many, is separated from the Elbe by some twenty miles of dangerous coast with offlying shoals. In some degree this modifies, though it by no means destroys, the advantage of the Kiel Canal as an assured intermediate link between the two seas. Over this strip of coast, strategically important to a watching fleet, stands guard the island of Heligoland, now a heavily fortified base for torpedo vessels, which in 1890 was ceded to Germany by Great Britain in exchange for the relinquishment of Germany's claim to the island of Zanzibar, off East Africa. Being thirty miles from the coast, Heligoland projects by so much more the torpedo defence requisite to such conditions.

Defensive provision, such as that of the Kiel Canal, is essential and admirable, but the security obtained falls far short of that demanded by national pride as well as national interest. Americans who recall what Cuba once meant to our international

policy may appreciate what the British Islands by situation mean to German commerce. The whole Gulf Coast trade, including that of the Mississippi valley, had - and has to pass within a hundred miles of Cuba, on one side or the other; a circumstance which made it intolerable to the United States that the island should go into the hands of any powerful naval state. The change of political tenure and the developed power of the Union have put that anxiety into the background. Cuba's position remains; but the probability of its being otherwise of use as a base for naval operations has disappeared, at least for the time. The position and political tenure of the British Islands are permanent, as things go in this world; their naval strength is now supreme; and it is the pronounced intention of both the principal political parties so to maintain it.

The reason for this pronouncement is

sound and imperative. Equally with Germany in kind, and to a much greater degree, Great Britain depends upon external sources for raw materials, for food, and for access to markets. Her population, only two thirds that of Germany, is in so far inferior as a source of military power; while, being also larger in proportion to the territory, it is less able to live off the land. The population to the square mile is over four hundred; that of Germany only three hundred. Moreover, the dependence of Great Britain upon the sea is absolute; she has not, like Germany, any continental frontiers by which to receive supplies. The river Rhine by itself, emptying through a friendly Holland, is a copious highroad to the interior of Germany which in no way can be closed by Great Britain. On another frontier is Russia, one of the granaries of the world. In 1909 Russia produced more wheat than any other country in the world, 213,425,

336 quintals. The United States came second, but at a large margin, 193,544,975 quintals.1

As regards the causes for maintaining a navy, the greater necessity of self-preservation lies upon Great Britain. For reasons absolutely vital she cannot afford to surrender supremacy at sea. Moreover, the relations between herself and her colonies impose the obligation of defense for them; not indeed by local superiorities in their several waters, an object at once unattainable and needless, but by a concentrated superiority of naval force in Europe, which as yet remains the base, at once of defense and of attack, as far as other quarters of the world are concerned. Yet, at the same time, this supremacy of Great Britain in European seas means a perpetual latent control of German commerce, owing to the position of the British Islands. This has

1 The Mail, February 21, 1910. A quintal (metric system) contains 220 1⁄2 lbs.

been emphasized in the last few years by a concentration in home waters of the British navy, previously more or less dispersed; a very large fraction having been in the Mediterranean, the comparative abandonment of which has an imperial significance.

There can be little doubt that this concentration has been caused by the double consideration of the growth of the German navy and the recognized supremacy of the German army. The possibility of a sudden. invasion, during an enticed absence of the British fleet, was for years the dream of Napoleon, and the terror of his British contemporaries. He was foiled, and by no narrow margin. Nevertheless, even before the days of steam, the conception was not wholly fantastic; it had been entertained before Napoleon, by Choiseul in the time of Louis XV. At present, the physical difficulties are greatly reduced by steam, which makes the necessary ferriage