IMPORTANCE OF INLAND WATER-WAYS. 565 



of the world. Nowhere has this been more forcibly 

 exhibited than in the case of the river St. Lawrence, 

 the great river whose ship channel we have just 

 described. As long, for instance, as the French held 

 their sea and river communications open, via the St. 

 Lawrence, Great Britain could do nothing against them. 

 Every effort on the part of the latter ended in defeat 

 and failure. But on the other hand the moment the sea 

 power of Great Britain, towards the middle of last 

 century, succeeded in severing that line of communi- 

 cation, the French power in Canada dwindled and finally 

 collapsed in toto. These great lessons ought never 

 to be lost sight of by the British people. 



The navy must not merely be regarded as the 

 first line of defence to the British Islands. It is that, 

 but is also much more than that; for sea power is the 

 only safe and stable basis of a great Colonial Empire. 

 The sea ought never to be regarded by Britons as a 

 source of weakness, which (as the foreigner delights to 

 put it) divides her empire : but rather as a great liquid 

 highway which unites every colony and dependency 

 to the mother-land. That being so and history is 

 full of precedents which demonstrate the truth of this 

 axiom it therefore follows, that in the weighty words 

 of a late first Sea-Lord of the Admiralty 



" A navy which is not strong enough to defend our vital 

 interests in time of need, is not worth its cost, whatever it 

 may be; and a navy which is strong enough to defend us 

 is cheap whatever its cost may be. The dearest navy England 

 can have is a weak navy : the only cheap navy, is a navy 

 strong enough to defend her." * 



* Precis paragraphs from a letter (signed V) appearing in The Times 

 of June 17, 1896, p. 4 on "The Naval Manoeuvres." 



