WHAT THE OCEAN MEANS TO GREAT BRITAIN 315 



officers towards the men of the Merchant Service has 

 almost disappeared, largely owing, I believe, to the 

 presence in the Navy of so many Merchant officers, 

 who have entered the Navy through the medium of 

 the Royal Naval Reserve. 



Leaving all these considerations behind, we have 

 in our Navy an arm of which we do well to be proud, 

 and towards which every citizen should feel the very 

 highest sentiments of gratitude and loyalty. But in 

 this, as in many other matters, we might well take 

 a few lessons from our bitterest enemy, Germany. A 

 strong navy is not in the least necessary to Germany's 

 national existence as it is to ours. If her great over- 

 sea trade were totally destroyed to-morrow she would 

 be impoverished very greatly, and there would be 

 much distress, no doubt, but not one of her subjects 

 need to starve, nor could she be deposed from her 

 admittedly high place among the nations. Yet over 

 the whole of the German Empire there flows an ever- 

 swelling tide of the most intelligent enthusiasm for 

 both her Navy and her Mercantile Marine such as we, 

 in this country, are absolute strangers to. And this 

 enthusiasm is not wasted or allowed to dissipate in 

 talk. It is guided into practical channels by Govern- 

 ment, fostered by the emperor, and is bearing fruit 

 in very notable ways. The German Navy League is 

 an immense power for the upbuilding of the German 

 Navy, and so widespread and popular is it that its 

 latest development is that the women of Germany 

 are providing a first-class battleship which they will 

 present to their country a gift of over a million 

 pounds sterling. We have a Navy League, too, which 

 endures a precarious existence, is looked upon as a 



