War Talk

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Nov 26, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 46.

EUROPE has been facing a crisis, but the crisis has not deterred men of authority and position in England from saying that England stands ready. The very time that President David Starr Jordan was making his peace speech in Kansas City, Premier Asquith of England was saying at another banquet, that the map of Europe must be remade, and that England was facing a crisis; and he was followed by Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, declaring that Great Britain was ready. A strong British fleet, he told us, was cruising in the Eastern Mediterranean. "More than twenty battle-ships and cruisers are to be found where they are wanted, and when they are wanted, in those classic waters." "We have no reason to apprehend trouble of any kind, but my advisers of the admiralty are satisfied that our fleet and flotillas in home waters are by no means unequal to any task that might devolve upon them."

Referring to the British navy, he declared that "that power has seldom stood on a firmer basis than it does now;" and concerning relations with Germany he said: "No harm can be done by plain speaking. The Germans are a people with robust mind, and a high sense of honor and fair play. . . . The relations of the two countries have improved steadily, with every evidence of our determination to maintain supremacy. The best way to end the rivalry is to go right on and prove that we can not be overtaken."

And of course such utterances as these will stimulate Germany to go right on, and their actions will stimulate their allies, as well as the United States and other nations, to do the same.