population than the United States and this year will add 7,000 miles more to that already constructed.

Earl Grey, the distinguished Governor-General of Canada, said at a banquet given to him in Winnipeg, 'You have this year raised in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta, ninety million bushels of wheat, and he would be a bold man who would venture the statement that you have not ten acres of equally good land left for every one that supplied those ninety million bushels.' Hundreds of thousands of hardy settlers are annually pouring into that country, which will soon become the world's greatest food reservoir; and it is no vain boast to say that the child is already born who will live to see Canada furnish happy British homes for as large a population as Great Britain now possesses.

So much has already been accomplished in the creation of a virile and compact British community in Canada, and the work of national and Imperial upbuilding still goes on.

That accomplished soldier, Lord Dundonald, delivered an address at the Canadian Club in Ottawa, a few years ago, in which he outlined a system of citizen soldiery in all its details: a system which, he declared, would when completed enable Canada to defend herself against even the United States. This policy is being steadily pursued by the present Government. Canadians rejoice that the utmost good feeling exists between the two nations who divide the North American continent, and hope that good feeling will ever continue, but the ability to defend is the first element of national life. It is repugnant to every free man-and Canada is a land of free men-to be obliged to feel that he owes the security of his property, his liberty, and his life, to the good nature of a foreign country.

In view of these facts am I not justified in saying that in no portion of the British Empire has more been done to strengthen its weakest part than in Canada?

Need I further remind you that during the unhappy Transvaal War Canada contributed 8,000 men to the support of the British arms. The quarrel was not of Canada's making; no part of any resultant material benefit could possibly be hers; but the Motherland was involved and the cause of Empire was imperilled, and that was enough. In the course of the year 1899 it was my good fortune to address fifty-six large meetings in Canada, extending from Sydney in the east to Victoria on the Pacific coast, and in every one there were cheers to the echo of the statement that when Parliament met I would move that the entire cost of that force should be paid by Canada. Only the action of the Prime Minister in laying on the table of the House evidence that the Imperial Government would not permit Canada to pay the whole cost prevented me from redeeming that pledge and doing what an overwhelming majority of the Canadian people would have desired. When a motion was made in the House of

Commons disapproving of the aid given by Canada in that struggle, after an eloquent speech by Sir Wilfrid Laurier only three votes in a House of 215 members could be found in support of the motion. Such indeed was the national spirit that a wealthy Canadian friend who will not allow me to disclose his name enabled me to insure the lives and limbs of the first contingent of a thousand men to the extent of a million dollars, and forty thousand dollars were subsequently paid to the sufferers under that insurance. Three hundred thousand dollars were subscribed and paid in addition out of the Minto Fund to the other sufferers.

Remembering all this, who will venture to say that Canada has failed in her duty to the Empire? And by the past the future may be confidently forecast.

Mr. Balfour told a vast audience in the Albert Hall last month that he would have the British people think of the self-governing communities of the Empire as a family, and the parallel is true. May I, as one who has spent a lifetime in the public service of the senior member of that family outside the United Kingdom, be allowed to claim that in her own sphere and in respect especially of trade and defence Canada has done what in her lies to realise the family ideal? Indeed did not all the Colonies receive the other day from the greatest Colonial administrator of modern times-I refer to Mr. Chamberlainhis testimony to the fact that if the union of the British Empire is now brought within the range of practical politics' this great development we owe more to the sister states than we do to ourselves. They,' he added, in his letter of the 13th of April, 1907, have seen further and more clearly than we have how necessary it is that we should go forward if we would not go back.'

Mr. Chamberlain in penning that testimony may perhaps have had in mind the undoubted fact that the spontaneous support given to the Mother Country at the time of the Boer War by the outlying portions of the Empire was a potent factor in preventing an intervention on the part of foreign powers with results which it is not pleasant to contemplate. The Colonies make their general and consistent acceptance of the family ideal the basis of no claim-they would spurn to do so; but it does entitle their counsel as to the future of the Empire to the full and sympathetic consideration of the Government and people of this country. We live in moving times; the issues of to-day are of the gravest import; and if the Colonial Conference of 1907 has done nothing else it has evidenced the deep anxiety of the men of our blood overseas who share with the British people what Lord Rosebery has called the title-deeds of the race that nothing shall now be done and nothing now be left undone to jeopardise for them and their children's children the right to share with Sir John Macdonald the proud distinction 'A British subject I was born, a British subject I will die.' CHARLES TUPPER.

WILL THE BRITISH EMPIRE STAND

OR FALL ?

THREE centuries ago England was a backward and ignorant agricultural country, without enterprise, without trade, without wealth, without colonies. But England, though poor, was ambitious. Her leading men wished her to become a World-Power. Sir Walter Raleigh wrote: Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade; whosoever commands the trade commands the riches of the world, and consequently the world itself,' and Lord Bacon declared 'The rule of the sea is the epitome of monarchy,' and advised this country to conquer the wealth and the colonies of Spain because Spain's power was no longer sufficient to defend her vast and wealthy possessions. Following the advice of her greatest statesmen, England made war upon Spain, not for political or religious reasons but because Spain owned the wealth of the New World. Spain declined and Holland became by war and by work heir to the larger part of Spain's wealth. Then England transferred her hostility from Spain to Holland. Attacked by England, who was later on joined by France, the Netherlands declined, England and France fell to fighting over the great Dutch inheritance, and war had to decide whether the New World was to become French or English. Thus by three centuries of war, firstly against Spain, then against Holland, and lastly against France, was the British Empire won, and the struggle for empire ended only in 1815 when at last Great Britain had vanquished all her European rivals. British colonial and commercial supremacy is barely a century old.

The rise of the British World-Empire has been similar to that of all other States and Empires, and only those who are ignorant of history and of the great physiological and historical laws which rule the world can condemn the triumphant progress of the Anglo-Saxon race. This world is not a world of ease and peace, but a world of strife and war. Nature is ruled by the law of the struggle for existence and of the survival of the fittest and the strongest. States, like trees and animals, are engaged in a never-ending struggle for room, food, light, and air, and that struggle is a blessing in disguise, for it is the cause of all

progress. Had it not been for that struggle, the world would still be a wilderness inhabited by its aboriginal savages.

The abolition of war would be a misfortune to mankind. It would lead not to the survival of the fittest and strongest, but to the survival of the sluggard and the unfit, and therefore to the degeneration of the human race. However, there is no likelihood that universal peace will be established. As long as human nature remains what it is, as long as self-interest, not benevolence, is the predominant motive in men and in States, those nations which are ambitious and strong will seize the possessions of those which are rich and weak. Thus Nature constantly rejuvenates the world and compels States to increase in civilisation and strength by the same means by which she compels individuals to cultivate both mind and body, and those States which disregard the supreme law of Nature and of history disappear.

All States and Empires are founded upon power. By the exercise of power families have grown into tribes, tribes into States, and States into empires. The word 'Power' happily expresses the essence of the State, for the State is not only founded upon power but is power. Power is the only valid title by which a nation holds its possessions, and only by power can it retain them. That is the law of Nature and the law of history. The fate of nations depends therefore chiefly on their strength and on their fitness for facing the universal struggle for existence, and wars will hardly be abolished by international agreement unless the universal law of the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest and strongest be previously abrogated. It is true that the prophet tells us They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more'; but he shrewdly adds that that happy event will come to pass only ' in the last days,' and these are not yet.

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In Lord Bacon's words, 'For Empire and greatness it importeth most that a nation do profess arms as their principal honour, study, and occupation.' The great commercial world-empires of the past from Phoenicia to the Dutch world-empire have been conquered and have declined and decayed because they neglected cultivating their strength and providing in time for their defence. May not the loosely jointed and ill-organised British Empire have a fate similar to that of its great predecessors, and may we not, if we recognise that possibility in time, take in time the necessary steps to guard ourselves against such a calamity?

The maintenance of naval supremacy is an absolute necessity for the defence of the British Empire, for it can hardly be doubted that the disappearance of our naval supremacy would inevitably, and very speedily, be followed by the peaceful dissolution or by the violent break-up of the Empire. As soon as the connexion between the various parts of the Empire can be severed at will by a Power

supreme on the sea, the British Empire exists only by permission of that Power. Inter-imperial trade in peace would be at the mercy of that nation which rules the sea, and which conceivably might interfere with the free flow of inter-imperial trade with the object of benefiting its own citizens. A State supreme on the sea might, therefore, drain the British Empire of its wealth by navigation laws and wanton fiscal interference against which diplomatic protests might prove unavailing. If the British Empire should be engaged in war with a third Power, concerted action and mutual assistance would become impossible for the members of the Empire except by the permission of the supreme naval Power, and our possessions would inevitably, one by one, fall to the nation supreme on the sea, which alone would be able, economically and militarily, to protect them, and which would be able to acquire them at its leisure either by war or by economic or diplomatic pressure. With the disappearance of British naval supremacy the British Empire would exist merely on sufferance, and Great Britain could keep only that portion of her oversea trade and those of her colonies which the supreme naval Power would allow her to retain. Like Spain and Portugal, Great Britain would be deprived of her most valuable possessions and be left only with those which would not be worth the taking. Therefore the end of British naval supremacy would certainly mean the end of the British Empire. Hence the most important question arises, Will Great Britain be able to continue maintaining her naval supremacy

?

Our naval policy is at present based upon the two-Power standard. Great Britain endeavours to maintain a fleet equal in strength to the combined strength of the fleets possessed by the two second strongest naval Powers, rightly considering that these might possibly ally themselves against her. Up to a few years ago France and Russia, whose policy then was hostile to this country, were the two second strongest naval Powers. Lately the danger of a Franco-Russian attack on this country has diminished, but at the same time the United States and Germany have come forward and have become competitors with this country for naval supremacy.

Two questions ought now to be considered: (1) Ought Great Britain to maintain a fleet strong enough to meet the combined fleets of the United States and Germany? (2) Is Great Britain able to maintain the two-Power standard against the United States and Germany?

In order to solve these two questions we must first of all consider our relations with the United States and Germany and the probable development of these relations.

The United States and Germany were formerly Land Powers, one might almost say Inland Powers. Their citizens were chiefly occupied in agriculture, and they exchanged their surplus of wheat,

VOL. LXI-No. 363

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