now WAR WOULD INTENSIFY TOVERTY ] 95 



England Dependent uroN FuiiKiGN Countkies roi; Food 



The people of this country to-day arc dependent upon the 

 r/oodivill of forci'jii connlries for Iheii- daily b)rad,a.nd out of this 

 fact they may well conjure up many evils that may overtake 

 them. There is a race goinf,' on between England and Germany 

 in the building of Dreadnour/hls, and no living man can 

 predict how this insane struggle may end. One thing is 

 certain, that Great lUitain is enormously adding to her 

 expenditure by this wild career of warship building, which 

 must add to the burdens of the tax-payers, and yet it must 

 be admitted that under existing conditions there is no other 

 course open to tliis country. 



It is said that as long as we hold the seas all fear of our 

 food supplies beiug cut oft" may be dismissed. This may be 

 true ; and the absence of a really formidable European naval 

 power during tlie last half-century has been the justification 

 for such a belief. But the past is past; the present exhibits 

 new and alarming aspects of this phase of the question ; and 

 the future no man may read, 



Germany has declared that she is determined to have a 

 sea power that will at least rival our own: and what Germany 

 says, that will she do. She is wealthy, powerful, and ambitious, 

 and certainly capable of performing what she promises. 



The remarkable and rapid growth of lier vast mercantile 

 marine has startled the world, and what she has done with 

 her trading vessels she can and will do with her warships. 

 Germany is the power to be reckoned with here, and to pooh- 

 pooh the idea of that country being the chief factor in the 

 situation would be weak and foolish. 



Germany has already got together a powerful fleet of war- 

 ships whicli stands as a menace to our own shores; and as she 

 has done this in the remarkably short space of seven years, we 

 may well be anxious about the immediate future. 



If, under the vastly altered conditions in the status of 

 European sea powers brought about by Germany's attitude, we 

 still persist in pooh-poohing the matter, we shall deserve the 

 disaster which will surely overtake us as a people. 



In this connection the following criticisms by German 

 newspapers of Mr. Asquith's speech in the Naval debate in 

 the House of Commons in July last, will be of interest — 



" The Reielishote criticises it in a hostile manner, saying that 

 ' the matter, and, of course, the manner, in which the sous of Albion 

 arroijate to themselves the dominion over the sea is arrogance which 

 other Powers cannot tolerate. England may be the greatest naval 



