246 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



and to rely upon our dominions and allied or 

 friendly powers to keep the flag flying in the 

 Mediterranean, the West Atlantic, the Indian 

 Ocean, and the Pacific. The replies of the 

 Admiralty to the same questions as were put in 

 1904 would have thus to be vastly different in 

 1913. To question No. 1 an honest answer 

 would be " Literally c No,' and practically ' No.' " 

 To question No. 3 an honest answer would be 

 that there was ground for the most serious 

 apprehension. With a food panic raging in 

 Great Britain, the cool and resolute naval 

 strategy necessary to face (to quote a possible 

 contingency) the dangers of an enemy's main 

 fleet keeping to a position handy for attack, 

 but practically unassailable, whilst its smaller 

 vessels, its armed merchant ships, and its allies 

 in other seas strove to stop food supplies to 

 Great Britain (assisted, perhaps, in the work by 

 the land forces of the enemy enforcing on con- 

 tiguous neutral countries a veto upon exports of 

 food articles to this country) would be impossible. 

 During the Crimean War, wheat prices in 

 England rose from an average of 42s. lOd. per 

 quarter to an average of 72s. per quarter. That 



