ready to defend their country from invasion; and if we are too short-sighted, or too misguided by silly sentiment, to insist that our young men shall prepare themselves for this duty while the day of grace still lasts, our Navy will be paralysed from the day that war breaks out or becomes imminent.

That there should be any question of the invasion of these islands is humiliating in the last degree, and absolutely inconsistent with our proud boast of being the greatest Empire that the world has ever seen.

Wherein lies the wisdom of boasting that we own a fifth part of the habitable globe, and that three or four hundred millions of men and women of various shades of colour are subject to our Imperial but beneficent rule, whilst all our neighbours are well aware that if we were to find ourselves at war to-morrow with an ambitious rival across the North Sea we should stand trembling in our shoes, in fear of a successful invasion of these two little islands-the heart of the Empire?

And why? Simply because we continue, as a nation, to hold such a distorted view of that much-abused word freedom' that we place the freedom of the individual on a higher level of sanctity than the freedom of the State. Thus deliberately neglecting to make due provision for carrying out the first law of nature-self-preservation— as a State!

In other words, whilst we compel the rising generation of lads and lasses to receive education of a more or less useful kind, whether they like it or not, on the broad principle that it makes of them useful citizens, we totally neglect to complete the education of the lads by instructing them in the most useful and most important of all duties— the duty of preparing themselves to defend their country; with the result that just nine-tenths of them shirk this duty altogether, to their own loss, both physically and morally, and to the ever-increasing danger of the land they live in.

The precious freedom of the British hobbledehoy is so sacrosanct that it is considered to be wiser and more patriotic to allow him to follow his own sweet will; to shirk his most obvious duty to his country in order that he may have plenty of time to follow his own private business or pleasure; to smoke his pipe at a football match (not to play that or any other manly game, but merely to look on and applaud); to slouch about at street corners and the precincts of public-houses; and to brag about his liberty as a free-born Briton.

Many deeds of crime and folly have been committed in the sacred name of liberty, though perhaps none more foolish, none more shortsighted or more dangerous to the future of the integrity and independence of these islands, than that folly which we are now committing in its name by allowing nine-tenths of our lads to grow up into manhood without instructing them and preparing them to assume when

necessary, and qualifying them to undertake, the most obvious and most sacred duty of defending the land they live in and call their own: whose institutions they profess to be proud of, whose laws they are always ready to invoke for their own protection or advantage, but whose liberty and inviolability from foreign aggression they are not ready to defend. In short, they claim their rights' without acknowledging their duties and their obligations, and they are quietly allowed to do so by the law of the land. What a travesty of the word 'liberty' !

Great Britain and the United States of America are generally supposed to be the two most peace-loving nations on earth, and they have every reason to be so. They are both of them rich, and they both have (practically speaking) as much territory as they want; at any rate, as much as they can comfortably manage. They desire therefore the status quo: to be left alone by their neighbours to enjoy their inheritances in peace. The United States, from their geographical position, are, for the present at any rate, relieved from all fear of foreign aggression. They are safe from outside attack, and the only national troubles which could possibly overtake them must hence arise from internal dissensions and disruption. A great national army would not protect them against this danger; in fact, might have exactly the opposite tendency.

The case of Great Britain is different, and there is no rational comparison between the two countries in this respect. The British Empire, from its geographical position, is more open to attack than the territories of any other nation on earth. It is rich and prosperous, and naturally excites the envy of its neighbours. Its foundation is upon the sea-an unstable element-and not only the defeat but even the partial paralysis of the British Navy would bring the Empire tumbling down like a house of cards.

This paralysis will certainly take place'if we have not sufficient land forces to protect these islands from invasion at the time that Germany issues her challenge. That she will challenge us as soon as she is ready and sees a good opportunity there can be no reasonable doubt; in fact, we have had fair warning to that effect― Germany's future is on the ocean,' 'The twentieth century belongs to Germany,' 'We must have a navy of such strength that the strongest navy in the world will hesitate to try conclusions with it,' &c., &c.

Germany will be perfectly justified in challenging us. She is now desirous of doing, and has a perfect right to do, what we ourselves have been doing for the last two hundred years. That is to say, engaging in that operation euphemistically known as expansion.' We have, practically speaking, come to the end of our expansion, as previously noted; but it is well to remember that some of the lands which we expanded' into were not waste and unoccupied lands. In fact, many of them were very thickly peopled; but this fact did not

hinder us from annexing them. It never does when nations think they are strong enough to take something they want; and they can always find some more or less plausible excuse for doing so- Peaceable penetration,' 'The advancement of Christianity,' 'The benefits of civilisation and commerce,'' The abolition of slavery,'' The necessary compensation and salutary punishment for the murder of an explorer or a missionary.' Any of these is quite sufficient excuse for the annexation of a tract of country, always provided that you are strong enough and that your jealous neighbours will not object and interfere with you.

There are, no doubt, many excellent, honest, amiable, and thoroughly sincere public men in this country who firmly believe that we shall be able to avoid war in the future, if we are only sufficiently conciliatory, courteous, and perhaps yielding towards all our neighbours. There are many such men in our present Parliament, engaged in making laws for the government of this great Empire and in voting or hindering supplies for the naval and military services, which are maintained for its defence. These excellent people—' men of peace,' as they call themselves—are endeavouring to persuade their fellow-countrymen that if we could only bring about some international agreement for the limitation of armaments war would become less likely, and might perhaps be eventually abolished altogether. They preach the exact opposite to the well-known maxim Si vis pacem para bellum,' and they tell us that if we wish for peace we must not be prepared for war. They go even further than this, and, with the view of carrying out their theories, they suggest-and try to enforce that Great Britain should set the example by reducing her expenditure on the warlike services. And they even venture to prophesy (like Cobden did about Free Trade) that our neighbours will speedily follow our example.

The proposal seems to be somewhat rash, and the assumption that our neighbours will follow our example even rasher. We may search all history in vain to find any warrant for assuming that a rich, prosperous, and essentially commercial nation rendered itself immune from attack by reducing its armaments for defence. Moreover, our neighbours have good reason for doubting our sincerity in this matter when they hear a responsible Minister declaring in the same breath that he has reduced expenditure on one of the warlike services and at the same time added to its efficiency by means of wiser administration of its resources. This statement was naturally regarded abroad as a piece of insincerity-not to say hypocrisy. In this country it was understood as a rather clever method of squaring two opposite schools of thought in the right honourable member's constituency, one of which desired efficiency first and economy second, and the other economy first and efficiency second, and of thus redeeming some glib election pledges.

The two Peace Conferences at The Hague raised hopes in the breasts of a few enthusiasts which have been somewhat rudely dashed to the ground. Peace Conferences' they were called, though as a matter of fact they were war conferences. They did nothing whatever to bring universal and perpetual peace one day nearer to the nations wishing for it. The later conference did something, though very little, to settle some of the so-called practices of war; but in so doing it brought to light and accentuated in an alarming degree some of the opposing and quite irreconcilable interests of those nations which are now struggling for naval supremacy.

Our recognised peace apostles abused the British delegates at The Hague in unmeasured terms. The latter were alluded to as incompetent blunderers who had totally disappointed the hopes of their country, and had done nothing whatever to further the cause of peace.

The latter accusation is undoubtedly true; but it would seem to be about as reasonable to charge our greatest mathematicians with incompetence because they have failed to square the circle as to find fault with Sir Edward Fry and his colleagues because they have failed to alter human nature by a display of their persuasive eloquence.

Far wiser, far deeper in thought, far more practical in their conclusions, are the comments of the Chinese Ambassador at the Hague Conference. They are so direct, so honestly free from all cant and make-believe, so quiet yet so earnest in their evident object as an exhortation to his country (the oldest civilisation on earth) to wake up and adopt new methods for its defence, that they will become quite classical as a contribution to the discussions on the subject of universal peace; and a few of them are well worth quoting here.

After pointing out that while at the first Hague Conference twenty-six independent nations were represented, forty-five sent delegates to the second, his Excellency Chien-Hsün proceeds:

In most cases the leading representatives were either statesmen or lawyers, with naval or military experts to assist them. In no case were their arguments and representations trivial in character, and each and all did his best to advance his nation's interest; but, inasmuch as nations differ in status and power, proposals made by one nation would not commend themselves to another, and heated arguments would follow, moving the whole assembly to excitement, each representative insisting on his nation's sovereign rights, and with the result that the proposal would be dropped half way, or suspended in a void of empty theories.

What a delightfully honest description of a Peace Conference! Chien-Hsün then goes on to say:

The first conference was nominally intended to effect the limitation of armaments, and on this occasion England made this her main suggestion, but on proceeding to discuss it the members of the conference could not refrain from smiling; for, when every Power is competing to the uttermost, which of them is likely voluntarily to impose checks upon its own martial ardour?

Which of them indeed ?-with the single exception of England, who seems to be fairly on the road to being taken in by the old-fashioned and oft-exposed confidence trick: stinting and saving money on her defensive services in order that she may be able to pauperise her working classes.

His Excellency further reports to the 'Son of Heaven' that

It was expressly declared, in addition, that Great Britain, Germany, France, America, Italy, Austria, Japan, and Russia are the eight Great Powers, which plainly indicated that all other nations are to be regarded as small Powers.

And he proceeds to give considerable point to this remark by adding a little further on that

The Great Powers naturally availed themselves of their power to benefit themselves by coercing others on the pretext of law. When they wished to carry some proposal they tried to sway the assembly by an oratorical appeal to each other, and when they wished to defeat a proposal they secretly exercised methods of obstruction to promote disagreement.

This last is a somewhat grave indictment against the Peace delegates, and we can only hope that the Chinese Ambassador is exaggerating, or, at any rate, adding a little more gall than necessary to his remarks, in order to emphasise his disappointment at not being included amongst the representatives of the 'Great' Powers. For if there is any truth in what he says, it constitutes a scathing criticism of those gentlemen who went to The Hague with peace upon their lips, but envy, hatred, and malice in their hearts.

There is something quite pathetic in the expression of ChienHsün's concluding remarks, when speaking of his own country. He says:

If she could at the next conference win a position among the Great Powers such as that which Japan holds at the present day, what an unspeakable blessing it would be for our country! But the time soon passes by, and the consequences involved are very great.

China gave up militarism some centuries ago, and public opinion in the Celestial Empire has since then despised the military art, and treated the soldier and all connected with his calling as debasing and degrading and only worthy of the contempt of a highly civilised race.

Perhaps China was right-theoretically; but it did not work out in practice, and, unable to defend herself and her territories by force of arms, she has been fleeced, bled, insulted, and forced to submit to the most humiliating conditions of the foreign intruder ever since she came in contact with more warlike nations.

There are many indications which show that this great and sleepy Empire, secure in her isolation until quite lately, is at last beginning to wake up to the idea that perhaps practice is better than theory in the affairs of nations; and there is a store of worldly wisdom in the concluding remarks of the Chinese delegate at The Hague, quoted above, to the effect that if China could only become like Japan (i.e. a