The Hawaiian gazette., 1909-02-12
PRESIDENT EAGER TO PUT
DOWN THE WAR AGITATION

estly and successfully trying to pre-.
vent the coming of Japanese to our
shores, the Westerners deny this. Every
few days they have new case of the
coming of Japanese over the Mexican
border, surreptitiously, to bear out their
contention that many Japanese are
pouring into the Coast States. of whom
the Federal authorities have no knowl.
edge,
E-cet Coming Back in Time.
The battleship fleet is now out of
the Pacific and we'll on the way home
but the demands are very strong for
sending more ships to that ocean to
cruise there continuously. Apparently
it is only question of time when those
demands viii be needed. The govern
ment is building up great Navy yards
at Mare Island and Pearl Harbor. Mare
Island is an old yard but it has been
greatly improved in recent years and
every Navy appropriation bill carries
additional sums for its improvement and
enlargement. 1t is no secret at the
Navy Department that work is being
pushed on the great naval station at
Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. A contract
for the dredging of the channel has
been awarded with an understanding
that the work is to be rushed and the
plans and preparations for constructing
there the greatest dry dock in the world
are well under way. 1t will be but a
few months before work on the con.
struction of that dock will be begun.
Those two yards will supply the facil.
tiles for repairing the ships of large
fleet in the Pacific. Mare Island will
also be manufacturing yard, with a
a very complete equipment.
1t is easy to see that the clamor for
Pacific fleet means the maintenance
of large fleet in those waters, be.
cause the Navy Department is now com.
mitted to the policy of keeping ships
of war together. 1t will not assent to
a division of its fighting forces on the
sea until there are battleships enough
in the Navy to make two big fleets
one on the Atlantic and the other on
the Pacific.
Forts to Bristle With Guns.
Work is also being rushed on forti.
fications for the Pacific Coast, Hawaii
and the Philippines, The Fortified.
tons Appropriations Bill, just report.
ed to the House of Representatives
carries generous sums for those projects.
BY the time the Pearl Harbor yard is
completed, which will be within two or
three years every important United
States harbor on the Pacific ocean will
be bristling with tremendous guns and
all in all the armament on that ocean
will be more powerful and more modern
than the armament on the Atlantic.
With powerful ships of war, sufficient
numbers to make formidable feet,
and with harbors strongly fortified and
with Navy yards ample to take care
of crippled ships the United States will
be in good position to look out for its
interests in that largest of oceans by
the time the Panama Canal is opened.
Those who claim to be looking into the
future think that trouble with Japan
will come if it comes at all, after the
opening of that greaS waterway. At
torney General Bonaparte not long ago
made prediction to some friends that
such would be the case.
Therefore when one bears in mind all
these warlike preparations that are go.
ing forward rapidly with view to the
projections of American interests on the
Pacific ocean, he finds little reason for
lht wal lHdl Cuut DtIi-
odically. OF course it is the President s
duty to do his utmost to allay any un.
warranted agitations that might lead to
rupture with Japan. But well inform
ed officers of the Army and the Navy
say that our defenses on land and sea
in that quarter of the world are being
built up quite as rapidly as those of
the Japanese, who would be slow about
entering upon n war of aggression
against us. The people of that nation
are now burdened to the utmost with
taxes and the country is too poor ia
wage war. They could not raise at
home the money needed for great mill.
tary operations such as war with the
United States would entail and their
credit is not sufficiently strong for rails.
ing any considerable sums of money in
Europe
Japan's Statesmen Want Peace.
Furthermore there is every reason for
believing that the Japanese statesmen
and those who are responsible for the
conduct of their government want to
live on terms of peace with the United
States and are doing their utmost to
foster and encourage friendly relations
The hue and cry over there about war
comes from the irresponsible elements
who do not stop to count the cost OF
the consequences. Undoubtedly Amer
leans have much more to fear in the
commercial conquest for control of the
Pacific than in any martial operations
In recent years the japanese have
gradually been establishing their com
mercial supremacy on the Pacific Ev