a smarter commanding officer I have seldom met. The cadet battalion moved and worked with the precision and steadiness of the Guards. My only regret was that they had only dummy wooden rifles. Considering how moderately the Army authorities now charge for out-of-date rifles, I certainly thought some citizen who must have been proud of the Grocers' Company School should have bought MartiniHenry out-of-date carbines at two shillings each. A simple overall, blouse, cap, and belt might also have been provided.

The Grocers' Company School cadet battalion was formed twentyfive years ago. The number of boys included in the battalion has varied with the total number in the school. It has averaged from 250 to 300. At the present time the battalion consists of six companies. Each of the houses into which the school is divided furnishes a company with its own prefects as officers. There has been no fixed age of entry, but the three lowest forms have always been excluded, and boys who for any reason are unlikely to derive benefit from the exercises have been exempted; but every boy of sufficient bodily health passes through a course of physical exercises, which during the two winter terms consists of gymnastic exercises suited to his age, with Swedish and other forms of drill and squad movements. Those fitted for it then pass on to regular military drill. There are two miniature ranges belonging to the school, and all boys over fourteen are taught to shoot.

E Company of the London Rifle Brigade consists entirely of old boys of the school. Such a school might well have as its motto that of my Victorian Cadets: 'Pro Deo et Patria.' The only external assistance, if it may be so designated, was a drill instructor, a retired sergeant of the Yorkshire Light Infantry, who performed the duty of Regimental Sergeant-Major.

This London County Council School battalion is what is known as a non-uniformed one; but be that as it may, its system of cadet training is well worth considering by all our public schools, who have lately taken up cadet training, more particularly because it is from these schools that we should get not only preliminarily trained officers for the auxiliary forces, but from them might be provided a reserve of subaltern officers ready on an emergency to join battalions of the regular forces. During the late war in South Africa a sudden increase of subalterns was required, and then, as during the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny, commissions were rapidly given to many quite unfit for it, who proved to be anything but a credit to the British Army.

With the long vacations which public schools now have, there would be ample time for the properly educated boys of our public schools and of a suitable age, who have the right sort of blood in their veins, to go to military schools in camp for the instruction as young officers. All those who are educationally and professionally qualified

and recommended by the military authority as fit to hold commissions should have their names registered as ready in case of being required for active service.

When the rising generation are imbued with a proper spirit of patriotism and sense of their duty to their country, it may be expected that sufficient numbers will volunteer for the preliminary training referred to; but if not, then there is nothing for it but compulsory service. The eyes of the nation are at length being opened to the necessity for a properly trained national army for home defence. Unfortunately that Machiavellian joke about having six months to prepare after hostilities had commenced was actually believed in by some whose appalling ignorance of what war in the present day really means can hardly be credited, but even those men's eyes are being opened.

To obtain the grant required for the two-nation-power Navy will before long be a very difficult matter; our neighbours' navies are rapidly increasing, and even now are dangerously powerful, so much so that our naval strategy has had to be entirely recast, and our battleships recalled from foreign stations and concentrated for operations in the North Sea, or, as it is now designated, the German Ocean.

Remembering that an enemy only 50,000 strong in South Africa drained the United Kingdom of its defenders, and that in due time we shall have to contend with far more powerful enemies in protecting the Empire abroad, a properly trained national army as distinct from the regular troops is necessary not only for the defence of the country, but also to largely assist the regular Army, as it did so patriotically in South Africa, and unquestionably would insist in doing so again when we are hard pressed.

But putting all that on one side, a national army is essential to permit of our Navy leaving the coast and carrying out the offensivedefensive policy of Nelson's days. Perfect freedom to act as they think best is what our naval commanders must have; but without a large home national army fit in every way for its work, then when the regular forces were away and the most powerful military nation just outside the gate and anxious for a chance to carry out its great scheme of world-wide power, there would be such a scare that not even the most powerful Government would be permitted to allow the fleets to leave for the enemy's coast.

A naval officer lately writing to the leading journal rightly deprecated any diversion of public funds from the naval to the military estimates, and referred to one special waste of money, viz. the works on the Surrey Hills; why such a scheme of defence was ever entertained is a puzzle. It is now nearly forty years ago since a lecture was given at the United Service Institution, June 1870, on the defence of the east coast, showing that the east not the south coast was the line of least resistance for the capture of London. The sheltered

anchorage of the Wallet inside the Gunfleet sands, all clear of the shoals at the mouth of the Thames, with the great estuary of the Blackwater adjoining, so dangerously close to the capital, seems to have been entirely overlooked. The Inspector-General of Fortifications, Sir Drummond Jervois, was the Chairman, and stated in support of the lecture that Napoleon in 1805 had that part of the coast under consideration for his invasion scheme. Sir Neil Campbell, the British attaché with Napoleon at Elba, mentions in his memoirs that when talking over the scheme of 1805 with him, Napoleon made the following statement: 'I had not intended landing on the coast of Kent; had the wind favoured me, I should have landed at the mouth of the Thames, and so turned all Pitt's defences.' Marmont's corps at Antwerp, the pistol pointed at the heart of England,' as stated by Napoleon, was doubtless intended to assist in the scheme.

It is interesting to note how history occasionally repeats itself. The Danes and the invading swarms from the Low Countries are said to have made use of the Blackwater estuary. And at the time of the Armada Queen Elizabeth's army to resist Parma was assembled at East Tilbury; and from what General Neil Campbell mentions, Napoleon had intended this coast of Essex, not Kent, for his landing. It was our Navy which saved the country in Elizabeth's time, and again in 1805, and, judging by what even those who run may read, it will within the present generation have an opportunity of doing so again.

ALEX. B. TULLOCH.

A BRITISH TWO-POWER FLEET

THE passage of the German Navy Act by the Reichstag, making provision for immensely strengthening the German Fleet, is assured, and we thus have raised once more, and in an acute form, the old controversy as to the standard of strength which should be adopted for the British Navy. The British estimates have admittedly been framed on economical lines, though they show an apparent increase of 900,000l. over those of 1907-8. As the First Lord himself admits, the new building programme is 'exceedingly modest.' It is intended to lay down one improved Dreadnought battleship only, one large armoured cruiser, six fast protected cruisers, sixteen torpedo boat destroyers and about ten submarines, increasing the total number of these underwater craft to seventy in contrast with one hitherto built in Germany. The First Lord declares that the Government have every intention of maintaining the standard of the British Navy which has hitherto been deemed necessary for the safeguarding of our national and Imperial interests.' How far, it may be asked, does the 'exceedingly modest' new programme 'square' with Lord Tweedmouth's assurance, in view of Germany's ambitions?

The situation may become critical unless foresight is shown, and the new estimates will be studied, with anxiety and deliberation, in the light, first, of our traditional naval policy and, secondly, of activity in German and other foreign shipyards, and, then, there arises the problem -How far should our foreign policy determine the extent of our armaments?

It may be profitable to glance back before attempting to look forward. In 1880 Mr. Gladstone was called upon to form a Cabinet after six years of Conservative rule, and Lord Northbrook was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty. Vice-Admiral P. H. Colomb has left it on record that the new Board of Admiralty, with Admiral Sir Cooper Key as First Sea Lord, 'came into office with a navy not superior to that of France alone, either in ironclads or in cruisers, and with no general feeling, either in Parliament or in the country, that this was not as it ought to be.' This neglect of the Fleet was due mainly to the rage for economy which at that time was the leading principle dominating both political parties. Lord Northbrook,

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like his predecessor Mr. W. H. Smith, pleaded, in reply to criticism, that the failure of the Board to lay down more ironclads was partly due to the uncertainty among experts as to the best types of ships to be built. Experienced naval officers prophesied that owing to the introduction of the torpedo the battleship was doomed, while others still placed their faith in armoured vessels; and in face of the widespread differences of professional opinion successive Governments were content to mark time. At that date, judged by relative expenditure, the Army was regarded as our first line of defence, and public opinion was indifferent as to the naval defences of the Empire.

These were the conditions prevailing when, in 1884, a remarkable series of articles appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette entitled 'The Truth about the Navy.' They marked the first step in the education of the newly enfranchised voters as to the responsibility which rested upon them for maintaining the Fleet in adequate strength as the first line of defence of the Empire. The articles were marked by expert knowledge and, although both political parties had been responsible for the gradual weakening of the Fleet, and both consequently had an interest in refuting the indictment, the main contention went uncontradicted. These articles were not the ordinary effort of a journalist, though a large measure of credit must always attach to Mr. W. T. Stead for the skill with which he classified and presented to the public the mass of technical matter which was at his disposal. Years have passed, and there can be no indiscretion now in revealing-indeed Mr. Stead has himself done so alreadythat behind the journalist, unseen by the reading public, was an expert, and that expert none other than Admiral of the Fleet Sir John Fisher, the present First Sea Lord of the Admiralty.

From this time forward popular interest in the welfare of the Navy has continued to increase, and now the matter for discussion is not whether the British Navy is inferior or superior to the single navy of France, but what Two-Power standard shall be adopted as the formula of British safety? In face of the naval activity in Germany, France, and the United States, what is the duty of the British people towards the British Fleet if they would maintain it in adequate strength?

Lord Salisbury once stated that the defence of the country is not the business of . . . the Government, but is the business of the people themselves.' These words have a peculiar significance to-day, when the franchise is wide and signs are apparent that a naval crisis is approaching. On all hands there are indications of renewed competition in the race for sea power. Under the programme of 1906 France is building six battleships, and in 1909 will probably begin to build at least six more. Germany, under the new law just sanctioned, has adopted plans for raising the Imperial Fleet in 1919 or 1920 to a strength of thirty-eight battleships-of which twenty-two will be