During the past week Mr. Blatchford, the well-known Socialist writer,
has been publishing in the Daily Mail a series of vigorous and very strongly worded articles on the challenge to Great Britain involved in the rise of a great German Navy. Mr. Blatchford has travelled in Germany has watched the shaping of German policy, and has read German history, and his head is as clear as his writing. He says in plain words that Germany is building a strong Navy in order to attack Great Britain. If his articles excite illwill between Germany and ourselves we shall be very sorry but we do not think it at all necessary that they should do so. He has expressly said that he admires and respects the German people, but that unfortunately they do not direct German policy. This exactly represents our own feeling. If battleships equal to our own in number and fighting strength are being built at an extraordinarily rapid rate, they are obviously not built as floating museums or for the fun of firing their guns into the void. They are built to engage our ships if necessary.
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