aeroplane which could rival that perfomance. Who is hardy enough to set a limit to the achievements of the next ten, or even of the next five years? The truth is that the coming conquest of the air by man is now a certainty and that what is left in doubt is the date of the different stages of achievement. We know, for instance, that the Atlantic will before long be crossed by a lighter than air machine, but we do not know whether the Wrights are too sanguine in anticipating the event within twelve months. We know again that it will be traversed by a machine heavier than air within a very few years, but we do not know whether the number of those intervening years will be two, or three, or five, or ten. (Probably most men who realize the rate of progress of the art of aviation will be inclined to one of the earlier estimates.) It is proposed here, then, to lift the gaze from the immediate present, and to dare to look towards the not distant future. Let us suppose that ten or fifteen, or may it be twenty, years have elapsed, and that that has happened which is bound to happen. Let us imagine that lines of flying machines have been started all over the world, and that passage through the air is the accepted mode of human transit. Then we shall find also that what may be termed the centre of military gravity will be in process of shifting from the sea and the land to that aerial ocean which encompasses both. If any doubt this, let them consider that even if aerial navigation should be confined to the comparatively awkward and slow vessels which the persevering genius of Count Zeppelin has created, our position in Egypt will probably have become untenable in five years from now, unless by the possession of an aerial navy of our own. For we may at least assume that within that space of time, dirigible balloons will have immensely increased in radius of action and in carrying capacity. If a voyage of two or three thousand miles should then be within their reach, and if Germany and Austria should then possess a large fleet of these craft (as they certainly will, unless airships of that type become obsolete in the interim), it would be within the power of those States to transport in less than forty-eight hours what would be literally "a flying column" of several thousand men to any point or points in Egypt which they choose to attack. It may be objected that such force would have neither cavalry nor artillery, but for scouting purposes cavalry would not then be wanted, while by that date some dirigibles, at all, events, would be built to carry and to discharge light guns. At any rate, it is plain that all existing military and naval arrangements for the defence of Egypt would be revolutionized by the presence of such a possibility as that which is likely, if not certain, actually to accrue. I quote this instance of Egypt, however, merely as an illustration of the manner in which what I have called the centre of military gravity will be transferred to the air. The object of military force, whether exerted on the sea or on the land, or (in future days) in the region above, is to coerce an enemy. The coercion is effected by the defeat of his armaments, the destruction of his property, and as has been frequently the case in the past and may probably be the case again, by the general slaughter of his citizens. Now an aerial navy within at the most half a generation of the present time, and most likely very much sooner, will have it in its power to destroy both life and property, whether at sea or on shore, and it could only be effectually prevented from exercising that power by a force possessed of like attributes, that is, by another aerial navy. Therefore it is absolutely certain so soon as flying machines are produced (whether lighter or heavier than the air) having (1) wide radius of action, and (2) the means of giving direction to the explosives which they emit, then navies on the sea and armies on the land will alike be obsolescent. For sea navies and land armies will then be equally impotent to protect the lives and the property of the nations which maintain them, or to defeat the aerial fleets which destroy those lives and that property. Only conceive the plight of the British mercantile marine, if exposed to the swift attack of assailants from the air. Conceive also the inability of the British Navy (so long as it remained tied to the face of the sea), to give protection to that marine. As M. Bleriot, in his memorable Channel flight, passed over English men-of-war before he attained English soil, so in the future may the crews of English fighting ships be doomed helplessly to gaze into the skies while fleets which they are powerless to reach pass over their heads to the destruction of that which they seek to defend. (It is perhaps necessary to observe here that I speak of the future, and that nothing short of insensate folly could make the need of providing for that future an excuse for neglect to strengthen the existing navy now.) As a commerce destroyer, the flying machine of days to come will indeed have an enormous potentiality. Poised, like a hawk, high in the skies, with a huge expanse of ocean under survey, and able to sweep upon her prey with a speed far exceeding perhaps that of the swiftest wind, her power of wreaking mischief will be immense, so long as ships continue to float on the surface of the sea. Less absolutely annihilatory, though yet tremendous and crushing, would be the power of an aerial fleet to effect destruction upon land. It has indeed been said that explosives launched from an airship or an aeroplane would inflict no greater injury than similar explosives hurtling through the air in a shell. But the bombardment of a town can only be attempted by a fleet or an army. To use the first requires the greater sea power; to use the second, the greater land force. But against a fleet sailing in the abyss of air, both these superiorities would be valueless. Unless every large town in Britain could be provided with a numerous and powerful artillery, warranted, even in dark night, to hit objects which those who aim it cannot see, no protection against aerial attack could be given either by the British Navy or the British Army to British cities. Against each such city, the aerial force could concentrate its attack, and bombard it at will, choosing its own time, and able also-since we are speaking of time some years hence, when speeds will have vastly increased-to renew within a few hours the stores which it expends. But it cannot be requisite to labor this point. It must surely be admitted that the existence of an aerial fleet, capable of causing an immensely wide destruction and incapable of defeat save by another similar fleet, must involve the passing to those fleets of the supreme interests of war. What follows again from this position is that we are approaching the verge of a change far greater than that which occurred sixty years ago, when the introduction of steam suddenly rendered obsolete all the sailing warships of the world. That change eclipsed only the then existing fleets of all the nations. This change, now coming, will eclipse their armies, too. And in that eclipse is evidently in volved a vast revolution in the life of Europe. The very foundation of the modern European system is the obligation of compulsory military service. Pace our English Radicals, whose ideas of the universe are perhaps more profoundly opposed to fact than those of any set of politicians who ever preceded them, all human arrangements are in reality based upon force, and force in Europe takes the form of vast masses of men, of whom as many as possible are to be brought into the firing line. Upon the efficient fulfilment of this necessity, the maintenance of the political geography of Europe depends. Because Russia failed to fulfil it, we have lately seen that geography altered, and Bosnia and Herzegovina incorporated in the Austrian Empire. But the moment in which flying machines become the dominant factors of war will be a moment at which the whole European polity will be pierced at its base. To bring masses of soldiers into line of battle will become an aimless act of archaic stupidity. For they will be unable to defeat the machines; and they will be unable to prevent them from ravaging the resources of the individual and of the State. Hence the necessity of universal compulsory service will pass awayto the infinite loss of the moral and physical health of the European peoples-and, in the stead of masses of briefly-trained men, will arise a new set of elaborately-trained warriors to man the aerial machines of the future. If this diagnosis of tendency be correct, the governing conditions of the twentieth century will approximate to those of the seventeenth and the eighteenth. In that age victory was gained by rapidity of fire, and such rapidity could be attained and, above all, maintained in action, only by persistent, prolonged and elaborate training. That training, again, involved the creation of standing armies, of a set of men, that is, who lived under conditions widely differentiating them from their fellow-citizens, and under the influence of ideas which made them a class apart. This class necessarily took its orders from the executive authority, which in those days was usually the sovereign, and constituted, in the hands of that authority, the irresistible instrument of despotic will. From this cause proceeded the unbounded domestic power of Louis the Fourteenth and of Frederick the Great; of the French kings and of the German princes; of Oliver Cromwell, and of the Russian Czars. They ruled absolutely because, within their own dominions, no force existed competent to resist that which they wielded. Thus were the entire internal politics of the civilized world governed by the needs of fire discipline. If there is any truth in these obser vations, and if fleets of flying machines are fated (as appears certain) to become the arbiters of war, then every reflecting person must see that democracy is likely to encounter a very great peril. Unless those fleets can be handled and can be fought so easily as to render elaborate training unnecessary, a special class of men must be set apart to their use, and these will give to whatever authority they obey an absolutely overwhelming power. The supreme authority in any State, whatever it may be called, must be always, in fact, either an oligarchy or an autocracy, because, in the nature of things, no large body of men can direct administration. Therefore the executive authorities of the future will certainly be assailed with a tremendous temptation to substitute personal rule for the forms of democracy. has often been said that a great navy is no menace to liberty; nor could it be hitherto, since its power stops with It discipline and devotion be wanted in a measure equal at least to the needs of yore? the sea. But a fleet of airships will face with instant death-will not then suffer from no such disability, and as regards the State to which it appertains it will be omnipotent and omnipresent. If the multitudes of people assembled, even as this is written, at Rheims realized the probable effects on European institutions of flying machines, it may well be doubted if their cheers would be so loud. But to Englishmen, and to British citizens generally, the one question which is of dominating interest is that of the probable result of this revolution upon Britain and upon the British Empire. That result is at once sure and terrible, though the exact date of its accomplishment cannot be foretold. We shall be torn from our pedestal of insularity and flung into the same arena in the dust of which our fellow-nations strive. That shield of sea-power will be taken from us, which more or less has been ours since in the thirteenth century Eustace the Monk cut off, in the Channel, the succors of Louis the Dauphin. We shall be able no longer to live in the saving shadow of Trafalgar. The blood which we have paid as "the price of Admiralty" has secured us our past. Will it do nothing to secure our future? The answer must depend on the soul of England-on the spirit and fire that still live in our race. For the mastery of the seas, which our fathers won for us, their children, was gained by effort long continued, by self-sacrifice, by virile energy, by nerve, by daring, by all the qualities of men. Will not like qualities be needed now, and, if that be possible, in even greater abundance than were required of old? What pen or pencil is adequate to present the scenes of future strife? When the midnight enemy rush through the air at speeds now undreamt of; when the opposing fleet grapples with them in the void; when every man in either navy is face to And if heroic valor, skill, nerve, and quick decision will be necessary in those who obey and those who command in the conflicts of the air, not less will foresight, patient preparation, and patriotism (which is another name for self-sacrifice) be required of the nation which wishes to preserve its independence amidst perils greater, because swifter and more instant, than were ever known before. Moreover, the power to bear armaments is at once the trial and the sum of a nation's strength. Its manufacturing ability, its wealth, its public spirit, the honesty and soundness of its work and its workmen are all tried, as by fire, in that test. Therefore both the warlike exploits of our forefathers, whether by sea or land, and the example of sacrifice set in times past by the nation as a whole, remain to us as abiding sources of strength, whence, if we will but bear them in mind, we may draw the spirit that will bring victory in con flicts to come. But this much of advantage at least we shall derive from the substitution of aerial fleets for squadrons and armies fighting on the surface of the world that the number of men required for the purposes of war will be incomparably less than is required now. The fact that naval strength involves the need of fewer men than military strength gave us advantage in earlier days, and it was this fact which enabled England, a century back, with a population of some ten millions, to hold her own against the twenty-five millions of France. But under the new conditions the difference is likely to be greater far. Germany, which now with such fervor of national en+ thusiasm seeks the lead in this con quest of the air, may find and will find in the ultimate issue that she has thrown away the privilege of numbers and placed herself on an equality with less populous states. By her own action, she is taking means which must eventually destroy the entire military system on which she now bases her national life. If these results are amongst the progeny of the power of the air, others, not less momentous, remain to be estimated. The abolition of distance means the approach of the east to the west, and involves a danger to Australia and New Zealand which none but the wilfully blind could fail to see. The distance from Hong Kong to Port Darwin on the northern shores of Australia is but 2300 miles. Every indication points to the attainment of high speeds by the flying machines of the future. Nor is it possible that 'The Nineteenth Century and After. China will very long resist the causes which will compel her adoption of these. If she decline to adopt them, she must become the subject empire of some other race. And when she does adopt them, then, it may be in fifteen years, it may be in thirty, a reservoir of humanity containing five hundred millions of beings will be brought within a few hours distance of an almost empty continent. Again, while at present over 4000 miles of ocean divide Japan from Canada and from the United States, that distance will shrivel into insignificance in presence of the new means of communication. It is vain to shut our eyes to the immense and ominous signs of coming danger; it is vain to refuse to recognize the gigantic shadow cast by the wings of war. Harold F. Wyatt. CHINA IN TRANSFORMATION. Although the Chinese Empire is the home of one-fourth of the world's population, the other three-fourths know, in reality, very little about this vast perplexing country. How few Chinese statesmen or leaders have stamped their names on the memory, or their images on the imagination, of the Western World! The Empress-Dowager, quite one of the most remarkable women in the history of the world, was a familiar character, though little understood, less interesting since she admitted the interviewer and journalist into her palace and allowed them, with banalities, to belittle our conception of her and her conception of us. Her great Minister Li also enjoyed an international reputation, but then Europe had met him in the flesh during his wonderful spectacular tour. Both these celebrities commanded attention rather than respect. With the exception of the Empress-Dowager and Li, however, only one personality has, as it were, got over the footlights to the European audience, and that is Yuan Shihkai, erstwhile commander of the Northern Army, Viceroy of Chihli, member of the Grand Council, and member of the Wai-Wu-Pu (the reconstructed Ministry of Foreign Affairs), now a private gentleman nursing his health (at the suggestion of the Court) on his own estates in Honan. Yuan is such a popular favorite in this country that the news of his fall was received with consternation by the Press, and some writers urged that Great Britain should put pressure on the Chinese Government to secure his return, although they were not very clear as to what form that "pressure" should take. As a matter of fact, the |