2th April, Wuen the journals are full of the prosperity of our country, the revival of trade, the continued increase in our imports and exports, the rise of Consols to over 110, the strength of our navy and the rapidity with which we can equip flying squadron, and the patriotic spirit that animates Great and Greater Britain, it is well that the voice of Cassandra should be heard sometimes over the din of self-glorification. Almost every month Cassandra utters her warnings through the mouth of Mr. A. J. Wilson, her address this month being headed, " 'I'he Burden of Empire." Mr. Wilson' begins by saying that he is often counselled to "take " cheerful view of things, and not always to write in gloom." Never, he says, "is this advice more often tendered than in regard to what has been from time to time advanced in these pages about some essential weaknesses of the British Empire. To insist that it is an empire built upon a foundation of mortgages, whose civilisation depends on the regular payment of interest by its multitudinous debtors and dependencies has seemed to many people rank pessimism.'" Most people, Mr. Wilson says, repl "Prices go up in spite of your croaking." ing" Bat a rise in prices is not necessarily a healthy sign; though the shates of the Chartered Company of South Africa are not worth intrinsically a shilling apiece, they went to £9 last) September. "Alli the same,"—and this was published before the rising in Matabeleland—* the intrinsic value will assert itself some day, play the market dossers' never so shrewdly, and many who, in the height of the merry gamble, thought the Investors' Review conducted by a lunatic, will yet the inattention paid to They will not like Cassandra any the more for her warnings coming tru The patriotism of our colonies, Mr, Ison tells us, is only sentimental Fif they could help us with a few men when we were in trouble, the British Yreasmry would have to find the money [to arm and feed them. And rich as we are, the greater part of our wealth is invested abroad, He says "Onur wealth is represented by instruments of credit, and not by cash or other substantial possessions to the extent that it is, say, in France, The value of these instruments of credit depends very much upon the maintenance of peace. A war with the United States would temporarily blot out the market price of some hundreds of millions sterling of our investments there; a fight with Russia over the {'Turk's remains, or for India, or about the coming partition of China, would prove equally disastrous to our investments in Russia, in the East, and probably in Egypt. How, then, with all our available means, either out at interest on foreign and colonial promises to pay, or engaged in speculation and commerce at home and abroail, are we to be able to raise the thousand
Hions, a great war might compel us millions, or the five hundred mil-{to find for the equipment and upkeep of our navy, and of our armies, home-bred and colonial? We should have to sell what of our securities were marketable at war prices; and is highly doubtful if our delicate and over-ilistended system of banking credit could bear the strain without breaking."
Phon he goes on to say that we have two great sources of wealth, our splendid foreign trade and our enormous foreign investments, and both these vitally depend on the maintenance of pence. So the late Lord Derby said some years ago: "You talk of British interests, but the greatest British interest is peace." The sense of the enormous risks and costs of war makes cowards of our statesmen; it " weakened the grasp of Lord Salisbury in handling the Armenian question;.... and he, least of all the members of his Government, isa man likely to be afflicted with that creditor's cowardice' which has been creeping into the nation's heart, in spite of its valiant words and heroic expeditions against savage tribes in Africa and Asia, until nothing almost can be more surely reckoned on {than a breakdown'? by Bugland when confronted by another strong Power." Mr. Wilson goes on to deprecate the proposed large expenditure on new ships of war, which only makes other nations imitate us, and so reproduces the status quo ante. He attacks the argument that our expenditure on our navy is in the nature of an insurance fand, by showing that now when our
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.