Mr. Balfour succeeded last night in earning the warm praise of the Opposition. It was a really fine speech that he delivered on the problem of National Defence, and although it has not altogether pleased the champions of our army, and has decidedly displeased the advocates of conscription, it has won the approval not only of the ' Blue Water School" but of most unprejudiced men. They were not, of course, his own personal conclusions which he announced, but those of the Committee of National Defence and their expert advisers. The main conclusion—that an invasion of the British Isles is an impossibility. Mr. Balfour has announced before, but this is the first time be has explained fully the reasons upon which these con-elusions ware based. Roughly outlined these reasons are as follows: The very smallest army with which an invader could hope to do any good woul be one of 70,000 men, To ferry these across would require vessels of from 200,000 to 250,000 tonnage. To got these vessels together so quickly that we should not have ample warning would be an simest ible task, and if it were accomed, the men would have to be one it would take them two disembark. They would have no protection against our torpedoes, and oven though our home army were deploted it was at the height of the Boor war no difficulty in repelling them. The whole case has, however, been sammed up before in this: If our cannot prevent an invasion we are help-Jess, however strong an army we may have, and if our navy can prevent an invasion—as it certainly can—then a big army for home defence is superfluous.
Russia and India, So far Mr. Balfour's speech, though admirably convincing, contained nothing really now; but when he came to di with India he broke fresh ground. India, the Defences Committee hold, is under present conditions safe against invasion put we must seo that those condition: are not modified in dangerous directior The problem, Mr. Balfour pointed out, exactly the reverse of that presented by an invasion of England. This island could only he invaded, if at all, by @ sud den dash; India only-by " slow process of railway building extending over years.
out a railway through Afghanistan Ru-sia would find (transport difficulties insuperable; and we must therefore let Bossia understand that we should regard the construction of a Russixn railway in Afghanistan as a casus belli. Of course the Prime Minister was careful te exp! that he did not regard. a Russian invasion of India as any more likely than a French invasion of Knxland He used these two countries og illustrations, because if France could not invade England, @ fortiori no other nation could, and similarly if India is safe from invasion from Russia, sh2 certainly can protect herself against any other country.
The Effect on Army Expenditure. OF course the Opposition, while welcoming Mr. Balfour's statement of policy, urged that its logical effect was that a considerable reduction might be made in our armaments, or at all events in the cost of our land forces; and complaints wore made that the speech had not been delivered before the navy and army votes were considered. Mr. Balfour, in his reply, however, made it clear that he at all events does not draw the inference that we can substantially reduce the strength of our army, which is wanted for service abroad, and especially in India. The bearing of the new policy on the subject of our volunteer fores is, however, much more apparent. If the navy absolutely insures us against invasion, a volunteer force for home vefence is clearly quite wu necessary, and its expense might be spared. The Government have recoguieed this in a small measure, but they have been afraid to attack the vested interests of the volunteers by carrying out their views logically.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.