The Wanganui Chronicle " Nulla Dies Sine Linea." TUESDAY, DECEMBER. 14, 1909. THE AMERICAN SCARE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12393, 14 December 1909, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle " Nulla Dies Sine Linea." TUESDAY, DECEMBER. 14, 1909. THE AMERICAN SCARE.

The Americans are suffering from an attack of doubt such as recently affected the British. Great Britain is getting accustomed to daily newspaper articles purporting to show how the Germans could invade the British Isles, and the alarmists are losing their grip.

Although the nation generally is alive to the importance of maintaining an im- \ pregnable, first line of defence, only a small percentage of tlie people regarded the scare articles seriously, and it ■will probably be so in the United States now that many ready writers cr c telling the Americans that their expensive navy would be useless in war, and that Japan could invade the country next week, if the Mikado took tho notion. "Have We a Navy?" is the subject of a slashing article by Mr Ambrose Bieroe in "Everybody's." He dole-, fully answers his own question in the negative. There are some good ships, he says, but no transports, colliers, or coaling stations. The battleships are so oontrncted that they could not fight in a seaway, and Mr Bierce reminds his fellow-countrymen that Togo fought the Russians in a rough sea from deliberate choice. The inference is that he would decline to engage the American fleet in a smooth sea, and Mr Bierc e says the American sailors are seasick in bad weather and cannot shoot well from a rocking deck. One perceives, therefore, that the outlook is melancholy. Mr Bierce, of course, is for ship subsidies, to revive the mercantile marine and so provide transports and train a race of real sailors. Then comes General Homer Lea with a book on "The Valor of Ignorance." What Mr Bierce does to the American ravy is bad enough, but it is nothing compared with what Gen. Lea doss to the army. His book, we read is designed "to show the unpreparednets of tho United States for war, and to prove the possibility of a Japanese conquest of Western America. Tho first half deals with the general philosophy of conquest, and with the conditions that render this country liable to attack. The author points out that we are an nnmilitary nation, and a rich and arrogant one. Wealth is no safeguard against a wollorganised and determined fos, and arbitration is an illusion. The Monroe Doctrine, intended to diminish the danger of hostilities, is now provocative of them. In the second half, Mr Lea discusses with cool and constant logic a plan by which the Japanese might seize ancf hold the Philippines, Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. He carefully compares the armament of tho United States -with that of Japan, and lays great stress on the worthlessness of militia and volunteers for at least the first thres-years of service. All statements are supported by facts and figures; and by 'data drawn from authentic-sources. In Japan, says tho general, desertion is unknown, while"in'the- United States iiv 1906 of an army of 60,0C0 men no less than 6,280 deserted. He tries to'show that a bis American army would be wiped out by disease in the field even if the army inflicted no losses, and lie comes pretty near proving it: '-'In the American Civil War more than four men died from preventable sickness to every one killed. In the Spanish-American AVar fourteen men died of disease to one on the battle-field. : . In the Japanese Army during the Russian War four deaths resulted from bullets to one from sickness. "In a war between Japan and the United States, should the ratio of deaths in the American Army remain the same as during the Civil War, while in the Japanese forces the ratio of the Russian War should continue, the result would be that for every ten thousand American soldiers killed on the field more than forty thousand would dio from preventable sickness; while for cvory 10,000 Japanese killed only 2,500 would die from disease. Should the total deaths on the battle-field during the war amount to 50,000 for each nation, the American casualties' from disease alone would be more than 200,----000, while the Japanese losses would amount to only 12,500. Should the Spanish-American War form the true basis-. for comparison, then the total American losses from disease would amount to 700,000, as against 12,500 Japanese.'' As a Canadian contemporary remarks, General Lee and Mr Bierce are not precisely a cheerful pair, but they set out some rather awkward

facts