To say that there a war is a mockery

threat and our reply. was no real danger of to all who watched the outburst in America. If our reply had equalled our provocation we should now be in the death struggle with our kinsmen. Arbitration treaties can no more always prevent war than a safety-valve can always prevent an explosion.*

The late presidential election campaign in America ought ever to be a lesson to other nations that there are forces at work there which, even when directed against their own national institutions, have only been quelled, not destroyed, by the greatest political effort, in peace time, of any country, or time.

Since our nation attaches, and justly, so much import to the words of Captain Mahan, I feel I shall not betray his confidence by saying what he said to me in reply to a letter I wrote to him when war was still "in the air," asking if he thought it possible; he replied that, terrible as the fact was, he could not hide from himself the conviction of its possibility. And no one who watched the

* (See "Arbitration from a Colonial Point of View" in the Appendix.)

outburst of war fever, expressed and excited rather than controlled by the majority of the American papers,* can doubt what the result

Here is further and unquestionable evidence as

to the war feeling in the United States at the beginning of 1896. It is from the New York Nation, the most fearless, honest, and outspoken paper in America:

"Our State Department might safely and ought always to illustrate to the world the majesty of moderation, the dignity of good manners. The great difficulty in the way of such a consummation is the press, which with few exceptions is apt to call for violent language in terms which shake the nerves of secretaries of state. Worse than this, it does its best to prevent the settlement of any international dispute on terms which will not hurt the foreigner's selfrespect by always representing, when he meets us halfway, that it was our "vigour "—that is, our insolence, abusiveness, and brutality-that brought him to terms. It is at this devil's work at this moment, by proclaiming that it was Mr. Cleveland's coarse threat which has "brought England to her knees," that it is our swagger which has drawn forth the pacific and friendly language of both the Ministry and Opposition in England, and the civil treatment accorded to our Commission; that, in short, in international affairs the ruffianly way is the more excellent way. It is impossible, when one reads this stuff, to avoid the conclusion that the widespread desire for war, the existence of which there is no denying-war with somebody, but especially with England is largely newspaper work; and we know of nothing which reflects or has reflected more discredit on our civilizationnot slavery, not lynching, not corruption, not lawlessness. We do not believe there is anything which has during the last century done so much to discourage the believers in human progress as the

would have been if our people and press had replied in the fashion we did to Germany. We were calm, because the reason for going to war was so ridiculously inadequate in our view-and, as it proved, in that of the Americans; but not until we gave them time to think twice about it. But the very fact that we were so near war for so inadequate a reason, should warn us that some more burning question may as suddenly arise on which neither side will listen to reason.

And if war between this country and America is, to say the very least, not impossible, no one will deny that it is quite possible between us and our European competitors for power. We have been in very recent years on the brink of war. With Russia over the Pendejh affair, again when we sent the fleet to Besika Bay and took Cyprus, with France over Siam, and with Germany over Dr. Jameson's Raid.

Does Russia forget the treaty of San Stefano, when, by threat of war, we forced her

revelation that "Time's noblest offspring" was as full of desire to kill and wreck, for the fun of the thing, as the savage races on the site of whose corn-patches and torture-stakes we are erecting churches and colleges."

to relinquish the best fruits of her victories over the Turk? No more than France forgets her lost Rhine provinces, or our occupation of Egypt.

We must not hope for alliances with us, nor need we fear alliances against us, if only we make our fleet adequate to our requirements, and can be assured of sufficient time to draw on our inexhaustible resources for repairing and renewing it after the losses sustained in battle.

As Captain Mahan points out, so evenly balanced are the fleets which would be opposed to us, and ours, that the ultimate victory would rest with the power which could most rapidly and strongly repair after the first shock of battle.

It has been prophesied by some writers that our next great naval war will be a short one -nothing but the event itself can prove the truth of that. Those who think so must imagine that we shall very quickly beat a possible combination of fleets against us, or—— be beaten.

We must remember that it will be a war not local, like that between China and Japan, and fought between unequal and small sea

powers; it will be a world-wide war, between the greatest of naval powers-and our history tells us that such wars have not been short ones.

It is often said that steam has revolutionized the art of war; if it has, it has not done so only to our advantage.

Notwithstanding the celerity with which Germany's railways poured troops into France, it took her ten months to beat France, and it took Russia longer to subdue Turkey, and in both cases it was not want of men, or pluck, or war material, which forced the final surrender-it was want of food.

The collapse of Austria in the seven weeks' war, was due to the fact that Prussia had quietly prepared for the war, and armed her soldiers with a rifle which gave them an immense advantage; the Austrians were taken by surprise.

It will be to the eternal disgrace of our naval and military intelligence departments if we find on going to war that our opponents have, unknown to us, provided themselves with some such revolutionizing element of warfare as the ironclad and the needle-gun proved to be. M. Lockroy, the French