LAND AND NATIONAL SAFETY. 235 



best of national defence bargains to spend the 

 whole of next year's naval construction esti- 

 mates on building up farms in Great Britain, if 

 that were the only way of securing those farms 

 as an addition to the nation's food-producing 

 power. Yet that is a very clear truth. What 

 we may want in ships and in soldiers is of far 

 less importance than the need we have of food 

 to be grown in the country, which would be the 

 only absolutely sure food in war time. If the 

 people of this country could be persuaded to look 

 at the issue of the nation's safety in a clear- 

 headed way, free from all party political clouding, 

 I feel sure that they would conclude that the idea 

 of keeping up a navy which could defeat any 

 possible combination and hold the trade routes 

 open in all oceans is a magnificent delusion ; 

 though it is a sane enough ambition to hope to 

 assert an ultimate supremacy for the fleets of the 

 Empire if Great Britain can be at the back of 

 her navy as a well-garrisoned, well-victualled, 

 practically impregnable base of operations, not 

 as a scared group of islands clamouring for the 

 convoying of food ships. 



According to the most favourable figures, we 



