about three times as much coal as all the other Great Powers combined, and there remain the virgin coal and iron fields of China which lie ready for development by British capital. Americans sometimes humorously tell us that the old country is played out, but the truth is that if British pluck, brain, and muscle have not deteriorated, the essential element of continued and increasing prosperity is still in our hands.

In recent years commercial men and politicians alike have adopted the proverb, Si vis pacem, para bellum, and we are spending about £45,000,000 a year on the army and navy to assure peace and consequent prosperity. It is merely a matter of peace insurance. The nation pays the premiums every year as a provident man pays a company an annual sum to insure his life or provide a capital sum at a given age when working days are past. And the insurance capital of the British Empire and India are the million officers and men of the regular and auxiliary land forces; the navy of 106,000 officers and men, and the 450 warships, on which, by continual self-sacrifice, we have spent over a hundred million sterling; and, lastly, our coaling stations scattered over the face of the oceans, like buoys in any of our harbors.

We have more coaling stations than any other Power, but have we enough? It is not a new question. Sixteen years ago a Royal Commission was appointed to answer it, and as a result we have to-day more coaling stations and they are better supplied and more securely protected, than in the past. Since 1895 Parliament has been committed to a gigantic scheme, costing about eight millions sterling, for strengthening our naval bases at home and abroad. This is quite apart from the three and a half million pounds which is being spent at Portsmouth and Devonport in dockyard extension. This is an important scheme for strengthening our position as a sea power, but it does not provide any new bases. So the question is still: Have we enough naval bases?

Although we have more protected naval stations than any other Power, we have not as many as is popularly

supposed. In the Mediterranean there are Malta and Gibraltar; in the East Indies and China are Trincomalee (Ceylon) and Hong Kong; in Oceania, Sydney; in America and the West Indies, Esquimalt, Halifax, Bermuda, and Kingston (Jamaica); in Africa, Simon's Town and Ascension. These

are the regular fortified naval stations of the British fleet. A naval station to be effective must not only have stores of coal, ammunition, and general supplies, it must provide good docking accommodation. How far would these stations be of service if a battleship of the size of the Majestic, 413 feet long by 75 feet broad, with a displacement of 14,950 tons, met with a mishap in action that necessitated the vessel being docked in order to be made again efficient? There are three suitable docks at Malta, two at Hong Kong, and one each at Sydney, Simon's Town (Cape Colony), Halifax, and Esquimalt; in short, there are docks of this great size in the Mediterranean, in Chinese waters, in Australia and South Africa, and two in North America. This is satisfactory. Moreover, we are building two docks at Gibraltar that could accommodate two Majestics, and there is reason to believe that the Admiralty will come to an arrangement with the Auckland authorities whereby the navy will have at its service the new Calliope Dock, measuring 525 feet long, and thenceforward Auckland will become the fortified base of New Zealand. Whether Durban will be transformed into a protected naval station will depend upon the success or otherwise of the measures now being taken to remove the bar that is said by the authorities to render the port unsuitable for the use of warships. In view of the French ascendency in Madagascar and the difficulties at Delagoa Bay, such a base would be of great value. To these stations we may soon be able to add Wei-hai-Wei. It may be developed into a second Hong Kong, or the Government may be content with a more modest scheme. Singapore, Colombo, Bombay, St. Lucia, Sierra Leone, Karachi, St. Helena, Zanzibar, Aden, Melbourne, and Mauritius are

lesser coaling stations, but Aden, Sierra Leone, St. Helena, and St. Lucia have no docks.

The most efficient test of our coaling stations is to trace the principal trade routes. In time of peace the trade route to the East is by the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, with Gibraltar, Malta, and Aden as naval bases. In the event of war with any Mediterranean Power, Great Britain would probably block the Suez Canal, as the Americans tried to block Santiago by sinking the Merrimac. Europe and the East would thus be isolated except by way of the Cape of Good Hope. Failing this expedient, and especially in case of war in the Far East, Aden, strongly fortified, would be the port from which British warships would operate to prevent ships, which had succeeded in getting through the canal and in navigating the Red Sea in safety, from escaping into the Arabian Sea and thus reaching the scene of war. Aden, therefore, is a naval station of the first importance. It would bottle up any ships of an enemy in the Red Sea, as Gibraltar would to the eastward any that were in the Mediter

ranean.

Nowadays every one admits that when Lord Beaconsfield secured predominating influence over the Suez Canal he made one of the soundest imperial investments. How is the position of Great Britain affected by the repeated and inexplicable rumors that Russia has secured a port in the Red Sea? The improbability of the "deal" has been so repeatedly demonstrated that there is reason to fear it may be true. Raheita, the island mentioned in this connection, is so close to the British island of Perim as to decrease greatly its value as a telegraph and coaling station and as a place of anchorage, while the importance of Aden as the garrisoned and fortified sentinel of the eastern entrance to the Red Sea cannot be unaffected.

It is generally admitted that in time of war the route round the Cape would have to be taken by merchant vessels, and it would also probably be selected for the transport of troops and supplies,

as being less exposed to attack. Is this route sufficiently well provided with naval bases as centres for the operations of patrolling cruisers and as coaling stations for our warships generally? In time of peace the intermediate coaling stations to the Cape are Lisbon, Gibraltar, Madeira, St. Vincent, and Sierra Leone. Lisbon, Madeira, and St. Vincent are in foreign territory, and would almost certainly be closed to British ships in time of war. There

fore there would be no coaling base between Gibraltar and Sierra Leone, a distance of over 2000 miles, and our cable station at Madeira and the cables that are landed there would be open to attack. Between Gibraltar and Sierra Leone, moreover, is the French coaling station of St. Louis. These 2000 miles require to be split up by a base, and in war time we should need a place to which to shift our cables from Madeira, since, next to coal, cables are of great importance in naval warfare. proper patrol of the route can be maintained if this long length of the West African coast is neglected. Every consideration, commercial and naval, recommends some point, preferably an island, being acquired as a base from which commerce and war supplies could be effectively protected. It may be urged that in war time the Admiralty would send steam colliers with any warship, operating on this portion of the coast.

No

But we have no colliers such as America has used so effectively, and if we had they could not satisfy all the conditions in warfare that a naval fortified base would supply.

In the Atlantic we are well equipped. Bermuda is "the porter's lodge" to the United States; it is only 280 miles from North Carolina. It commands the east coast of America in a remarkable manner, and is strongly fortified, and would be most difficult of successful attack. Further north is Halifax, and above San Francisco Esquimalt, while our West Indian trade is protected by St. Lucia and Jamaica. But in these days the possibility of war between the United States and Great Britain has been thrust back by both peoples beyond the pale of practical politics.

In Australasian waters, even with the addition of Auckland, our bases are unevenly distributed, though numerous and on the whole fairly adequately defended. Lord Brassey is familiar with Oceania, and he has stated that the combined expenditure of the several Governments may literally be reckoned by millions, and he accepts the general defence by volunteers by land and by naval brigades and coast warships of various types, supported by the local British squadron, as satisfactory. This, however, only affects South Australasia, and there remains the northern portion of the continent without a dock or naval port of any description. In view of recent developments in China, the Philippine Islands, and Siam, and the energetic buckling on of her armor by Japan (paid for out of the Chinese indemnity), the question may be raised whether a well-defended, though not necessarily very expensive, naval and coaling station on the north coast of the Australian continent would not prove of the greatest service in case of emergency. It has been necessary for the several Australasian Governments to expend large sums on their southern, western, and eastern shores; would it not be worth the trifling expenditure involved to fit out a small base on the north? Thursday Island, one of the smallest of the Torres Straits group, could be utilized for this purpose. It possesses at Port Kennedy an excellent harbor, which is capable of defence at no very great expense. That the Queensland Government would operate with the Imperial authorities in converting Port Kennedy into a moderately fortified naval station and coaling base, there is little reason to doubt. The colonists of Australasia have watched with anxious interest the recent occurrences in China and the North Pacific, and any movement that would strengthen their position would receive hearty support.

Sir Walter Raleigh once stated: "He who commands the sea controls trade and commerce, he who controls trade anl commerce commands the wealth and riches of the world, and he who controls wealth controls the world."

NEW SERIES.-VOL. LXVIII., No. 6.

These words, written at the very birth of Greater Britain, are as true to-day as in Queen Elizabeth's reign; in fact, they are more true, since our trade is greater, and many of the distant children of the mother country have grown to the stature of nations and are more tempting than in the past to a jealous Power. If we intend to hold our trade and bind all the scattered portions of the Empire together, a strong navy must have the support which only fortified coaling stations can give. Successive Governments have done surprisingly well in the past, and there are only two weak spots in the chief ocean routes of our commerce. Another station on the west coast of Africa and the fortification of Port Kennedy, Thursday Island, would complete the links in the great Imperial chain that our forefathers began and it remains for us to-day to complete. We have much to lose. According to the assessments of the local authorities, the property in England is worth £160,000,000-a colossal sum. Against these figures set the fact that the wealth of this country which is every year borne over the seas is valued at £1,100,460,000, or seven times as great as our wealth on land, and something of the responsibilities of defending our gigantic trade will be understood. In addition to this trade, there is the Empire itself and our kith and kin across the seas.

Our trade has been likened to the early emigrants who had to cross the great American prairies before the advent of railways. Warlike Indians made the journeys dangerous; the parties were continually interfered with, and often captured or destroyed. But these difficulties were surmounted. Military posts and garrisons were established along the routes over the prairies, and emigrants passed from post to post and garrison to garrison in safety. The emigrants and their goods are like our trade, threatened on every hand as it passes over the seas, greater and wilder than any prairie; and in place of garrisons and military forts we have dotted the seas with fortified coaling stations in charge of British troops, and the wastes of ocean between these points of

52

A STRONG wind from the southeast; long clouds, between whose light fringes the sun peeps from a firmament of clear cobalt to blaze upon the southern horizon a bar of gold; a thick mist in the west, out of which the rooks come to their field labors as from behind a gray veil these are the signs of the early morning, given in promise of a fine day. Toward noon the mist rolls away. The

breeze follows the mist. A silence comes over the woodlands-that griefstricken silence which broods upon the dying year, and which, from the sounds that at intervals break in upon the still hours, is rendered more profound. Russet and yellow leaves strew the fields and lie in heaps along the hedgerows. Still they fall, with a gentle but crisp touch, brushing the undergrowth in their spinning, downward flight.

Hushed are the thousand songs of summer. Hushed is the hum of insect life that filled the long days. Only the robin is now heard in the wood clearing, and what he trills is often interrupted, as if in the remembrance of his loneliness he suddenly forgot the music of his requiem. Only the last feeble bee drones aimlessly past. The grasshopper that unexpectedly chirrups in the sunlight is the ancient one of his family. The frail ephemeral fluttering up from the grass-top is a lonely loiterer loath to bid good-bye to the once radiant world.

There are wonderful tints in the woods-aureolin and crimson upon the bracken, golden and blood-red upon the brambles. The heart-shaped leaves of the withering bindweed-trails of orange and lemon yellow-hang over the hawthorns. Bare and white are the bines of the pink convolvulus.

But all the flowers have not yet faded. In the meadows the last blooms of the hawkbit, ragweed, yarrow, scabious, valerian, and knapweed may still be seen among clusters of cup-shaped capsules and downy seed-heads. In the hedges the red berries still cling to the

mountain ash and hawthorn and wild rose, to offer food for the silent birds when winter shall be clothed in white.

The salmon are now in the upper reaches of the river, for it is the spawning season, and every gravelly shallow is tenanted by a busy pair. The trout have left the rippling streams-where flies, hatched out in the whirlpools and drowned in the rapids, were formerly an abundant repast-and are now in the deep pools where the water is quiet and the temperature more equable. At this season birds forsake the hedgerows for the open stubbles and turnip fields, there to glean scattered grains or pick up pupa hidden near the grass roots. Family cares forgotten, the hare wanders further afield than when the corn was standing. But she returns to her "form" in the early morning, and lies on the top of the sunny bank throughout the day, her scut toward the wind and her ears turned back to catch the slightest alarm. The poacher soon grows acquainted with her regular habits, and learns her " run from her footprints in the soft mud by the ditch or from a bit of fur in the gap. A day with the beagles, too, is a source of income for him. Then he carefully marks the hare's course, making a note of the gaps through which the hunted creature passes, and of the direction of the wind. If the hounds fail in their quest he secretly rejoices in her almost certain capture at his hands a few nights hence.

One of the best friends I ever possessed was well versed in the poacher's craft. In his early life he had subsisted on the spoils of the field; more recently, however, he had settled down into regular employment and chapel-going respectability. But a strange, uncontrollable longing would ever and anon come to him. Then, a prey to that indefinable feeling of vagabondage which clings to the particular side of nature which the poacher looks upon, but nevertheless anxious to avoid a