touched the hearts of all men under the British flag, and aroused from its long sleep the sense of responsibility and duty to the Empire. It had no means of expression except by spontaneous individual action of patriotic men volunteering to serve the Empire beyond sea. In the absence of any organization prepared for the discharge of military obligations to the Empire oversea, the help given by colonial (as well as by home) volunteers was fragmentary, though valuable, while the significance of the spontaneous sentiments so represented can hardly be over-estimated. But the real great lesson taught by this gathering of military units, drawn by war from all parts of the Empire to South Africa, was naval, not military. It was not naval guns on shore, but ships at sea and in reserve in home dockyards, that secured the military situation in South Africa from the beginning to the end of the war. It was the all-pervading and almost mysterious influence of sea-power, expressing itself silently in moral effect, which made that concentration of military units in South Africa possible. Foreign Powers violently hostile to our proceedings in South Africa made no attempt to interfere because the predominance of Britain's naval power defied them, and so the external peace of the Empire and the quietude of the sea for the world was preserved.
The recognition by British communities of the paramount duty and obligation that rests upon each and all to maintain a free sea, is the primary condition of the consolidation of their Empire. The combination of their world-spread resources to provide the only means of guaranteeing that freedom would make for peace, not war. The greatest traders in the world have the greatest interest in the preservation of maritime peace.
The total aggregate annual value of the maritime trade of British States and territories, even now, amounts to some fifteen hundred millions sterling, only two-thirds of which represent that of the Mother-land. The aggregate annual public expenditure, under all heads, of the outlying Empire now exceeds that of the United
