Sir

Three centuries ago England was a backward and ignorant agricultural country, without enterprise, without trade, without wealth, without colonies. But England, though poor, was ambitious. Her leading men wished her to become a World-Power. Walter Raleigh wrote: "Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself," and Lord Bacon declared "The rule of the sea is the epitome of monarchy," and advised this country to conquer the wealth and the colonies of Spain because Spain's power was no longer sufficient to defend her vast and wealthy possessions. Following the advice of her greatest statesmen, England made war upon Spain, not for political or religious reasons but because Spain owned the wealth of the New World. Spain declined and Holland became by war and by work heir to the larger part of Spain's wealth. Then England transferred her hostility from Spain to Holland. Attacked by England, who was later on joined by France, the Netherlands declined, England and France fell to fighting over the great Dutch inheritance, and war had to decide whether the New World was to become French or English. Thus by three centuries of war, firstly against Spain, then against Holland, and lastly against France, was the British Empire won, and the struggle for empire ended only in 1815 when at last Great Britain had vanquished all her European rivals. British colonial and commercial supremacy is barely a century old.

The rise of the British World-Empire has been similar to that of all other States and Empires, and only

those who are ignorant of history and of the great physiological and historical laws which rule the world can condemn the triumphant progress of the Anglo-Saxon race. This world is not a world of ease and peace, but a world of strife and war. Nature is ruled by the law of the struggle for existence and of the survival of the fittest and the strongest. States, like trees and animals, are engaged in a never-ending struggle for room, food, light, and air, and that struggle is a blessing in disguise, for it is the cause of all progress. Had it not been for that struggle, the world would still be a wilderness inhabited by its aboriginal savages.

The abolition of war would be a misfortune to mankind. It would lead not to the survival of the fittest and strongest, but to the survival of the sluggard and the unfit, and therefore to the degeneration of the human race. However, there is no likelihood that universal peace will be established. As long as human nature remains what it is, as long as self-interest, not benevolence, is the predominant motive in men and in States, those nations which are ambitious and strong will seize the possessions of those which are rich and weak. Thus Nature constantly rejuvenates the world and compels States to increase in civilization and strength by the same means by which she compels individuals to cultivate both mind and body, and those States which disregard the supreme law of Nature and of history disappear.

All States and Empires are founded upon power. By the exercise of power families have grown into tribes, tribes into States, and States into empires. The word "Power" happily ex

presses the essence of the State, for the State is not only founded upon power but is power. Power is the only valid title by which a nation holds its possessions, and only by power can it retain them. That is the law of Nature and the law of history. The fate of nations depends therefore chiefly on their strength and on their fitness for facing the universal struggle for existence, and wars will hardly be abolished by international agreement unless the universal law of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest and strongest be previously abrogated. It is true that the prophet tells us "They shal! beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more"; but he shrewdly adds that that happy event will come to pass only "in the last days," and these are not yet.

In Lord Bacon's words, "For Empire and greatness it importet: most that a nation do profess arms as their principal honor, study, and occupation." The great commercial world-empires of the past from Phoenicia to the Dutch world-empire have been conquered and have declined and decayed because they neglected cultivating their strength and providing in time for their defence. May not the loosely jointed and ill-organized British Empire have a fate similar to that of its great predecessors, and may we not, if we recognize that possibility in time, take in time the necessary steps to guard ourselves against such a calamity?

The maintenance of naval supremacy is an absolute necessity for the defence of the British Empire, for it can hardly be doubted that the disappearance of our naval supremacy would inevitably, and very speedily, be followed by the peaceful dissolution or by the violent break-up of the Empire. As

soon as the connection between the various parts of the Empire can be severed at will by a Power supreme on the sea, the British Empire exists only by permission of that Power. Interimperial trade in peace would be at the mercy of that nation which rules the sea, and which conceivably might interfere with the free flow of inter-imperial trade with the object of benefiting its own citizens. A State supreme on the sea might, therefore, drain the British Empire of its wealth by navigation laws and wanton fiscal interference against which diplomatic protests might prove unavailing. If the British Empire should be engaged in war with a third Power, concerted action and mutual assistance would become impossible for the members of the Empire except by the permission of the supreme naval Power, and our possessions would inevitably, one by one, fall to the nation supreme on the sea, which alone would be able, economically and militarily, to protect them, and which would be able to acquire them at its leisure either by war or by economic or diplomatic pressure. With the disappearance of British naval supremacy the British Empire would exist merely on sufferance, and Great Britain could keep only that portion of her oversea trade and those of her colonies which the supreme naval Power would allow her to retain. Like Spain and Portugal, Great Britain would be deprived of her most valuable possessions and be left only with those which would not be worth the taking. Therefore the end of British naval supremacy would certainly mean the end of the British Empire. Hence the most important question arises, Will Great Britain be able to continue maintaining her naval supremacy:

Our naval policy is at present based upon the two-Power standard. Great Britain endeavors to maintain a fleet

equal in strength to the combined strength of the fleets possessed by the two second strongest naval Powers, rightly considering that these might possibly ally themselves against her. Up to a few years ago France and Russia, whose policy then was hostile to this country, were the two second strongest naval Powers. Lately the danger of a Franco-Russian attack on this country has diminished, but at the same time the United States and Germany have come forward and have become competitors with this country for naval supremacy.

Two questions ought now to be considered: (1) Ought Great Britain to maintain a fleet strong enough to meet the combined fleets of the United States and Germany? (2) Is Great Britain able to maintain the twoPower standard against the United States and Germany?

In order to solve these two questions we must first of all consider our relations with the United States and Germany and the probable development of these relations.

The United States and Germany were formerly Land Powers, one might almost say Inland Powers. Their citizens were chiefly occupied in agriculture, and they exchanged their surplus of wheat, meat, timber, and other raw produce against British manufactures. In the course of the last two or three decades the policy of Protection has changed the economic aspect, and with the economic aspect the political character, of both these countries, and has converted our best customers into our most active and most dangerous competitors. The United States and Germany not only supply their home markets with the productions of their flourishing industries, virtually excluding our manufactures, but not our raw products, from them, but they also export huge quantities of manufactured goods to all countries,

Let us consider separately the relation of Great Britain and the British Empire with the United States and with Germany.

Englishmen and Americans are of the same stock, and, from the sentimental point of view, they are friends. but economically, and therefore to some extent politically as well, they are rivals. During many years the United States have steadfastly and unflinchingly striven to become a great industrial nation, and they have succeeded, and now they are striving with the greatest energy and determination to become a great maritime and colonial nation as well. The largest portion of the American exports and imports is at present carried in British ships, but powerful interests in America are striving to eliminate the British middleman, and to transfer this profitable branch of our carrying trade to American hands by means of large subsidies paid under a Shipping Bill which has been discussed in Congress and the Senate, and which ought soon to become law. However, America means not only to reserve the American shipping trade to American citizens by protective measures similar in character and effect to those by which she has created her manufacturing industries and has reserved to her citizens her home market, but she also en

deavors to take away from us the most profitable branch of our foreign trade, our trade with the East. The Panama Canal is designed to strike a terrible blow at our Eastern trade. As the great industrial centres of America are situated on or near the East Coast where coal and iron abound, they are separated from Asia by a longer sea distance than that which separates Great Britain from Asia. Therefore Great Britain is at present the halfway house and the carrier for the seaborne trade between the United States and the East. When the Panama Canal is finished, the American East Coast will no longer be farther away from Asia than Great Britain, but Great Britain will be farther away from Asia than the American East Coast, and then the Suez Canal route, which possesses many great disadvantages, may cease to be the world's high road of commerce between the East and the West. America may therefore become the natural halfway house and the carrier for the water-borne goods exchanged between the East and the West, and, unless we take in time vigorous counter-measures, in self-defence, we may lose to the United States not only the Chinese and Japanese markets but our Indian market as well. If, later on, America should favor American trade at the Panama Canal by differential tolls or by refunding tolls-and such a step seems by no means impossible notwithstanding paper undertakings to the contrary-the most valuable part of our shipping trade and our great Eastern markets may suddenly be taken away from Great Britain and be transferred bodily to the United States.

Desiring to be self-supporting and self-sufficing, and considering their territories too narrow, the United States have become an imperial and a colonizing nation. They have conquered

the colonies of Spain, they have clearly shown their desire to extend their colonial empire in various directions, they are building an enormous fleet, and we cannot too often ask ourselves "What is the American navy for?"

Although Anglo-American relations are most cordial, the vigorous expansionist policy followed by the United States is not without danger to the British Empire, because "business is business," and because the most desirable colonies happen to be in British hands. We must also not forget that not so very long ago President Cleveland was ready to use our paltry differences with Venezuela as a pretext for war with Great Britain in order to withdraw public attention from his political mistakes, and that a war with Great Britain would then have been very popular in America. The American people are an easily excitable people in whose mind there is a strong strain of aggressiveness. Besides,

some of our diplomatic dealings with the United States-I refrain from quoting painful examples-should have convinced us that the Government of the United States follows not a sentimental but a business policy, that it promotes the interests of its citizens without overmuch regard to abstract virtue and to the feelings of other nations, and that it relies as much upon power for achieving its aims as do the military States of Europe. Therefore we cannot take it for granted that the United States will always be friendly to this country, and we cannot contemplate with indifference a desire on their part to acquire the rule of the sea unless we are determined to commit political suicide. Only the strong are respected in international politics. Canada, cur West Indian islands, and our harbors throughout the world, are a standing temptation to the sense of acquisitiveness which is at least as strongly developed in Amer

ican statesmen and business men as it is in our own. The stronger we are, the more cordial will be our relations with America. Our weakness might prove an irresistible temptation to American politicians anxious for renown or for popularity to increase the wealth and strength of their country at the cost of the British Empire.

The foregoing should make it clear that Great Britain must maintain her naval supremacy against the United States if she wishes to preserve the Empire.

Let us now look into Anglo-German relations and their probable development.

Germany, like the United States, used to be a poor agricultural country and a customer of Great Britain for her manufactured goods. In 1879 Bismarck introduced the policy of Protection. Since then the industries and the wealth of Germany have so marvellously increased that she has become our most dangerous industrial competitor in all our markets including our home market. Not satisfied with having become the greatest industrial nation, though not the greatest exporting nation, in Europe, Germany desires to become a great maritime and colonial empire as well, because she wishes to buy the raw products she requires in her own possessions and to have secure outlets oversea for her surplus manufactures, but chiefly because she requires outlets in the temperate zone for her rapidly growing population, which increases every year by about 900,000 whilst ours increases only by some 300,000.

In order to be able to become a great maritime and colonial state Germany requires in the first place a sufficiency of well-situated commercial and naval harbors. Hamburg, her only great harbor, is not very favorably situated, for nearly all the great industrial centres of Germany lie on or near the

Rhine, which is the great high road of German trade, because coal and iron abound in its vicinity. Therefore the greatest German harbors are not Hamburg and Bremen, but the harbors at the mouth of the Rhine, Antwerp and Rotterdam, and it is not unnatural that Germany desires to obtain the control of these harbors. Modern Germany, Prusso-Germany, is the heir of the old German Empire, of which the Netherlands formed as much a part as did Alsace-Lorraine, and Germany has as strong an historical claim on the former as that which, in 1870, she successfully asserted with regard to the latter. From the point of view of every thinking and patriotic German it is absurd that the mouths of the principal German river should be in the hands of a nation of the fourth rank which originally formed a part of Germany, and which speaks a LowGerman dialect. From the point of view of every German business man it seems intolerable that the Netherlands should be allowed to make a profit, one might almost say to levy tribute, on every article exported from, and imported into, the principal manufacturing districts of Germany via the Rhine; that the Netherlands should become wealthy by Germany's work. From the German point of view the fact that Holland and Germany are two separate States is an anachronism.

Germany has two war harbors-Wilhelmshafen, on the North Sea, and Kiel, on the Baltic. The former is a narrow artificially dug-out port which is totally insufficient for Germany's requirements. The latter is a large port which has the equally great disadvantage that it can be reached only by making the lengthy and very dangerous détour round Denmark, or by using the Baltic North Sea Canal, which might easily become blocked in war time either through accident or through hostile action. Besides it is