238 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



certainly with reason, for more discomfort and real 

 hardship would be endured on the latter trip than on 

 half a dozen modern voyages to New Zealand. 



I feel I cannot do better in concluding this chapter 

 than point out that, while we still easily hold our 

 own against all the rest of the world put together, 

 there are not wanting signs that our position as the 

 chief users of the great highway which we have done 

 so much to make universal, and in the policing of 

 which, in order that all peaceful mariners may come 

 and go unmolested, we have spent such countless 

 millions of treasure and such an enormous number of 

 lives, will soon be seriously challenged. Germany 

 and Japan are undoubtedly going to put us on our 

 mettle in this direction. And there need be no war. 

 Just the steady pressure of efficiency and economy, 

 combined with a determination to employ their own 

 citizens, will undoubtedly carry them very far, even if 

 they are not quite able to wrest from us our supre- 

 macy as the greatest of all the powers who do business 

 on the sea. 



