19G BKITAIN FOR THE BRTTON 



Power, but to establish a principle and a programme to the eirect 

 that England has a right to govern not only the seas surrounding 

 her, but to limit the movements of other States according to her 

 own views in East Asian, American, African, and Australian waters.' 



" This right of sovereignty cannot be acknowledged by any 

 nation. The ocean is free, and all nations have the right to move 

 on the sea freely." 



" The Kreuzzeitnng says ' the question of the maintenance of 

 England's two-Power standard for the Navy will be answered 

 differently in a decade's time, and less favourably than it was 

 answered yestei'day in the British House of Commons,' " * 



A GiiAVER Danger even than War 



There is, however, another factor which is destined to play 

 a more important part in the situation, and, it is feared, have a 

 far more terrible effect on the people of this country than even 

 the defeat of our Navy and the invasion of our shores by a 

 i'oreign army, and that is the holding np of corn supplies both 

 by the country with which we may be at war, as also by a large 

 number of independent speculators who would at once seize 

 upon such an opportunity as the means of making money. 



Let us separate these two extra factors and deal with the 

 former first. 



Here are a couple of quotations from recent writers on 

 the subject — 



" Now think what that (a barely fourteen weeks' supply of wheat 

 in the country just after harvest) would mean in time of war. I 

 mean a war waged against us by one or more great naval Powers. 

 'Oh, but the Navy!' perhaps you say. But does it not strike 

 you that perhaps our Fleet would have something better to do 

 than convoy grain ships across the Atlantic during war time ? 

 That its operations might be seriously hampered by having to 

 perform this big service ? Easily, then, the country might run 

 short of food ; for it is not only wheat, but all sorts of food-stuffs, 

 for which we are largely dependent upon imports. That is to say, 

 famine prices would at once result. Corn merchants estimate that 

 the commencement of a naval war against this country would mean 

 the immediate rise of wheat to anything between one hundred 

 shillings and two hundred shillings a quarter. What would be the 

 effect of that to-day upon the working classes ? With trade dis- 

 organised, and wages therefore lower or non-existent, it would mean 

 grievous suffering, bread riots, revolution — unless the country sought 

 ])eace at once upon any terms the tnemy would give it. But would 

 there be any grain to convoy ? By a few smart and secret operations, 

 agents of the enemy could corner the world's wheat supply ; and as 



* Daily Express, July 28, 1909. 



