The St. Johns herald., 1889-03-28

lTOIH lIlC NcN LettidNQ I10Idlu IS rather significant coming from the source 1t does, and clearly express es a feeling which seems generally to prevail amongst the people of the Australian group of Islands. Tn it's issue of February 1st, the Herald said Ut may suit Prince Bismarck to effect to despise a pow CT that has not a fleet; but sixty millions of people, the wealthiest, the most intelligent, the most patri- otic, the cleverest, the most ener- getic and determined in the whole world is a fact to be reckoned with ; and though America has but few
 fighting ships to-day, six months of hostilities with such resources as the great Republic could command to her service, would sweep German commerce from the seas. With an accumulation of surplus revenue literally choking the cellars of her Treasury with an annual surplus that she finds itimpossible to spend, America, as by the wave of a magi- cian's wand, could summon a fleet of fast-fghting cruisers, that, with
 American ingenuity to create and guide their destructive powers, would shut up Germany within her French and Russian confines; and
 from the mere overfowings of her
 national Treasury she could carry on aggression that-to adapt an interesting expression of Prince Bismarck-would "bleed Germany white" She could do it single handed, after few months in gath ering herself together, and she could carry it on-forever, if she wished
 But "single handed" would not be descriptive of the position of any
 Power declaring war against Ger many at the present hour; the first gun fired at Samoa between Amer lea and Germany would be the sig nal for France springing like tiger at the throat of Germany, and for the navy of France being placed at the service of the sister Republic. Prince Bismarck knows this we'll, and so does the American Govern ment, and while the fact will serve to remove any reluctance which America might have to forcibly as- sert her rights, and to resent Ger man 1nsolence we venture to think that the same fact will make Prince Bismarck S courage ooze out of his fingers ends. Indeed, it is difficult to see how America can, with any dignity oreven show ofreason, with draw from the demand she has made of 'hands off Samoa" but it is much easier to see how Prince Bismarck may-for bully is d. ways coward, and for many years Prince Bismarck has been the big, clustering bully of all Europe and will be not at all likely, if he can avoid it, to rish trying conclu- sions with new power without, which seems only too ready to spring in and disturb the too deli cately adjusted balance ofpower in Europe. Should America persist in the course on which she appears to have started, and succeed in arrest ing German aggression in Samoa, and securing for that group of is- lands their independence and au- tonomy, the moral effect which it will produce in these colonies will be both striking and important. There is a natural affinity between these colonies and the United States, the kinship being quite as near, institu
 tions, usages and ways of thought being nearer still than they are with England. And should it be that the mother land, from her unfortu- nate entanglements in internation- al intrigues, is obliged to look si- lently on, while foreign powers are wrongfully establishing themselves on the ruins of our interests in these seas, human nature and common