wireless telegraphy, is exact and rapid. As the First Lord of the Admiralty recently pointed out, if the Imperial Squadron happened to be at Gibraltar instead of at one of the Dominion ports when war in some distant part of the Empire threatenedand every war is preceded by a period of warning and of tension-the ships could reach Halifax in five days, Quebec in six, Jamaica in nine, the South American coast in twelve, Cape Town in thirteen, Sydney in twenty-eight, New Zealand in thirty-two, and Vancouver in twenty-three. In other words, this squadron, even if it happened to be at Gibraltar when peril to British Columbia became possible, could be on the scene sooner than a Japanese squadron, and would probably reach any port in the Pacific before any other country could organize and dispatch a considerable naval force; indications of any such action would be reported to the Admiralty in ample time for effective aid to be sent.

The growing peril to Imperial unity arises from the fact that Downing Street is endeavoring to ignore the existence of Imperial problems. It is not sufficient to pooh-pooh the fears of these white peoples and to point to the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the control of the British Government over Indian emigration. British Ministers owe it to themselves and to the Empire to endeavor to study the problems of the Empire from every point of view. They are not fulfilling the whole purpose of British statesmanship when they appoint a Sub-Committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence to consider the possibility of the British Isles being invaded by 5,000, 10,000, or even 70,000 men. The problem which transcends all other problems is whether it is possible for an enemy to invade and command the sea frontiers which link together the various sections of the

Empire. The Government may conclude, on the highest expert authority, that the heart of the Empire is safe from an invader, and yet leave the Dominions still assailed by fears as to their position in case of attack. It is not nervousness of invasion on the part of some sections of the people of the British Isles which is shaping the future of the Empire, but the feelings of the "white" Dominions oversea. This is the aspect of Imperialism which is being ignored, but it is the aspect which is determining the thought of the oversea States and fashioning their policy; yet British statesmen remain dumb.

The time is over-passed for a conference between British Ministers and their naval and military experts on the one hand, and the responsible statesmen of the Dominions on the other. All the politicians of the Empire must strive to see the Empire whole as it is to-day, and as it will be in the future, or that Empire must inevitably cease to exist. Frequent consultation is essential to this end.

On unity of action between the oversea nations and the Mother Country depends their future and ours. British statesmen lost one empire by a disregard of their responsibilities, and we may easily lose another from the same cause. We are approaching the parting of the ways. If the British Empire is not to be run on the shoals, British politicians must realize that we are at the beginning of a new age, when great decisions must be taken fearlessly. Either we must work for a Greater Britain, which will be the most potent instrument for good in the spread of civilization, or we must be prepared for the inevitable alternative. If we stand selfishly aside, absorbed in our own and Europe's affairs and allowing the stream of Imperial sentiment to sweep past us, the British Isles must become an insignificant

factor in European affairs and of no account in world affairs. The pressure of population and of wealth in Europe must drive us into obscurity if we stand apart from our young and vigorous partners, and by ignoring their problems force them to adopt a centrifugal policy.

The cement of the British Empire must be mutual trade and co-operation in defence. Other countries have plumbed the secret of our greatness; they recognize the meaning of Raleigh's declaration: "Whosoever commands the sea commands the trade of the world; whosoever commands the trade of the world commands the riches of the world and consequently the world itself." This truth, and not the suggested influence of devilish politicians or hungry armament firms, is responsible for the competition in Dreadnoughts. The struggle of the future is for markets, and, without power on the sea, markets cannot be reached and held. The younger nations comprehend that every Imperial interest depends upon sea command.

These small nations of to-day are the great nations of to-morrow; they are already the best customers for our manufactured goods. They know that their future is on the sea, and they watch with fascinated fear every development which threatens their sea communications.

Unless British statesmanship makes some move, the next stage in Imperial development may prove to be the consolidation of an Empire within the greater Empire. Already leading politicians in New Zealand, Australia, and Canada are in consultation with a view to yet closer trade relations and joint naval defence measures in the Pacific. There is no idea of disloyalty to the Imperial ideal in these local navies; there is no recognition of the waste in men and money which the attainment of the measures proposed

represent; there is no understanding of the negation of true strategic principles involved. There is, however, a growing appreciation of danger, and these scattered peoples are therefore co-operating for their own safety, thrusting on one side all the strategical lore which history has consecrated and which British naval officers to-day hold as fundamental to Imperial safety. It is no long step from an Empire within an Empire to a cleavage into two empires. This might well be the work of a moment-the result of some sudden ebullition of feeling. It is not a development which we need fear today when the white peoples of the Pacific are few and scattered and dependent upon us for the money required for development purposes, but the time is not far distant when they will be many and united by powerful mutual interests.

We, in the Mother Country, have a reasonable defence for the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and for the present disposition of the Fleet. But nothing is said by our statesmen in explanation or in defence. Why? It is apparently thought to be indelicate to explain these matters to the Dominions, and so the cleavage increases. The fact is that Japan, realizing that she is weak and that she will continue to be weak, has "pooled" her liabilities by a treaty with the greatest naval Power of the world; we, on our part, determined to hold what we have, have increased the margin of our safety by entering into a defensive arrangement with Japan. This treaty is not so much in the interest of the people of the British Isles as in the interest of the peoples of the far Dominions. It eases the path of diplomacy in discussing racial problems, and it is impossible to see why this truth should not be boldly and officially stated in order that the inhabitants of British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand may understand what they

is there surely any reason why it should not be boldly and fearlessly stated that if the ally of to-day should become the enemy of to-morrow, before such a development can occur the present dispositions of the Fleet will be altered.

Not only the inhabitants of the Dominions, but a good many persons in the United Kingdom, do not yet realize what sea-power means. As Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge has remarked, the demand that ships be so stationed that they will generally, and except when actually cruising will, be within sight of the inhabitants of a country is common enough: "nothing justifies it except the honest ignorance of those who make it; nothing explains compliance with it but the deplorable weakness of authorities who yield to it." It was not, as this officer records, by hanging about the coast of England, when there was no enemy near it, with his fleet, that Hawke or Nelson saved the country from invasion. And he adds as a former commander-in-chief of the Australian station, that "the conditions insisted upon by the Australian Governments in the agreement formerly made with the Home Government, that a certain number of ships, in return for an annual contribution money, should always remain in Australian waters, was in reality greatly against the interests of that part of the Empire. The Australian taxpayer was, in fact, made to insist upon being injured in return for his money. The proceeding would have been exactly paralleled by a householder who might insist that a fire engine, maintained out of rates to which he contributes, should always be kept within a few feet of his front door, and not be

of

allowed to proceed to the end of the street to extinguish a fire threatening to extend eventually to the householder's own dwelling." Maritime defence should not begin at home, but on the probable enemy's sea frontier. The localization of naval defence is a peril to every Dominion interest, because if these small communities, who are weak, adopt this policy, there is a danger that the British taxpayer, who pays £46,000,000 for the Navy, will copy it. As matters are, and have always been, the Admiralty distribute the fleet which is the Empire's shield so that it may most readily defeat the Empire's probable enemy, without consulting the interested views of this or that community. During the whole of the nineteenth century the main guard of every Imperial interest cruised 2,000 or 3,000 miles from the British Isles and their inhabitants acquiesced; it may be that events will be so shaped that strategy will require great British squadrons to be sent into the Pacific to the depletion of European waters. If such an eventuality occurs, the inhabitants of the United Kingdom will readily agree to such a movement unless, under the tuition of Colonial statesmen like Sir Wilfrid Laurier, they have come to hold the selfish and anti-Imperial doctrine that "defence, like charity, begins at home."

Our present Imperial policy is, of course, the negation of Sir Wilfrid Laurier's declaration. The whole foundation of the Empire and its future rests on the denial of such a fallacy, which if once adopted by the British taxpayer would leave the scattered peoples of the Dominions oversea at the mercy of the first enemy which cast envious eyes on their accumulating wealth.

The hour has struck for Imperial Ministers to deal with the new and menacing conditions which are developing in the Pacific, and to prove to

these defenders of an "all-white" policy that they have our active sympathy and support, within the limits of our Imperial responsibilities, and that their only hope of salvation in the The Fortnightly Review.

years ahead lies in the strength and good offices of one Empire united in allegiance to one King and defended by the might of one ubiquitous Fleet of commanding strength.

Archibald Hurd.

On the results of the session of Congress that began on April 7 will rest the fate of the Democratic party for many years to come. President Wilson called Congress in extraordinary session primarily to revise the tariff. That was a mandate from the country. The high cost of living was one of the great issues in the last campaign, and the Democrats pledged themselves if given the power they would so reduce duties on the necessaries of life that expenses would be measurably decreased. The people took them at their word. A Democratic President and a Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress now must either make their promise good or else admit they were insincere.

The attempt is to be made. Whatever the outcome they cannot be accused of insincerity or not endeavoring loyally to live up to their bargain. Under the direction of Representative Underwood, the Ways and Means Committee, of which he is the competent chairman, has drafted a Bill to supersede the existing Payne-Aldrich law, and President Wilson has been freely consulted by Mr. Underwood and his associates so that there may be complete accord between Congress and the President. The Bill now under consideration makes heavy reductions in nearly every schedule, and greatly enlarges the free list, but whether the public will gain to the extent it has believed would follow the repeal of high protection, remains to be seen.

Whether the full amount of the duty is added to the cost to the consumer is the controversy that has always raged between the Protectionist and the Free Trader. Take a single article as a concrete illustration. Some of the ardent tariff reductionists have advocated free wool on the ground that wool is an article of prime necessity, that the poor man can no more live in comfort without wool in some of its forms than the rich man, that the duties are excessive, and that their burden presses heaviest upon the poor man. In this country a very fair suit of clothes can be bought ready made for twenty-five dollars. That is the price the middle-class man pays, not the working man as a rule, or the man to whom a few dollars more or less make no difference, but men of moderate means who buy one suit a season. A twenty-five dollar suit in the United States bought over the counter in a large shop is not as good in material or workmanship as the equivalent five pound suit made to order by a reputable tailor in England; it will not last as long nor will it keep its shape or look as smart in a few months; but that is what the average middle-class American wears and must be satisfied with. In such a suit there is about nine and a half pounds of wool, and on this the present duty is a dollar and five cents, say roughly a fraction over four shillings. If the duty were abated and the consumer obtained the full benefit he would be the better off by four shillings; that

is, instead of paying as now the customary twenty-five dollars, he would This of pay twenty-four dollars.

course assumes that the manufacturer of clothing, the wholesale merchant and the retailer, would give the full benefit of the saving to the consumer, which is not likely. He might profit by a part of it, but not the whole. The maximum saving by free wool would be a dollar, and in all probabil ity half of that would be absorbed in the intermediate processes of manufacturing and marketing, so that the consumer's net gain would be fifty cents, or 2 per cent. on the cost of the conventional twenty-five dollar suit of clothes. The saving would be so trifling that it would mean nothing.

This saving of two shillings on a five pound suit of clothes is at the expense of the American wool-grower, and while the consumer would save nothing, or so little that it would practically be nothing, the wool-grower, deprived of his protective duty, would be injured, some people assert he would be ruined; for the American manufacturer would buy foreign wool in preference to domestic if he could obtain it at the same price. The growing of wool by the American farmer is an important industry and gives employment to thousands of men; it means a great difference to the farmer whether his flock has a value simply as meat or as meat with the fleece as a by-product. To the statesman making up the national balance sheet it would seem that he would consider long and carefully before writing down a saving of two shillings on a five pound suit of clothes as a fair set-off to the ruin of a great industry which is as old almost as creation, but to the free trade economist cheapness is the sole proof of wisdom.

But the cost of living reduced by 2 per cent. will satisfy no one. Taken in

the aggregate, reductions of fifty cents or a dollar even on millions of suits of clothes and millions of other things are stupendous and imposing; distributed among the millions the individual saving is so beggarly that it will excite only derision. We have already been given one instance of this sort of tariff reduction. For years the Massachusetts manufacturers had been clamoring for free hides on the ground that the only beneficiary of the duty was the "Leather Trust," and the public was robbed by the duty. Yielding to the popular demand the framers of the Payne-Aldrich law put hides on the free list, but the public gained nothing. Immediately following the passage of the law certain grades of cheaper boots were advanced in price, and I do not find that any one pays less for his footwear now than formerly. The manufacturers, however, are probably better off by being able to buy cheaper leather. This is one of the problems that confronts the Democrats. If they could reduce the twenty-five dollar suit of clothes to fifteen dollars, the reduction would be great enough to convince every wearer of the wisdom of the Democratic policy, until he had to pay the bill, and then he might have doubts as to its wisdom. Not the farmer alone, but the manufacturer and the working man and the man who buys the suit of clothes would be, I believe, the sufferers. What the Democrats have promised is a reduction in the prices of commodities without any reduction in wages, seemingly an impossibility when we remember that high prices in America are one of the results of high wages, and high wages are possible because commodity prices are high. If the Democrats are able to reduce prices and leave wages untouched, every one will be satisfied, and their attempt to do this will be watched with the keenest interest.