CHAPTER XIX 



OUR FOOD SUPPLY IN THE TIME 

 OF WAR 



There is another view of the case worthy of the 

 serious attention of the commercial and wealthier 

 classes of the country. Lord Selborne, when First 

 Lord of the Admiralty, in the debate on Naval 

 Administration, said : " No other Admiralty in the 

 world has to consider, besides safeguarding the 

 country from invasion, the fact that on the Navy 

 depends the supply of food for the people."^ He 

 might have added — so far as the food supply is con- 

 cerned — that this is an untried position for this 

 country, and that in case of a great war the Navy 

 would be charged with this vital duty for the first 

 time in our nation's history. During the great wars 

 of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the 

 nineteenth, this country was so nearly a self-feeding 

 one, that no anxiety existed as to supplies from 

 without. 



Lord Selborne was one of the ablest men that has 

 ever filled that post. He would be the last man to 

 indulge in mere alarmist rhetoric for the purpose 

 of passing his enormous Navy estimates through 

 Parliament. We have, therefore, seriously to con- 

 sider our position in the event of a great struggle. It 

 appears that almost everything may now be declared 

 by a belligerent to be contraband of war, and it is 



^ "Times," lo August, 1904. 

 311 



