S STRONG VIEWS.

At the recent Navy League gathering in Keil Grand Admiral von Kcester, the president of the league, following a lecture by Professor Harms, made a statement on the naval disarmament question which, in view of the fact that the speaker lias been Commander-in-Chief of the Battle Fleet, lias held nearly alPTlie highest posts open to a German naval officer, and enjoys close intimacy with the present chiefs of the naval administration may be taken as representing fairly accurately the- view of the Minister of Marine. Admiral von Kooster said:— “I can only say that I have recently been much occupied with this question (naval disarmament), x have read with interest all the articles published on t-lie subject, and I have not found one that offered anything which might serve as a handle to any practical proposal. We ought to disarm! In the first place we will take the doctrine that only the absolutely stronger can disarm. He, however, will net do so (laughter). Then the vanquished can disarm. About the hardest condition which the conquerer can impose- is when he says to the vanquished: ‘Disarm!’ And we Germans know best what that means, when we remember the- hate and bitterness compulsory disarmament then created. “We now come to the third principle: international disarmament; but wliat docs that mean ? An international dis_ armament among all nations—it must necessarily apply to all nations, for we do not build our fleet against a single enoni'- but against anyone who wants to tackle, us (der uns an den Kragen will), and therefore, there must he an international agreement among all peoples. Do you believe that that is at all possible? For such a, purpose there would have to be a permanent congress, which would have to he perpetually calculating in this fashion: —‘From to-day you have, the right to build so many ships. Now you may build another torpedo-boat because your economic interests have grown, your exports have risen so-and-so much.’ At all events, for me, international disarmament is a wholly dark idea upon which I am entireh- unable to procure any enlightenment.

“A scale is lacking to serve as a standard of disarmament. If a comparative study were made of the way in which, the' various fleets were built up in the nineteenth century, how they ex_ paneled and again diminished, it would he seen that the process is a changing one, that it varies from year to year, and naturally varies all the more when countries make economic progress. 1 consider, therefore, that disarmament can onlv mean paralysis of free development. There is, as Professor Harms lias shown, a fourth principle of disarm, ament —disarmament based on alliances. Now. if one- wants an ally one must be up to the alliance standard of power, To comply a nation must bring something with it into the alliance —an army or a fleet. If it has neither and brings nothing with it then it is not worth acceptance. as an allyi But even if one were willing to take an ally, that would not relieve one of one’s own duty to the need of spending mono’- on the army and the fleet, for alliances are not of eternal duration. Alliances appear to-day and are gone to-morrow, and the political horizon changes constantly from day to day. To-day may be sunshine —to-morrow blackest darkness. But how does this fact' appear in relation to the development of a fleet? A fleet is so complicated a machine that it takes decades — T might say half a century—to bring one to full and entire development. Even if ships can be "uickly built, the organisation, the building up of the sYstcm, is the thing that requires -many years. Therefore, even in the case oi an alliance one would still have, m order to nrovide for.the eventuality oi fresh complications, to build and arm a fle n t and cayry it to- its full development. That is my view of the disa rni a merit qn estion. ’ ’