LAND AND NATIONAL SAFETY. 237 



mediate quadrupling of the British lands which 

 produce grain for human food — there is no cause 

 except a bad national habit to confine that 

 grain to wheat — is probably not possible. A 

 doubling is, and the improvement which that 

 would make in the victualling of the British 

 Islands would be a most important strengthening 

 of the Imperial defences. If the population of 

 these islands were hungry, it would not be of 

 any use that the Navy was in a position to 

 assert ultimately its superiority, and the armies 

 of the Empire were upholding the flag on all its 

 land boundaries. London's hunger would dic- 

 tate an immediate peace. 



The 1904-5 Royal Commission — confident in 

 the overwhelming British naval supremacy of 

 the time, and not clearly contemplating a state 

 of war in which the whole manhood of nations 

 would be involved, and in which our enemies 

 would naturally adopt the policy of striking at 

 our most vulnerable point and seeking to block 

 as far as possible, at their source, all food sup- 

 plies to this country at whatever cost of inter- 

 national illegality — came to this conclusion on 

 the subject of food supplies in war time : — 



