Page:Jay William Hudson - America's International Ideals (1915).djvu/34

 point where it is equal to, if not better than, Great Britain's navy. There must be no guess-work about it. Great Britain's policy has been two keels to one: and even this is thought by many Englishmen to be not enough. Well, let our naval program call for two keels to one. Let us at last be thoroughly prepared.

But there is one little question that emerges right at this point. Can we ever catch up? Suppose that Great Britain's navy, for instance, remained precisely as it is for a period of years. Suppose, too, that we built battleships as fast as we could. How long would it take to create a navy as efficient as that of Great Britain, let alone a navy so much larger that there would be no question of its superiority? And with such a naval program before the world, known to be directed against Great Britain (and of course everybody would know it), what would Great Britain be doing all this time? Would she suddenly abandon her own traditional naval policy? Or, would she add to her navy as fast as she could to meet the new international situation which we had created? It is inconceivable that she would not. If she did this, then how long would it take for America to catch up? We could not catch up at all on the basis of the relatively meager program advanced by our agitators for national defense. And on any program at all we could not catch up in from fifty to one hundred years.

But suppose we could catch up in fifty years. Would Great Britain wait for us? Why should she, when now, according to the agitators for defense, we are totally unprepared against her? No, it seems reasonable to suppose that if the United States announces to the world her entrance into the armament competition and a policy of building up a greater military strength than