The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-03-26
SOMETHING or A PANIC.

To say that England is ip a panic has a strange sound to those who know the English people. They are not given to mysteries. nervous fts, brain- storms and the like. but there seems ] no reason to doubt that there is now a feeling of apprehension and unrest over there so unusual as to be almost mex plicable. The whole truth seems to be that England. like our own country. has a lot of alarmists, and they are able to see the horrid front of war looming above the horizon in all it's awful significance.
 The ground of all this uneasiness lies in the fact that England sees, or inn agines she sees, her supremacy as a naval power slipping away from her and preparing to settle down in Ger many. England. as all know. has long | claimed to be mistress of the seas, but of late there have been developments in Germany. England. as all know. has long claimed to be mistress of the seas, but of late there have been develop ments in Germany that threaten to deprive her of her marine mastery, and that Is the cause of the disquiet. Not since the time of the great Napoleon has there been anything so nearly ap- preaching a panic as now prevails. If the uneasiness and panicky feel ing were all confined to the common panics, 1t would not be so strange and significant, but when such men as Arthur Balfour. Lord Roseberry, Fred erick Harrison and others of their class join in the warnings and alarms there would seem to be something at the bot tom of it all. In a recent speech Mir. Balfour declared that 1t is no longer a question of keeping up the two-power standard of naval strength, 50 far as building modern and powerful war ships. but of having a one-power stand ard. meaning Germany. of course. MT. Frederick Harrison, who Is not a politician, but a writer and publicist. in a recent somewhat lengthy letter to The London Times, declares that Eng land "lies open to unutterable ruin" and a good deal more of the same sort, and to make sure that he would not be misunderstood, he continued:
 The German navy Is not built for distant voyages. It Is built to act as the spearhead of a magnificent army. trained for a sudden transmarine de- scent on the coast. and every road as well as bridge and smithy in East Eng in the German war office. If ever our naval forces were brok en through and the military occupation of our arse as oSs aoek sn and sSs5 capital oSar6 ne tory cannot parallel. It would not be the empire. but Britain. that would be destroyed. Occupation by the for what the bursting of boiler would be to a Dreadnought. Capital would disappear with the destruction of cred 1t. Famine. social anarchy, and an in calculable change in the industrial and financial world would be the inevit- able result. Britain might live on. as Holland lives on, but before she be- gan life freely again she would have
 
 could not feed. and all her oversee en- pire, which she could not defend"
 That is a rather gruesome picture and reminds one very much of some of the fire and brimstons jingo oratory in- duiged in occasionally on this side the 1 water. It is, as The Hartford Courant l comments, "a state of mind that this remarkable letter discloses, and of course no sort of comment is worth while upon a state of mind. The only thing to do Is to take account of it as an element in the current history of Europe. It looks more and more as if Frederic Harrisons state of mind were typical of the public mind of England. If this is true, and if 1t continues to be true. there will be increasing danger that England may not wait for the attack which she so confidently ex- poets. If it is to be a struggle borne on by the elemental springs of nation- al destinies," as MT. Harrison says, 1t Is more than likely that British states men may conclude that the test of strength would better be made soon, before Germany has grown any strong CT"
 Referring to this feeling of unrest as "a state of mind" does not relieve matters any, for it has been brought about by the great activity shown by Germany of late in the work of in- creasing her naval power. She is build ing more powerful warships and bigger guns. and otherwise adding to her al- ready great naval strength, and Eng land refuses to believe that it is being done in the interest of peace. English statesmen and other men of standing are among the alarmlsts. and there must be something in it. fight to the finish between England and Germany would be deplorable, but there are not wanting those in the former country who are predicting 1t and warning the country to prepare for It.