June 8, 1908.]
seema
CHÍNA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
evil pass, and the revolutionaries and their kind were not unjustified in feeling some resentment. It only needed a prick to sentiment, a cry of methods, to make them direct their resent-
unconstitutional | ment at the wrong parties, with the result that a well-meaning King was slain and a loyal patriot was banished. It is to be hoped that the "frogs" (if we may use another illustration from fable without offence) may not find they have exchanged King Log" for "King Stork," and that, instead of "devouring the people," the new Ministry will be honest and patriotic. With either a Monarchy or a Republic, Ministers are necessary, and more depends upon their moral character and aims, than upon the theory or system of administration.
THE POWERS AND THE PACIFIC.
number obviously permits the unhappiness of the minority, and in a country where the liberty of the subject is considered of immense importance, it has always been found that one man's liberty might be another · man's slavery. It even sufficiently obvious that if ever a state of things were to exist in which every man enjoyed liberty, the blessing would be of less value, since there would be no less fortunate condition with which to compare it. The opening of the Portuguese Par- liament by the young King MANUEL draws attention to the possibility that in two antagonistic systems there may be advantages in both. Under the dictatorship of Senhor FRANCO sundry serious abuses were being abolished, abuses which involved loss and generally detriment to the people. There is no doubt that if the Portuguese people could have been unitedly patient for a while under the chiefly sentimental burden
(Daily Press, 4th Jane.) of an unconstitutional system, the Constitu- tion itself could in time have been restored Sir JOHN FISHER's proposed redistribution When at the time commenting on Admiral in a healthier condition than it was when of the Fleet in Pacific waters we pointed FRANCO and the late King took a liberty out some of the objections to the proposed with it for its own good. There was a centralisation in the Straits in connection parallel there with the treatment of a
with the withdrawal from Vancouver's serious disease by eminent surgeons; a risky Island. Professedly the concentration of operation was projected and begun, and the fleet in the waters about the Straits was might have resulted in a satisfactory cure. adopted from strategic reasons, and as long There was, however, abrupt interference by as we held the preponderance of power in relatives of the patient, and now we must the Pacific there was something to be said watch and wait for the result. Instead in its favour: strategy, however, that only of heroic surgical treatment by FRANCO takes account of success is a dangerous the Portuguese are attempting a sort of standby, and in case any untoward circum- homeopathic method, or, a frivolous critic stance should arise, or some disaster, not might suggest, they are pinning their faith necessarily a defeat at the hands of an on a sort of political Christian-Science. enemy, to alter our predominance, there For the new Ministry is a coalition one, would be but one path of escape left, or in formed from the three leading political case of the blocking of the Canal, we might parties, and much depends upon the faith find ourselves cut off from any means of that animates them. If they should prove repair or renewal. In such a case a dock. incapable, as some lookers-on fear, of sink- | yard at the Straits amidst an alien popula- ing their old entities and jealousies, the tion, who might even at the time happen to patient will be found in more perilous case be hostile, would prove a far inferior place than ever before. It may even be that things are worse than they seem. In enlightened Britain, we are beginning to be more and more disgusted with the Party system of Government, where the fuuction of the Opposition, which is to oppose nearly all legislation emanating from the other Party, is rarely neglected. This means, as it has often meant in Portugal, the wasting of much time and effort, and consequently little real progress. When, however, the Opposition ceases to oppose, there may be too much progress, and that in a wrong In Britain, the paramount anxiety to "keep the other rascals out has led to the embracing by the Party "" in of schemes and notions which with minds anembarrassed by such comparative ly petty considerations, they might never, in all probability, have entertained. In Portugal it has been somewhat worse, from a sentimental point of view, though perhaps not so very different from the purely utili Within the last four years-in fact since tarian standpoint, of the best interests of Sir JOHN FISHER propounded his scheme of the people. The Parties in Portugal have de- economising the Fleet, the nations of the veloped a system of manipulating elections world at large have seen cause to place the by mutual arrangement, chiefly to accom-
control of the Pacific Ocean on modate each other in affecting the transfer higher level; some indeed going so far as to of office and its spoils. Professional poli- predicate that its command will be the ticians, in fact, have adopted a motto highest ambition of the century. The United something like "share and share alike" with regard to what is to be got out of determined to send out its entire battle fleet States, after unduly neglecting it, suddenly pólities in the way of personal profit-what to restore its sense of warning power; and the Americans expressively call "boodle." Japan has been making high bids for its The financial and commercial condition of mastery. The comparatively low pitch into Portugal at the present day shows how which Great Britain's recent neglect of the effective such methods have been. No Great Ocean was bringing her, was recently thoughtful and disinterested observer exemplified by a curious incident :-Canada doubts that the recent tragedy was a case alone of the great British Colonies felt of shooting at the grows and hitting the ashamed to invite the American Battle pidgeons. Things were undoubtedly at an Fleet. With a line of coast extending from
direction.
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of retreat than a harbour on the coast of Vancouver's Island, or in the Gulf of Georgia, where not only are supplies to be had on the spot, but the population is British. Up till the last three years we had uniformly kept bere a detachment under the name of the Pacific Squadron, and this hid enabled us not only to keep the flag in evidence, but to pose as a genuine Pacific Naval Power; with the advent of a Govern- ment which was content that Great Britain, instead of holding her empira by her own right hand, was content to pose as a great Power on sufferance, the first opportunity
was taken of Sir JOHN FISHER'S Concentra- tion policy to reduce our Pacific Fleet to insignificance, on the alleged ground of economy, but really to use the money saved from the Army and Fleet for the purpose of bribing the Proletariat on a wholesale scale. The result has scarcely been satisfactory even to its authors.
a much
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the 48th to the 55th parallel of north latitude; with possession of by far the finest naval harbours on the west coast of America; running subsidised mail steamers across the Ocean, and to the southern Colonies, and possessing in joint ownership with telegraphic cable, she yet did not possess a England and Australia her own
single vessel ffying a war flag, nor did England keep a single man-of-war on the station. I was no wonder that she felt herself hopelasily out of the Baby-house, and felt that to extend an invitation to the Battle Fleet alongside her southern neigh- bours would be only inviting contempt for herself, and still more for the Home Country. The notion has sprung, not of contumacy, but of what cannot be looked upon in any other light than a national feeling of self-respect.
With our actual national preponderance in Pacific waters, and their growing import- ance in the affairs of the world, the quiet manner in which England's practical with- drawal from the waters of the wide Pacific has been accepted by the Nation is not easily comprehensible, nor the complacent manner in which, without protest of any sort, it has been treated. The protest of the Canadian Government, and ita hesitation, in which the Home Government had placed on account of the absurdity of the position it, to extend a similar invitation to that forwarded by every other important Colony is at last beginning to bring the matter home to the great public. Even the Navy League, which has done so much in a quiet way to avert the plotted extinction as a source of power of the Navy has been silent on the subject. Indeed it may be said that the discovery of the importance of the Pacific as a source of political power has been left to President RoosEVELT. It is a fact on which Europe has been pluming itself for the last ten years, that the United States owing to the condition in which the Navy had been permitted to fall, had been losing their influence in the graver politics of the world. This has been the actuating motive that has impelled Mr. RooSEVELT onward in the path of reconstruction. The appar- ent immobility of the Fleet, and its evident avoidance of Pacific waters were beginning to have for the States similar effects to those
brought about by British abstention, so the President resolved to cut the knot by order- ing out the entire available fleet. How much the public of the State resented the effort, Navy itself required to render it capable and the amount of weeding out that the of undertaking the voyage, are now matters of history. Mr. ROOSEVELT has now the satisfaction of knowing that in spite of the pretended jeers with which his scheme was heralded by an artificially incited American and European mock public opinion, the plated by its author, and has very con- voyage has actually had the effect contem-
siderably toned down the defiant attitude assumed by some of the Powers.
Looking at the very similar instance of contempt which we see is being brought about by the planned abstention of Eng- land, we can see how very much stronger is the necessity lying on ourselves. As we have mentioned both coasts of Vancouver's
class naval harbour and depot. They are Island abound in deep fiords, any one of
within some twelve days journey from England so that reinforcements can be readily set through our own territory, in coal and supplies of every sort. Wood More than this the country itself abounds and iron are to be found almost anywhere, and iron mines only require a little pre- liminary encouragement to be able to
which almost can be converted into a first
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