of Imperial Communication. The Royal Commission sent to the West Indies in 1897 reported that facilities of transport were a necessary corollary to the establishment of a Department of Economic Botany. On their recommendation subsidised ocean services were established to connect the West Indies with the United Kingdom, Canada, and America, and the policy was rapidly extended to our insular Crown Colonies throughout the Empire. At the same time the policy of liberal expenditure on facilities of communication was extended to our continental Colonies and Protectorates. The initiative was due to Lord Ripon, who ordered the preliminary surveys, the energetic prosecution to Mr. Chamberlain. In 1898 there was not a mile of railway open to traffic in West Africa. Within five years nearly 500 miles were in working order in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Nigeria, and the railway system of these colonies has now been extended to nearly 1000 miles, while in East Africa the Uganda Railway has been completed for a distance of 584 miles to Lake Victoria Nyanza. The financial results following the opening up of vast areas of agricultural, forest, and mineral resources have been astonishing, and have led to insistent demands for the construction of new lines to open up territories which we have seen to be about equal in area to the whole of British India. The question of meeting these demands has led to an interesting correspondence in The Times.' It is urged that the British Government should follow the examples of the South American Republics, who adopt the simple expedient of saying that if anyone will construct a railway from A to B the Government will guarantee a percentage on the cost. 'The said railway,' it is claimed, 'would be constructed; it would pay if the route were well chosen; and 'the Colony would be blessed by a railway paying its own way, bringing in its train an ever-increasing trade, and this without the Colony paying one penny towards the cost.' The blame for the neglect of this alleged simple plan is laid on the Crown Agents, whose duties include the carrying out of instructions received from the Colonial Office and the Colonial Governments in the matter of railway construction. The plan advocated in the correspondence seems to be based on the assumption that there are plenty of companies anxious to lay out money in making railways in Crown Colonies if the

Government would only allow them. It is a complete fallacy. The experience of many years has proved that there are no companies ready to construct railways in a Crown Colony or Protectorate without a material consideration. The companies or individuals who have approached the Colonial Office have always demanded a land grant, or guarantee of interest, or some other concession, and when the matter has been gone into it has in every case been made clear that it would pay the Government better to make the line itself. In the case of Nyasaland the Foreign Office gave the construction of the railway to a company, paying by grants of land. The Colonial Office List shows that hundreds of miles have been and are now being built by the Crown Agents, acting under the authority of the Colonial Office, in Africa, Ceylon, the Malay Peninsula, and in other Crown Colonies. Another fallacy is that the policy of railway construction is controlled by the Crown Agents. They are merely agents for carrying out the policy of the Colonial Office. In the discharge of their duty they have reconciled efficiency with economy in a way that has contributed largely to establish the reputation of their department as an agency of the first importance in the economic progress of the Crown Colonies and Protectorates. The costly experience of Jamaica has had its value in indicating the advantage of conducting the work of railway construction under well-organised direct control rather than by means of contracts with private companies.

Facilities of communication by post and telegraph are corollaries to facilities of transport by land and sea. They have become indispensable to domestic, commercial, and political interests, the interests of navigation, and the supreme interests of defence. In his statement on the Colonial Office vote in 1913 Mr. Harcourt announced the reduction of the cable rate between the West Indies and the United Kingdom to 2s. 6d. a word, with a reduction of the interinsular rates by one-half. It was a step towards the full realisation of Mr. Chamberlain's efforts to bring the Crown Colonies and Protectorates within the orbit of an imperial system of cheap communication by post and telegraph. When we consider that half a century ago a charge of £20 for a message not exceeding twelve words was declared to be the irreducible minimum rate for a telegram between the United States and

the United Kingdom, there is hope that a penny-a-word telegram rate may be added to the penny postage rate.

The Crown Colonies and Protectorates, whose wonderful resources have been briefly reviewed above, are held by Great Britain in trust for populations adapted to their conditions. of environment by the same natural laws as have conditioned the material resources of the environment. The terms of the trust, as stated in a proclamation issued by Queen Victoria in Natal in 1842, and considered as the Magna Carta of the coloured races in Africa, declare that there shall not in the eye ' of the law be any distinction of persons, or disqualification ' of colour, origin, language, or creed; but the protection of the law, in letter and in substance, shall be extended to all alike.' The terms are, in substance and spirit, identical with the terms of the trust under which we have constituted ourselves guardians of the rights and liberties of the Princes and peoples of India. Since the day of Mr. Harcourt's statement in the House of Commons on the Colonial Office vote in 1913, he has again and again been reminded of the conflict between the terms of the trust under which India and the Crown Colonies and Protectorates form constituent parts of the British Empire, and the legislation of the self-governing Dominions, which recognise no such equality of rights within their jurisdiction. The conflict is tending to divide the constituent parts of the Empire into water-tight compartments; and recent events in South Africa are forcing into the domain of practical politics the question 'What is to happen if the 'obligations of Great Britain, as trustee of the rights and 'liberties of India and the Crown Colonies, clash with the ' interests of the Dominions in matters of fundamental import'ance?' There can be no doubt that clashing interests have arisen out of the development of the natural resources of the Crown Colonies and Protectorates, inasmuch as the industrial development of the Dominions in temperate zones is becoming more and more dependent on the natural products of the tropical and sub-tropical zones. The problem of the century is the administration of the trust under which the Crown Colonies and Protectorates are held by methods which, recognising the interdependence of the constituent parts of the Empire, shall serve the interests of all.

CHARLES BRUCE.

THE NAVY AND THE FUTURE

1. Statement of the First Lord of the Admiralty explanatory of the Navy Estimates, 1914-1915. (Cd. 7302.)

2. Naval Warfare. By JAMES R. THURSFIELD, M.A. Cambridge University Press. 1913.

3. Notre Défense Maritime. Par J. L. de LANESSAN. Paris: Félix Alcan.

1914.

4. Deutschlands Flotte im Entscheidungskampf. Von RUDOLF TROELTSCH. Berlin: Mittler. 1914.

THE

HE complete and final dependence of the British Isles and the British Empire upon power at sea is the truth which lies at the base and origin of all our Naval policy. It is a truth that began with the beginning of the nation, and has been manifested throughout our history; the knowledge of it is rooted in the instinct of our people, and it is still our most important concern. The grave affairs of Ulster and the campaign about the land may resound more loudly in the market-place and upon the hustings, but even they are as chaff in the wind compared with the vital and enduring problems of the sea. For us, power to command the sea is as the breath of life. The possession of this power means security, and the failure of it annihilation. Compared with it, all national things else are unimportant. Without its protection we should be as a fortress beleaguered, and ultimately compelled to surrender, as nineteen out of twenty fortresses have done, to the empty maw of famine. Last year 84 per cent. of the wheat we consumed came from oversea. Not only grain but fish, meat, and dairy produce come into the country in enormous quantities. With them comes also the raw material of many of our manufactures, and in return we send out across the sea completed manufactures, the work of British hands and brains in factory and workshop. And for the security of all we depend upon the guardianship of the fleet.

We depend not less upon the Navy to keep our shores inviolate from the footstep of the invader. Strategical heretics who suggest or assert the contrary are a danger to the State.

The rugged writer of five hundred years ago who likened England to a city and the sea to its wall; Shakespeare in a passage of rare beauty; Bacon in a classic phrase; Raleigh in sounding words; Hawke, Howe, Jervis and Nelson by their acts; and the unbroken record of nearly a thousand years, place this matter beyond the question or cavil of reasonable men. In the larger sphere, too, we know that, as the Empire grew by sea power, so by sea power must it be maintained. As long as British superiority at sea is assured,' to quote Lord Kitchener, then it is an accepted principle that no British Dominion can be successfully and permanently conquered 'by an organized invasion from oversea.' Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Ottley says truly, in an introduction to Mr. Thursfield's admirable volume cited above, that Englishmen 'realise, more or less reluctantly perhaps, that a decisive British defeat 'at sea under modern conditions would involve unspeakable consequences, consequences not merely fatal to the structure ' of the Empire, but destructive also of the roots of our national 'life, and of the well-being of almost all individuals in these 'islands.'

These considerations are elementary, and they should be commonplaces with all of us. Obviously they imply a doctrine and a policy; but we should go but a very short way into the naval problem if we merely accepted these naked facts, and did not, as practical people, consider how they affect and are affected by the preparations of other Powers. At the outset we are confronted by the formidable fact that in varying degrees other nations, with whom we have no cause of quarrel, consider a navy, which we regard as the prime condition of our own welfare, to be vitally necessary for the protection of the interests they also have to secure.

Among these nations the most important assuredly is Germany. The growth of the German navy has affected us financially by compelling us to increase our Navy Estimates by over £22,000,000 since the year 1900. Nevertheless we have no right to assume that the German navy has been built up with any directly aggressive purpose against this country. The object of the German navy is to secure Germany from the interference or aggression of a stronger Power. The German navy has grown with the growth of national spirit in Germany and with the consciousness of necessity. The increase of manuVOL. CCXIX. NO. CCCCXLVIII.

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