panic when political necessity demanded precipitate action. To return to the old policy of our fathers by strengthening the means for 'offensive defence' would have insulted the cherished hope of the people for that peace on earth, which the great revolution of the British commercial system was deemed so certain to secure. A new doctrine of 'Defence, not Defiance' expressed the nature of the inevitable compromise. It found embodiment in immense and immobile fortifications, costing millions, and a host of armed citizens constituting a cheap force which could hurt nobody's feelings, for its functions were limited to sitting down behind hedgerows waiting for the attack of a great hostile army crossing the sea, and landing for the deliberate purpose of destroying us! This great political compromise was the eclipse of national confidence in the fleet, and in the darkness and confusion so caused, the key to the perspective of British defence was lost. The result may be thus summarized:—
(1) A negation of Imperial patriotism by the Mother Country; and
(2) A recantation of principles of policy by which our Empire had been won, for it was the repudiation of the influence of sea-power on Britain's history as the determining factor in the security of her home and foreign dominions alike.
From that time until a few months ago, it was on such blurred lines British preparations for war were run by successive Governments.
It would occupy too much space to trace the perpetual increase of expenditure, the comic contradictions, and the confusion of waste and weakness, inflicted upon the nation by the attempted compromise between political expediency and the arbitrary requirements of real preparations for war. It should, however, be noted that a contingent consequence was the growth of undue influence upon the policy of the country by a purely military department—the War Office. Thus it happened that the policy regulating the Empire's safety in war
