"climates, such as California, Australia, Chili, "and some parts of India, would keep for two "or three years without deterioration. The "finest wheats of the North-West and Manitoba, as well as the best Russian, would also keep "for nearly as long in storehouses built with all "the most recent improvements, and the fear "which your able correspondent expresses, of a "fall in price when the necessary time for selling "came round, would be exactly counteracted by "the necessity of replacing by buying new stock "as the old was sold. It often happens that "old wheat is more valuable than new, and in "that case it would not be necessary to wait for "signs of deterioration before selling.* "I am, sir, your obedient servant, "London, February 8, 1896." * As will be seen from the previous "note," my proposal does not contemplate, or involve, the necessity of selling at all, except in the event of a threatening famine. The Government would buy only once, it would then give back to the corn-market with one hand all that it annually took from it with the other, it would neither add to nor deduct from the current market supply, and that means that it would be impossible for it to affect market prices.-R. B. M. CHAPTER IV. COULD OUR NAVY FEED US? Our imported annual loaf weighs more than three times as much as the combined tonnage of the entire British War Fleet, and is not the tenth part in money value of the imports, little more than the twentieth part of the imports and exports which that fleet is expected to protect. It was of course impossible in a correspondence like this in the Standard, which I have reprinted in the preceding chapter, to go into the matter fully. I have been editor of a newspaper for nearly twenty years myself, and I acknowledge the courtesy of the Standard in giving me so much space as it did in reply to its criticisms. All the same I do not think that the Standard has proved that I am wrong, either in saying that in certain quite possible contingencies this country will be exposed to a famine such as it has never experienced, and might not survive-except, perhaps, as a fourth-rate broken State-and also that it is perfectly possible, without great sacrifice, if any, to prepare for and prevent it, whether it should threaten in five, or fifty, or a hundred years' time. Was it not Lord Beaconsfield who said, "It is the unexpected which happens," and bought four million pounds worth of shares in a canal, which was looked upon in this country as an impossible and absurd idea when M. de Lesseps proposed it. The shares we hold, according to Whitaker's Almanack, are now worth twenty-two million six hundred and twenty-seven thousand pounds. The revenue from them would far more than pay the annual cost of maintaining a year's reserve of wheat. The letter signed "Mark Lane," evidently written by a specialist in corn-trade matters, which I do not in the least pretend to be, completely bears out what I have said. The Standard says I am wrong in saying we have only a week's supply of food, and that we have more like three months'. "Mark Lane" says I am well within the mark! It is probably true that we have at certain times of the year two or three months' supply under normal conditions, but I am referring to the abnormal condition, viz. war, or a great famine in America, or both, and then only one thing can happen. The price will instantly rise to such a figure as will speedily place bread beyond the means of millions to purchase; and with bread, every other item of food supply will rise also. one imagine that our toiling And can any millions, only pay for food, earning now just sufficient to clothing, and lodging, will, or can rest quietly at home and die? Could that mob we saw on Jubilee Day restrain itself if starving? Could any other earthly power restrain it? Blücher is said to have looked down from St. Paul's on London and said, "What a city to sack." If he could see her five millions now he would say, "What a monster if famished." One great English naval authority who wrote to me after reading my article, said— "You are drawing a red herring across the path of those who want to increase our To this I reply, no one is more anxious than I am to see our navy overpoweringly strong, or would more willingly be taxed to make it so than I am. I should like to see our army strengthened also, for it seems to me that in our next great war our home army will be drained to keep up our foreign garrisons. The writer in question knows Captain A. T. Mahan. Let him ask Captain Mahan if he thinks I take any interest in our fleet, and also if I am wrong in saying that beyond and behind that fleet there is a danger which no strength of fleet could either prevent or avert. These laboured arguments of mine are but the echo of his teachings. " "Men," he says, when comparing the position of England now with that of Holland before we defeated her, "men may be discontented at the lack of political privilege; they will be yet more uneasy if they COME TO LACK BREAD.' One of the first things he said to me on his last visit to |