Ken Conklin at 05:19, 25 December 2005

2005-12-25T05:19:48Z

Jere Krischel at 04:39, 9 December 2005

2005-12-09T04:39:47Z

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planted on Johnston Island, GOO miles from Hawaii, and the nearest
point she can approach to her American territory, unless the next move
be the occupation of Hawaii itself.
In one year, 18S8, British cruisers took possession of the Savage,
Suwarrow, and Phoenix groups and Christmas and Fanning islands,
and in 1892 the occupation of the Gilbert and Bllice groups and Gardner
and Danger islands completed the covering of the South Pacific
trade from Johnston Island to Australia. The only unannexed group
on that line remaining is the Samoan Islands, and they are closely surrounded
by British and French possessions.
It has not been a blind grab for territory which has been going on
in the South Pacific for six years past, but a working out of strategical
schemes with definite ends in view; and the United States is the only
great power interested in the Pacific trade which has not had the wisdom
to acquire territory in localities where the great trade of the future
will need guarding and supplying.
Samoa and Hawaii have been ripe to our hands for years. They are
most advantageously situated for our needs, as bases from which our
cruisers could work in time of war to protect our own trade and break
up that of an enemy. The moral force of the United States is all that
has kept European hands off these two groups to the present time, but
should a strategic necessity for their occupation by either of those
powers arise moral force would lose its power and we would have to be
prepared to then fight for them or to retire at once from the absurd
dog-in-the-manger position we have so long occupied.
To appreciate fully the question of ocean trade it is well to observe
the policy which Great Britain has consistently and successfully followed
for generations in developing and supporting her commerce.
Trade with India was established, then the route was guarded. When
the Suez Canal was cut a different disposition was needed; and they
now have the complete chain of guard stations formed by Gibraltar,
Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, and Aden, the chain being continued to China
by Ceylon, Penang, Singapore, and Hongkong. The route around the
Cape of Good Hope and to Australia is covered by Sierra Leone,
Ascension, St. Helena, Cape Town, Natal, Zanzibar, and Mauritius. To
America the route is guarded by St. Johns, Halifax, Bermuda, Jamaica,
St. Lucia, Barbados, Nassau, Balize, and Demerara.
The Falkland Islands at the southern extremity of America form a
guard station for the trade passing around Cape Horn, and up to this
point it is well to note that no station is farther than 3,000 miles from
the next on the trade route it is designed to protect; and cruisers
patrolling the routes, as well as merchant vessels traversing them, need
never be farther removed than 1,500 miles from a base where supplies
of coal and facilities for refitting are available.
The foresighted statesmen of Great Britain have had a full understanding
of the fact that the preservation intact of the circulation of
British ships in the great arteries of trade is an absolute requisite to
the well-being and even life of the British Empire, and this it is which
has guided them in the establishing around the world a complete chain
of guarded stations, from which her commerce can be supplied and
succored, whether peace or war prevail.
Until very recent times British trade in the Pacific has not been
essential so far as the welfare of the Empire was concerned, and the
guarding stations at the Falkland Islands, Fiji, and Victoria, British
Columbia, may have been supposed to be sufficient for all needs; but
it is worthy of note that as long ago as 1877 an essayist of acknowledged
ability (Vice-Admiral Colomb, of the British navy) asserted, "I

hold it futile to attempt the defense of the Pacific trade route by any
sort of vessels which must rest on the bases of Vancouver, Fiji, and
the Falkland Islands." It is also worthy of note that contemporaneously
with the completion of the Canadian Pacific Eailroad, and the
establishment from its Pacific terminus of regular steamer lines to
China and to Australasia, the British bases began to be moved closer
together; and when the probability of the building of the Nicaragua
Canal was established, the movement toward the trade center at Hawaii
became a very rapid one.
At present, instead of the wide gaps in the British system of 3,000-
mile stations, which existed when the Falkland Island station was
7,900 miles from that at Vancouver and 6,700 miles from that at Fiji,
which in turn was 4,800 miles from Vancouver, they have established
the flag of the Empire at Easter Island, 2,400 miles from the Falkland
group, which is in turn 000 miles from newly acquired Ducie Island,
from where Pitcairu Island is 300, and the Cook group still farther,
1,800 miles, on a line towardvFiji. On the line from Fiji to Vancouver
the gai> has been shortened to 2,900 miles from Johnston Island to Vancouver,
and all the intermediate territory from Johnston Island to Fiji
is under the British flag.
Other stations are still needed, and British strategists make no secret
of the assertion that on the outbreak of war with a maritime power, a
necessary first move, unless the Pacific trade were to be abandoned,
would be the occupation and retention of Hawaii, Guadalupe Island,
off the coast of Lower California, and one of the islands in the Bay of
Panama, with a reliance on the friendship or fears of the South American
States for depots at Callao and Valparaiso. As a matter of fact,
they have such a depot at present in the harbor of Callao.
Now, Mr. Speaker, sentiment has not hoisted the British flag over
these isolated ports, which, to maintain in a state of efficiency, are a
source of great expense without any apparent return. Their coal
depots, storehouses, repairing facilities, and at salient points batteries
and garrisons, are provided by a business instinct purely, which recognizes
that the trade which is the lifeblood of the empire must be
efficiently guarded; and centuries of experience have taught them the
proper means to employ.
If there is a gap in the guard stations of the Pacific trade at present,
or a salient point which should be possessed, and Hawaii is such a
point, sentiment, which does not trouble our British friends, will not prevent
their cruisers, under the direction of far-seeing statesmen, whose
aim is to secure any and every advantage for British trade, from seizing
and holding, when the time to them seems propitious, just what is
thought necessary to strengthen the weak places in their trade-route
patrol.
War ships to patrol a trade route efficiently, to guard their own commerce
and damage that of an enemy, require bases from which to operate
with the certainty of finding their necessities supplied at any one of them.
Merchant vessels in time of war require them as points of rendezvous
and refuge, and, as we have seen, Great Britain has foreseen the
necessities and provided such bases at convenient points. No other
nation has this immense advantage, although France and Germany
ar«. making great efforts, the former in Africa, Asia, and Australasia,
and the latter, so far, in Africa and Australasia only, where coal depots
and bases for naval operations have been established.
The United States has the right to establish coal depots in Samoa
and Hawaii, and at present small supplies exist at both places; but

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Ken Conklin at 05:19, 25 December 2005

Jere Krischel at 04:39, 9 December 2005