The Rationale of the Anglo-German Disturbance
By R.
An article in the June 17th “Independent” by Mr. W. T. Stead, seeks to make plain to Americans the reason for England’s nervousness respecting the German naval situation. To make his point clear he likens Americans to a man on dry ground where to kill a fellow might be unjustifiable murder, and the Germans to11a man about to drown who chokes his brother for clutching him in the deep water and is about to drag him down to death. As America is free from any sudden attack that might destroy her navy and cripple the nation, we need have no fear of war attack or the designs of an enemy. But with Germany and England the situation is different. The German Empire was founded by the deep-water ethics, where the leaders did not know what a day might bring forth. At any moment a combination of hostile neighbors or an internal revolution might bring to the ground the imperial fabric which they had built up with such infinite pains. England once stood in the same position. During the Napoleonic wars, Pitt is said to have declared that whenever any European power built four ships of the line, England ought at once to destroy them, lest at some future time they might be used against her. And so without declaration of war by England the British Government destroyed the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, believing that the Danes, willingly or unwillingly, would be certain to place their fleet at the disposal of the French. So like pirates they swooped down upon Copenhagen and carried off all the Danish ships that were not sent to the bottom or burned in the battle. The English, according to Mr. Stead, have now developed the dry-land ethics, but the Germans do not believe it. The Germans realize that they are still in the deep-water, struggling-for-life ethics, and they believe that the British are no further advanced than themselves. To quote from Mr. Stead: “The Germans know that if they were in the same relative superiority to the English at sea that the English are to them, they would long ago have swooped down upon the nascent fleet and destroyed it before it had time to grow strong enough to be a menace to their safety. And to this hour the Germans can not understand why the English have not taken advantage of their overwhelming naval supremacy to send the German fleet to the bottom before it became too strong.” Mr. Stead then goes on to give incidents showing that Germany has been afraid of this very thing for a number of years. He also calls attention to the fact that the more ships Germany builds the more nervous she becomes as to a possible English attack, because England’s maintaining a two-to-one standard with Germany puts all the ships of the weaker power in the hollow of England’s hand. He says: “They are but hostages in the hand of the more powerful fleet. When Germany had no battle-fleet to speak of, she was practically invulnerable against England. Every new man-of-war she puts on the high seas until she is in a position of naval equality to England is the addition of a new hostage for her good behavior, and as the addition of every new battle-ship is naturally regarded as a provocation and a challenge by the other power, the Germans feel very ill at ease. They are in the position of a lion-tamer who has for the time put his head into the jaws of the lion, and he never knows when the brute may bite it off. While giving assurances that the fleet-building has no hostile intent, they are pushing it to the position to contest with some chance of success the sovereignty of the seas so long held by England.” The English naturally regard the growth of a powerful German fleet within a day’s steaming of their coast with uneasiness. The regular army of Great Britain is a hundred fifty thousand strong, whereas the Germans can summon to the battle-line two million trained soldiers. England is the imperial Venice of the world. Without her dominions over sea, Britain is but forty millions to the German sixty. The sovereignty of the sea maintains the British Empire. “Hence the English feel instinctively that the moment any foreign navy comes near enough to endanger their supremacy the knife is at their throat.” When the present government took office, the British navy was nearly three times as strong as the German. It is now about twice as strong. But in three years it will not have even twice as strong a navy. And now German sentiment in some quarters urges that England is feeling the pace set for her, and that if Germany will but push on, the “trident of the seas” will be hers. On the other hand, England intends to maintain the two-power standard at any cost. To the English it is a matter of life or death. Mr. Stead then asks Americans a very pointed question: “Suppose that by some convulsion of nature, Japan could suddenly be transported across the Pacific to within one day’s steaming of your coast. Do you think it quite inconceivable that, under those changed conditions, some Americans might feel their nerves a little jumpy when they thought of what might happen? But Japan can never threaten the existence of the American Republic as Germany can menace the British Empire.”