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most important channel of wheat transportation to the British Isles. Its strategic importance is seen in the fact that through it lies the shortest way to India, Australia, and the Far East. To relax our hold on it would be to commit strategic suicide.' The British Mediterranean Fleet blocks the way from Europe to the Pacific and secures the safety of the Japanese alliance.'

Incidentally Colonel Murray expounds very clearly the latest views of the Admiralty on British naval strategy in European waters. When the new naval base for the east coast has been completed at Rosyth, in the Firth of Forth, or elsewhere, the new Home Fleetnow having its headquarters at the Nore-will be moved up thither, the Channel Fleet will substitute Dover for Portland as its harbourbase, while the Atlantic and Mediterranean Fleets will continue to be based, as now, on Gibraltar and Malta respectively. To Gibraltar, however, attaches the special distinction that it constitutes the pivotbase for the war distribution of our fleets as a whole. Malta, as base of the Mediterranean Fleet, is the most powerful maritime fortress in the world-stronger than Gibraltar or Hong-Kong in having no land frontier to protect,' and its harbour is being improved at great

cost.

Colonel Murray's lucid exposition of the arguments for and against our abandonment of the Mediterranean route in time of war deserves to be studied. It has been urged that the Suez Canal would be blocked by a Power at war with England. But any such breach of the Convention of 1888 would untie England's hands and leave her free to take absolute possession of the Canal-the removal of a temporary block being no difficult matter, as experience has shown. As regards the risks to merchant ships, these are really greater by the longer Cape route, on which the coaling-stations are fewer and two great naval Powers possess strong naval bases. Naval opinion seems to be unanimous on the point, the author of the present volume

having the best reasons for stating that Prince Louis of Battenberg and Lord Charles Beresford have, since the completion of the Admiralty shipbuilding programme, both changed the views which they formerly held, and now believe not only in the necessity, but in the practicability ofprotecting British commerce along the Mediterranean route in time of war.

Referring to the Suez Canal, Colonel Murray decidedly negatives the idea of constructing a rival channel as offensive to France and wholly unnecessary, the congestion of traffic, present and future, being easily remediable by an extension of the process, already partially accomplished, of widening and deepening the existing Canal. For trade purposes the Suez Canal seems destined to defy all competitorsneither the Euphrates Valley railway nor the Panama Canal being likely to diminish its traffic.

In his suggestive chapter on Aden, 'the sentinel of the Red Sea,

with its outposts of Perim and Socotra, Colonel Murray shows conclusively that the place, though not a naval base, is a necessary and judiciously chosen link in our chain of communications. Two of his proposals deserve all possible attention. The first is that Aden be detached from its dependence on Bombay, erected into a colony, and granted powers of expansion similar to those possessed by Singapore, where Sir Frank Swettenham's vigorous rule shows what can be effected by the organisation of neighbouring friendly tribes of natives into a Protectorate and by the development of a lively trade with the interior. The second suggestion grows out of the first: it is designed for the relief of the unhappy 'British soldier doomed to long months of confinement in this dismal crater prison,' officers and men being alike forbidden to go beyond a native settlement just outside the gates. What is needed is a hill station connected by rail and wire with the sea-stronghold. At present the long since projected hill sanatorium finds little favour with the home authorities.

The momentous political issues which centre in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf are discussed with up-to-date knowledge and characteristic acumen. The respective interests of Italy and France in the Red Sea are recognised by England as in no way threatening her own position. It is rather amusing to read that the railway which the French are making from their port of Djibuti into the interior of Abyssinia is so anxiously desired by Menelik to reach his capital that he is making the necessary embankments at his own expense, and in a recent conversation referred with some impatience to the delay in completing 'my' railway. It is known at Aden that both the Home and Indian Governments are alive to the nature of the attacks which are being made on British commercial interests in the Gulf region, three-fourths of the total imports into Persia by this route coming from the United Kingdom and India. Already British trade has suffered during the last three years from the tariff forced on Persia by Russian pressure while our hands were full with the South African trouble.

But there is a still greater danger to British interests from the monopoly for railway construction granted to Russia in Persia and to Germany in Mesopotamia. If a Russian railway is made from Teheran to Bunder Abbas, and a German railway from Baghdad to Koweyt, the mastery of the Gulf will pass out of British hands. Neither of these two schemes can be carried out except with the consent of Great Britain, and a first condition of that assent shall be that the Gulf section of both railways should be constructed with British capital and worked under British administration. Great Britain has won her right to mastery in the Persian Gulf by long years of unselfish naval guardianship. At the cost of her people, and by the energy of her seamen, she has kept the door open to all the world, and that door must not now be closed against her. . . . If Koweyt and Bunder Abbas become the termini of German and Russian railways, a deathblow will be struck at our commercial supremacy in the Persian Gulf. England sends her warships to police the Gulf in order to protect her trade. If that trade goes, the fleet will go too. Then will

the flank of our great Imperial trade route to the East be exposed to attack, and we shall awake, as we did in South Africa, to an intolerable situation.

This grave warning is entirely endorsed by the detached judgment of Captain Mahan.

Of Ceylon, of its magnificent harbour, recently completed at a cost of nearly two millions and a half, and of its growing prosperity under a well-directed system of Crown Colony government whose wise thrift contrasts favourably with the wanton extravagance of democratic colonies, it is impossible here to treat in detail. From a military point of view greater interest attaches to Singapore, which is not only the gateway of the Pacific,' but the strategical pivot round which radiate the three divisions of the Eastern Fleet-the East Indian, the China, and the Australia squadrons, based respectively on Bombay, Hong-Kong, and Sydney. In time of war Singapore is the central rendezvous of all three squadrons for every purpose. Its rôle as a naval supply base, and the steps taken to develop its strategic resources and to utilise the advantages of its unique geographical position, are discussed by Colonel Murray with an intimacy of knowledge not inferior to that which he brings to bear on its commercial triumphs and on the possibilities to be anticipated from the realisation of the magnificent harbour scheme now in hand. Of Hong-Kong, 'the biggest port in the world,' which guards the north entrance of the China Sea as Singapore does the south, it is affirmed that the keynote to its prosperity is adherence to the policy of the open door. On the other hand, its strategic supremacy is threatened by America's acquisition of the Philippine Islands, Manila affording a fortified naval base on the flank of the British line of communications between Singapore and Hong-Kong.

A grave word of warning is uttered as to the 'yellow peril' that menaces the peace of Shanghai. British pioneers bore the whole burden of securing a footing in the Yangtze delta. But the British Government has persistently refused to afford the traders of Shanghai the protection obtained at Hong-Kong by the annexation of adjacent territory. Shanghai is a commercial settlement hampered by Chinese sovereignty mixed, but not combined, with foreign administration. It would be for the benefit of the whole community if Shanghai were a British possession. At least one-half of its trade is in British hands, and the original concession of 1842 was granted to British subjects. Unfortunately the British settlement has been internationalised, while two opportunities for annexation have been neglected. Meanwhile relations with the Chinese are strained, and there are not wanting grounds for fearing future mischief. Colonel Murray even writes: 'There are some who live at Shanghai in the same fools' paradise as English men and women lived in in India before the Mutiny; there are others who know they are resting on the edge of a volcano, but remain at the posts where their work and duty lie.'

As has been said, five chapters of this volume are devoted to a description of the Japanese, of their military and naval resources, of their national organisation for war, and of the personalities of their leading men. Of several leading generals an attractive account is given, and one of the most interesting illustrations is a portrait groupphotograph of the military celebrities whose names became familiar to us during the war. The chapter on the Emperor and the principal statesmen by whom he is served completes a section of the book which, for Englishmen, throws a more interesting light on Japan than has before been available from any other source.

Two chapters are devoted to Canada, special attention being directed to the transcontinental lines of railway-existing, in making, or projected-with special reference to their strategic value to the Empire. The importance of the seaport Prince Rupert may be partly gauged from the fact that the through journey from London to Yokohama will be about two hundred miles shorter by the new QuebecPrince Rupert route than by Quebec and Vancouver. Canadians point with legitimate pride to their gigantic railway undertakings, and to the shipbuilding which is to supplement them with transPacific water-carriage. Sir Wilfrid Laurier's cherished aim is that the Canadian producer should secure the four hundred million market of China and Japan,' and he looks forward to the great railways sending their trains to the west coast full of passengers, wheat, and flour, and bringing back teas and silks and return passengers.'

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The military weakness of Canada is a topic on which Colonel Murray gives some wise advice. His admonition that the first duty of every citizen is to defend his hearth and home, not by paying someone else to do it for him, may well be taken to heart by others than Canadians.

The value of Colonel Murray's book is enhanced by a uniquely weighty and authoritative preface from the pen of Lord Roberts, who has presumably had access to confidential details of Japanese military matters. Not only in the final chapter, to which the veteran Field Marshal calls special attention, but on every page, he reads a personal summons to each Englishman to study for himself the questions which vitally affect the Empire. As the efficiency of the soldier depends on the stimulation of mental alertness and the development of individual initiative, so the efficiency of the citizen postulates a lively sense of the needs and claims of the land he is supposed to love, and a determination to consecrate some portion of his mind and time to its service.

GEORGE ARTHUR.

PLAYING AT SOLDIERS

THE amount of public, apart from expert military, interest evinced in the Army Bill is extraordinarily small. In the House of Commons every available seat was occupied during the sectarian wranglings which accompanied the various clauses of the Education Bill. At present, during the discussion of a measure which involves the protection of our country's shores and its very existence as a first-class Power, the interest shown by the great majority of members on both sides is languid, and the House could be counted out' again and again. It seems by this time almost impossible to infuse any deep or practical concern for military problems into the mass of our fellowcountrymen. This apathy, fraught as it is with real peril to our national welfare, is due very largely to a certain attitude taken up by politicians, generals and journalists during the progress of the South African war. It became fashionable to grossly exaggerate the military value of amateur soldiers. The brunt of such carnage as occurred in the war-at Colenso, Magersfontein, Spion Kop, and Paardeberg-was borne almost entirely by our Regulars. On the other hand, insignificant skirmishes and mere affairs of outposts in which irregular troops took part were dignified by the name of engagements' and 'battles,' and the most fulsome praise was lavished on the untrained combatants. The absurd and mischievous statement that the colonies came to our aid and thus saved us from irretrievable disaster' is still made in after-dinner speeches and even in Parliament, and this point of view reached its climax in the late Mr. Seddon's boast that if Great Britain withdrew from South Africa the Colonial contingents would see the war brought to a successful finish!

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The result of this 'playing to the gallery' on the part of our leaders was to stereotype in the mind of the average British citizen the comfortable belief, repeated again and again by persons in authority, that our Volunteers and Yeomanry were in every way the equals of highly trained and disciplined troops. That was the spurious lesson of the South African War' learnt by this country, which ignored the blunders, disasters and humiliations of the campaign and the fact that more than three-quarters of the 22,000 surrendered Boers were

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