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each other during the present-day industrial revolution. In Politics and Economics,' by Mr H. G. Williams, we have one of the most recent of such books, which develops, amongst other points, the well-known idea that, by calling to our aid the resources of the British Empire, we can find a line of economic development whereby we, in these islands, can hope to maintain, and maybe to improve, our present standards of living. The author deals with elementary principles of political economy, with socialism, currency, banking, foreign exchanges and foreign trade, the capital levy, taxation and the national debt, protection and preference, the economic development of the crown Colonies, and the fundamental causes of unemployment. Under the heading The New Spirit of Industry,' we read that the principles which led to the greatest measure of production, and, therefore, to the highest wages and profits, were very imperfectly understood in the early days of the modern capitalist system which developed out of the first industrial revolution. Excessively low wages could not provide the nourishment necessary for good work, excessive hours resulted in such fatigue that not only was the output per hour reduced, but the output per day of long hours was less than the output per day of shorter hours, while the employment of child labour was not efficient in itself, and led to inefficient adults later. Karl Marx, who has had such a disturbing influence upon industrial progress, built his theories upon this foolish abuse of the system, and in no way upon present-day conditions:

"The organisation of labour, the growing sense of humanity, and the increasing appreciation of the folly of this method of working, looked at from the most selfish point of view, brought about rapid changes, and to-day the worstpaid worker in the country would rightly regard as deplorable the industrial conditions in the period about which Marx writes.'

Both Mr Baldwin and Mr Williams arrive by different routes at employment in the labour market as the test. of economic prosperity, a conclusion subscribed to for Mr Williams many years by leading statisticians. attributes fluctuation in employment to changes in the direction and volume of expenditure, and there are

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• some causes of unemployment entirely outside human control and therefore completely independent of the system of society.' Of those which result from the action of human beings, some are quite beyond the control of Governments:

'On the other hand, there are many things which come definitely within the control of Governments and employers and of work-people, and if we are to reduce the fluctuations of trade and so to some extent avoid the widespread unemployment which we experience from time to time, every Government must take into account the immediate and the ultimate economic effect of its legislative and administrative policy, while every employer and every employee should carry on his or her work so as to cause the least amount of disturbance.'

Having now derived, from the authorities mentioned, such guidance as we have been able to obtain about the sources of our economic stability, we can revert to our original theme, the strength of England, as dependent upon ships and seamen.

So far we have only been able, in an article so limited in its scope, to do scant justice to Mr Trevelyan's fascinating 'History of England,' covering, as it does, so many factors not strictly germane to the special issue which we are considering. Although only sixty-five, out of the seven hundred, pages of the history refer directly to British sea-power and to seamen, they suffice to indicate, with the sure touch of the artist in literary expression, his contention that 'in early times, the relation of Britain to the sea was passive and receptive; in modern times, active and acquisitive. In both is the key to her story.' Passing over the passive and receptive periods of Roman, Saxon, and mediæval seamen, we come to the active and acquisitive functions of the Tudor Navy, when the new commercial and naval aspirations of England, embodied in the Tudor Royal Navy, in Drake and his captains, and in the trading companies of London-and Raleigh's prophetic visions of Colonial Empire, were all arrayed against the old religion and sailed under the banner of the new monarchy.' And, later, The Royal Navy was Henry's creation, and it saved himself and his daughter after him when they adopted an island policy and defied the Catholic powers

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of Europe.' A masterly chapter (pp. 338-367), upon the . influence of sea-power, follows, and then this:

'Forward from the time of Elizabeth, warfare against some great military empire is a recurrent motif of British history, but because such warfare was conducted from behind the shield of the sea and the Royal Navy, the island has never become the scene of foreign invasion, nor until the novel circumstances of 1914-18 was it ever found necessary to sacrifice a large part of the manhood of the country abroad, or to interrupt the usual course of business and pleasure at home. Such continuous security, a privilege usually confined to countries either very humble or very remote, but enjoyed in this case by a Great Power on the very highway of the world's affairs, is the secret of much in British character and institutions.'

...

We come then to James I, who disliked " men of war" whether by land or sea,' who was the most thorough-going pacificist who ever bore rule in England and not only was James most unwarlike in his own particular; but being a Scot of that period he had no conception of the importance of sea-power.' The indignation produced in the country against the new mónarchy, which had abandoned the Elizabethan tradition at sea, was not removed even when Charles I 'honestly appropriated the illegal Ship Money to the reconstruction of the Royal Navy,' and 'the ghost of Raleigh pursued the House of Stuart to the scaffold.' Then, to the Regicide Government which followed belonged the credit of reviving English sea-power, and the measures taken for defence against Prince Rupert's squadron transformed the Navy to its modern scope and established England as the great naval power of the world.'* With the rivalry with Holland in the 17th century we have already dealt, taking due note of the handicap suffered by our opponents in the possession of land frontiers, open to invasion. We have also touched upon the subsequent rivalry with France-France too was a maritime rival, potentially more formidable even than Holland, and if established in Amsterdam she would soon make an end of English naval supremacy. It was the issue of 1588, of 1793, of 1914. England would

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Julian Corbett.

not suffer Holland and Belgium to pass under the domination of the greatest military power in Europe.' At the close of the 17th century Louis XIV had the chance to perpetuate French naval supremacy by the proper use of his then dominant fleet, but the courtiers at inland Versailles lacked the sense of opportunity, which was seldom entirely wanting to the statesmen who watched the world's ebb and flow from the tidal shore of the Thames.'

The subject of British sea-power in the 18th century is dealt with in equally lucid passages. France began the war of the Spanish succession with every apparent advantage except sea-power. With the results we have already dealt, as we have with the disastrous effects of our naval weakness later in the century, using Captain W. M. James as our guide. Mr Trevelyan reminds us that 'in the days of Pitt and Castlereagh, as in the days of William and Marlborough, the two props of the alliance against France were British sea-power and British subsidies, applied all along the coasts and in half the Treasuries of Europe.' But the Napoleonic wars not only repeated the past but rehearsed the future. While the issue of the campaigns against Louis had indeed been affected by the course of trade competition between England and France, the commercial struggle a hundred years later was more formal and more decisive as a weapon of war. 'The British blockade of Napoleon's Europe, and his attempt to starve England by the Berlin and Milan Decrees, were warlike operations of the same general character as the British blockade of the Central Powers in our own day, and the German submarine campaign; they disturbed the economy of the whole world and had serious consequences for the combatants in their relations with the United States and other would-be neutrals.'

Having followed this thread-our vital interest in sea-power-through three and a half centuries of our history, dating from the period when 'sea-centrality' was conferred upon us by discoveries and developments beyond the Atlantic Ocean, we are perforce driven back to Commander Bowles, and his 'Strength of England,' and to the Prime Minister's recent acknowledgment in his Guildhall speech that we are in the throes of a

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second industrial revolution-'There are signs to-day, as yet inconclusive, but not the less suspected by economists in our midst, that a second industrial revolution is proceeding now.' The first point of which to take note is that, as from the time of the Tudor Navy onwards, so also to-day, our Navy is the 'sure shield' behind which we can settle our own affairs without foreign interference, and we can settle them by peaceful evolutionary methods, as upon former occasions, whereby under the Providence of God and by the virtue of our sea forces' we have developed the national characteristic that astounded the world in our revolutionary crisis of May 1926. Since that date, about 300,000,000l. of our resources have been dissipated, just at a time when trade was improving, and increased prosperity for all classes, chiefly those in most need of it, was within our reach (though not yet, as Lord Grey of Fallodon said of victory in October 1918, quice within our grasp'). If the ship of State weathers the present storm, as it did the tornado of last May, we can account ourselves worthy of that tremendous help in reconstruction, our sea-centrality at the meeting-place of the world's sea-traffic.

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'It may be,' writes Commander Bowles, 'that to exercise our ancient rights. as well as to secure our own continued existence, new weapons from time to time will have to be added to our armoury, and new devices perfected and tried. As men, to aid their efforts of warlike destruction, ascend into the air, or navigate, invisible, the silent depths of the sea, and so threaten by new means either the security of our own populations or the steady traffic of the waters upon which our life and power depend, so must the men of England also do likewise. In this there is no essential novelty for her or for them.'

He adds that, if experience is any guide, England need not greatly fear any new development in that ancient competition. The weapons essential for her use are those still required to maintain against all comers and at all costs an effective control, in peace and in war alike, over the only serious road of the several nations of mankind—the actual surface of the sea, which still remains that road, in spite of all changes. If, by whatever weapon, she can still hold that surface, her power and influence throughout the world will remain

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