24st July.
Norwrrasranpine Mr, Chamberlain's recent advice to the people at home to" think imperially" there is too much reason to think that pure parochialism is much nearer the true condition of many men's thoughts than the imperialisra which the ex-Colonial Secretary so much desired to see, Possibly there is no help for this so long as the great majority of our fellow-nationa's are content to remain their whole lives long within the narrow compass of the four seas. It is otherwise with those who travel, and far otherwise with those whose lives, like our own, are cast in other moulds.
From the vantage ground of him who is amongst those foreign affairs which have so much nowadays -to do with our national policy, we are able to see so much more closely and, if we may say so without boasting, so much more correctly, what is really required of us. We can distinguish the fundamental from the accidental, the necessary from the desirable, far more truly than any of the stick-at-homes whose Imperial policy smacks of Little Peddl ington.
Reuter tells us of the debate in the House of Lords on the matter of home defence, As will be remembered, Mr. Balfour recently, with all the latest figures before him, and presumably with the best advice, gave it as his firmly held opinion that Great Britain is not open to invasion, that the recent advance in steam, in swiftly moving vessels, in submarines, snd the like had told rather in our favour than against us. It is a comfortable doctrine, and so long as men do not act upon it too blindly we have no quarrel with it whatever, We agree with the Prime Minister in thinking that the dangers of an attempt upon England are such that the attempt is netlikely tobe made. We further agree that the recent impr: vements in locomotion are in our favour, that our torpedo-boats and submarines afloat, and our motor corps ashore do give us the advantage, so much so that we could probably meet even a successful landing with overwhelming force. at what of it? England is only one section of the British Empire, a somewhat important section but not the whole. Is England to sit down and twiddle her thumbs because no enemy can desecrate her shore? Is such rank particularism to become even for a moment a part of the Empire's thought Do we not rightly deprecate the very same idea. when expressed in naval terms by Australia? Do we not say that the British navy is not for the defence of this or that stretch of coast-line but for the destruction of an enemy's fleets wherever found? And is ib vot certain that as strategy there never was and never wil be any counter proposition to blat this simple conception, the truism of Dundonald, of Jervis, and of Nelson? We know that it is so, and the knowledge that the fleet may at any moment be far from British shores, bent on doing what it ought todo is sufficient inducement, we should think, for the training and equipment of such a British army as will make invasion impossible even if the navy is absent.
Nor is this all. It will come perhaps as a surprise to many Eng'ishmen to learn that we have a very fong land frontier with the great Powers as our next door neighbours. We are of course familiar, all of us with the dictum which tells us that wherever a man-of-war cin float, there is Great Britain's frontier, But how many of us know that. there are some 25,000 to 27,000 miles of land frontier, to be guarded where no vessels of war can come at all. That is the extent of the fence to be watched by the handful of troops wearing the British uniform, and from 18,000 to 19,000 of them have soldiers of one of the Great Powers on the other side of the hedge. Frenchmen, Russians, Germans, Ital-inns, Turks, Americans, and Chinese those are the people with whom our outer fields come into contact, and with whom, the world being what it is, we may at some time or other have to reckon. This fact opens up a line of thought to which the stay-at-home, peace-at-any-price politi-, cian is likely to be more or less a stranger. It suggests difficulties, not to say dangers, an it is so much easier to shirk than to face these that it isno wonder so many think and say that what was good enough a hundred years ago when we had to tackle the Great Napoleon is surely good enough now. 'I'hey forget that a century ago our land frontiers were as nothing compared with those of the present. us sit ranks next to us in the number of next door neighbours with whom she may have seriously to reckon, for in the 7,500 miles of her land frontier she has five great Powers in the two continents in which territorially she is interested. We have seven Powers as above enumerated, with three or four times the length of frontier, in thee continents, What the military and commercial possibilities of such a Jong line are hardly requires a laboured description. Plainly enough they impose on the nation owning them duties and responsibilities of the most serious kind, and yet in the debate to which we have referred, Lord Roberts tel's us that the lessons of the Boer War have already been forgotten, and that our army is no more fit to take the field than it was in 1899. Hesees no alternative but conscription, or universal military training of some sort. Why not? Uniler existing legislation every able-bodied man in the country is liable for service in an emergency. Would it not be as well to make sure that he should be useful when wanted? He would be fir more likely to gain the required end if he knew how to act in emergencies, how to march, and how touse his weapon. The keynote to successful British defence therefore is a preponderant navy, and an army to back it.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.