312 LAND REFORM 



possible that food might be so declared.* No doubt 

 our Navy would effectively discharge the duty pre- 

 scribed by the First Lord of "seeking the enemy's 

 ships and destroying them wherever they could be 

 found." But suppose the enemy had a dozen or so 

 of swift, lightly armed cruisers of the "commerce- 

 destroyer" class, whose duties would be not to fight, 

 but to run away from our ships of war, and to scour 

 the ocean in search of grain-laden ships. In such a 

 case the security of our food supply would be greatly 

 endangered. 



It has been urged that neutral powers, who are so 

 financially interested in supplying this country with 

 grain, would not allow it to be declared contraband of 

 war. But this argument disappears on an examina- 

 tion of our sources of supply. Russia might be one 

 of the belligerents. Argentina is too weak to interfere. 

 India and the Colonies are parts of the British Empire, 

 and would be treated by our foes as such. There 

 remains America. The United States would no doubt 

 be at least a neutral, because the ties of friendship 

 and race between the two countries have happily 

 become so strong, that a war with our kinsmen across 

 the Atlantic may be placed in the region of the im- 

 possible. But there are signs that we shall receive 

 less and less grain from America. Her rapid increase 

 in population and prosperity indicates that the time is 

 not far distant when America will require all or most 



1 •' In February, 1885, it was announced on the part of France that in 

 the circumstance of her war with China she would treat rice as contra- 

 band of war by virtue of the right of a belHgerent to issue occasional 

 prohibitions of the trade in things which, though not contraband by 

 nature like arms and ammunition of war, are of a particular utility to his 

 enemy." (Memorandum by Professor J. Westlake, K.c, Appendix 29, 

 Vol. Ill, Report of Royal Commission on Food Supply, etc. Cd. 2645.) 



