in the history of this country when we might say we had command of the sea, it was after the Battle of Trafalgar, when there was not an enemy left on the sea. Yet after that battle hundreds of our merchant ships were captured; and it will be so again. We cannot protect our merchant ships; the thing is impossible.

The Navy estimates for the present year amount to £40,500,000. The expenditure is a popular one, for all who have the question of national safety at heart are agreed that England's Navy must be strong enough to meet any probable combination of foreign fleets. But fighting the enemy, and protecting the multitude of our merchant ships always on the sea, from all parts, at any given time, are two different affairs.

In the debates on the Naval estimates little or no attention was given to this side of the question. Mr. Eyres-Monsell, a young naval officer, Member for South Worcestershire, was almost the only speaker who referred in detail to the danger which threatened our food-carriers in case of an outbreak of war. He spoke of "the inadequate protection given by cruisers to our trade-routes, so important for our food-supplies and made more important by the Declaration of London." He pointed out as a single instance that on the south-east coast of America there was not a single cruiser, though between Pernambuco and the Cape Verde Islands there were at any given moment sixty British food-laden ships which a foreign commerce-destroyer might capture and sink, causing a total disorganisation of our foodsupplies. He added that it would take a cruiser six days to reach the Cape Verde Islands.

The present writer was in Jamaica at the time of the earthquake, and, speaking on the subject, was informed on good authority that there was only one small British armed vessel for the "protection" of all the West India Islands, scattered as they are over many hundreds of thousands square miles of sea.

Sir George Elliot Armstrong, in a letter just received, states:

I am convinced that of all the dangers that confront us internally and externally this is by far the most pressing. It is absolutely essential to our national stability and well-being that nothing should be left to chance, so that when war threatens or hostilities commence, our trade-routes are secure from any interference. If our food-supply or imports of raw material are interfered with for a single week think what it will mean for our country. At present we are dangerously deficient in cruisers, For the whole of the North and South Atlantic there is

not a single cruiser permanently stationed there for the protection of the 2000 merchant vessels passing through those oceans on an average day; for the North American and West Indian squadron and the South Coast of America squadron have both been abolished, and the energies of the Third and Fourth cruiser squadron in war-time would be entirely absorbed as auxiliaries to our battle fleets or watching the actual entrances to the English and Irish Channels. In a word, there is scarcely a policeman on the beat. Such, in homely language, is the situation. Yet, fools as we are, we listen to the voices which bid us "sleep peacefully in our beds."

If we apply these examples to the other trade-routes to be protected, and consider the vast expanse of sea over which our ships are scattered, it is apparent that even though the present number of our cruisers were doubled or trebled, the Admiral already quoted was not far wrong when he declared that, "We cannot protect our merchant ships in time of war. The thing is impossible.'

With reference to convoys, Admiral Close stated:

The struggle and danger will be in the first month or six weeks of war. If we can tide over that, you may then talk about convoys, but during that period the whole strength of the Admiralty will be strained to despatch our ships to sea; for to engage and defeat the enemy must be the first consideration, and the protection of our merchant ships the second consideration.

Quite recently there was a remarkable display of force on the coasts of Kent to resist an imaginary invasion. Troops were marched hither and thither, "up the hill and down the hill again," to fight a home-made enemy. But in case of war why should our enemies attempt the invasion of this country when there is a surer and more effective way open to them? They would be bad tacticians indeed if they did not see the one vulnerable point in the defences of our "Island Fortress" and concentrate their efforts on the cutting-off of supplies.

Have our naval authorities considered the event of a number of lightly armed, swift-twenty-five to thirty knot-commercedestroyers let loose on our trade-routes, and if they have considered it, will they say before they bid us "sleep in peace " what the results would probably be. No doubt great difficulties are connected with such an enterprise, but they are difficulties which, looking at the end in view, our enemies would leave no stone unturned to overcome. The chief difficulty in the way of these hostile destroyers is to get a supply of coal to enable them to keep

at sea.

But even this drawback has, in the past, been largely met by taking from captured ships, before sinking them, fresh supplies of coal as well as of food and other stores.

The Confederate States of America, their Navy destroyed, and acting under every conceivable difficulty, contrived to secure a few ships for the purpose of harassing their enemy in the way we are discussing. In 1862 the Alabama sailed from Liverpool under the name of No. 290. For two years she managed to keep the sea and to elude every effort on the part of the United States Navy to catch her, until 1864, when she was met and destroyed by the Kearsage. The operations of this ship and of the two other Confederate cruisers, the Florida and the Georgia, carried on as they were under every adverse circumstance, afford a striking object-lesson to this country.

The outcome of the operations of these few Confederate cruisers was that the American carrying-ships were driven off the sea, and the splendid mercantile fleet, second only to that of England, which the United States possessed, was by capture, sale, or inaction, practically destroyed.

Had the States been dependent for their daily bread on oversea supplies as this country is the effect of the war must have been disastrous in our own case the result of similar operations. would be too terrible to contemplate. In case of war our enemies, fully equipped for the purpose, full of resources, themselves selffeeding, would adopt the above tactics and, though our Navy might fight successful battles, it is difficult to see how our foodsupplies could be secured and our "Island Fortress" saved from being starved into surrender.

On the outbreak of hostilities with a first-class Power-to say nothing of two Powers-our mercantile marine would become paralysed. Shipowners would not send their ships to sea unless insured against loss, and insurance, except at prohibitive rates, would be impossible. This statement is not an opinion but a fact a fact which our Government, if they wished, could get amply confirmed by consultation with the underwriters of the City.

The heads of our mercantile marine seem to be fully alive to the dangers of the situation. They advocate a system of State insurance for sea-going ships, and it is presumed for cargoes also,

thus throwing all financial risks on the community. The cost of such a system as this would be so enormous and uncertain, that no one has ventured to name a probable limit to it. No doubt such an arrangement as this would safeguard the interests of the merchant and shipowner, but the dangers to which our food-supplies are exposed would be left untouched.

The "Declaration of London" is now under discussion by distinguished men, but as far as any one-not a lawyer-can make out, the existing danger would be aggravated by its adoption. It would appear that in time of war food coming to this country could, under the terms of the Declaration, be declared contraband, and even if carried in neutral ships, would be liable to capture.

With regard to the action of foreign commerce-destroyers in time of war, an optimistic speaker on the subject declared that our own cruisers would be at work to check it, and that "two could play at the same game." But it is not the "same game," but quite another one. We are dependent for food on over-sea supplies, other European nations are not, but are self-feeding. We have allowed our agriculture to fall into decay; other nations have kept their agriculture in a flourishing condition. They have consequently secured their home trade, the best of all trades, while we have sacrificed ours for the sake of commercialism. They have a strong and numerous rural population, their mainstay for food production and for other aid in time of war. Our countrysides are a desert, or fast becoming one. Other powers could afford to carry on a waiting struggle. We could not.

We have no national experience to guide us as to what would happen in case of war, because in the great contests we were engaged in at the beginning of the last century, England was practically a self-feeding country, and consequently a crisis such as we are discussing could not arise.

Those who think that the views here expressed are too extreme, will at least admit that in the time of war food would rapidly rise to famine prices. Speculators would be at work and would govern the markets. Every one in the grain trade and others out of it, would be eager buyers, and in a rapidly rising market there would be few, if any, sellers. Most of the grain trade is now carried on by "forward purchase" of supplies for some time ahead, but provisions are invariably made to cancel these con

The same precautions are taken by

tracts on the outbreak of war.

millers and dealers at home in contracts made with bakers and other customers.

According to the Corn Trade lists there are at times less than 2,000,000 quarters of imported wheat on hand. Add to this the limited stock of English wheat, and remembering that our normal requirements are about 34,000,000 quarters a year, and it will be seen what a tempting field for speculators would be opened up on the outbreak of war. Under such circumstances the price of the loaf would be trebled in a fortnight, and, after a few weeks of hostilities, it is difficult to see how sufficient bread could be had at all, at any price.

Without being an alarmist, it would be folly to shirk consideration of, or treat as a cipher, the probable social and other dangers which would follow such a situation as this. It must be remembered that we have a proletariat-propertyless men—with votes, such as does not exist in any other country in Europe. We have been told-it is to be feared with too much truththat many millions of them are already on the "verge of hunger. On them and their families the distress would mainly fall. The demands of the masses of hungry people could only be appeased by food, failing a supply of which, it is difficult to foresee to what lengths a starving population would be driven. Mr. J. Macdonald (Secretary to the London Trades Council), speaking of the position in time of war, said:

Mills and manufactories would either be shut up or be running on short time. . . You will see hundreds, nay, thousands of men, able and willing to work, parading your streets, and, not being able to work, cannot get food. . . . That is what you have to face, and frankly I have to say that, did such a condition arise, I should be one of the very first to advise the working men, who have produced the food, to go and take it if they are hungry, and not allow it to be stored up.

We have been for so long accustomed to peace and security of life and property within the British Islands, that the idea of a change in these respects is apt to be dismissed as foolish and impossible, especially when we receive the welcome assurance from those in authority that all is well and that we may "sleep in peace." But warnings as to the future, when based on a study of the facts and forces of the present, are worthy of serious heed.