If the Editor of the St. Petersburg Herald were to examine the military requirements of his own country and persuade the Government of the Tsar to reduce his army to what is strictly necessary for defence, and not for aggression, he would confer a great boon upon the world, and possibly bring about a reduction of the military forces of adjoining States, over whom the great Russian army casts a deep shadow, necessitating immense efforts and armaments for their defence.

At present several provinces in Russia in Europe are suffering from famine, and there is great difficulty in administering relief by reason of the absence of good roads and railways. The inhabitants of these provinces would be greatly benefited if only a portion of this vast railway expenditure were devoted to the development of the country, as well as the 9,000,000l. to be expended in increasing the navy.

The object of inviting Great Britain and other countries to invest capital in Russian Government securities is to enable Russia to meet this great military expenditure for aggressive purposes and, among other things, to forge a chain which will bind China in bonds never to be loosened. It is to be hoped that British capitalists will grasp the importance of the position, and not lend their assistance to the accomplishment of the warlike designs of this great Power, which, on reference to the chart of the world, will be seen to extend along the whole length of Europe and Asia, from her shores bordering the Atlantic to Behring's Strait, being about 180° of longitude, or half the circumference of the earth lying between 35° of North latitude and the North Polar seas.

A few statistics relative to the extent and military forces of Russia are added, as being most interesting and exhibiting her aggressive designs. The area of Russia in Europe is 2,095,000 square miles, with a population of 102,627,000 souls (49 per square mile), while the area of her Asiatic dominions is 6,564,000 square miles, with a population of only 19,234,000 (3 per square mile). The whole Empire therefore comprises 8,660,000 square miles, with a population of 121,861,000 (14 per square mile).

The area of Sweden, Germany, Austria-Hungary and Roumania, that is, of all the Powers bordering Russia in Europe, taken together, only amounts to 670,795 square miles, with a population of 103,790,000 souls (154 per square mile), which is practically the same as that of Russia in Europe.

The united strength of the armies of all these border States on their peace establishments is 1,030,000; against which Russia maintains 792,000 men in Europe, and 77,000 in her Asiatic dominions, or a total of 869,000 men, which, when brought to a war footing, may be increased to upwards of 2,000,000 in Europe with 130,000 in Asia. The distribution of this huge army is, of course, somewhat affected by the late emigration of troops by sea from

Southern Russia through the Bosphorus to China, but this will not appreciably reduce the enormous military force at the disposal of the Russian Government in the event of war.

Capitalists should reflect that loans to Russia, although nominally for the development of commerce and industrial operations, are in reality to enable the Russian Government to devote its own financial resources to the support of this prodigious army and for the construction of these great strategical railways and the increase of the navy; the necessities for which are calculated not solely upon Russia's requirements for defence and for the maintenance of internal order, but in great measure upon what may be demanded for aggressive purposes and the expansion of her Empire.

I commend these reflections also to the Editor of the St. Petersburg Herald, as much more worthy of his consideration and of that of his fellow-countrymen than the constitution of the British army, as to which he appears to be so desirous of obtaining the opinions of British officers.

J. L. A. SIMMONS.

THE LIMITATIONS OF NAVAL FORCE

STRENUOUS naval competition is one of the most striking features of the present international situation. The century began in the middle of a period of great wars fought out under conditions which lent special and peculiar importance to sea power. Naval efforts were then stimulated by direct necessity; they are now inspired in time of peace by considerations of national security, by veiled ambitions, or by pure delusion. While naval expansion derives its impulse at the present time from a reflective process rather than from the pressure of immediate requirements, and is therefore far more widely operative, there is an evident analogy between the two periods. The long series of great wars which ended in 1815 was, as the late Sir J. Seeley has ably shown, due to commercial rivalry and the immense impetus towards territorial extension which that rivalry supplied to Great Britain. Spain, never a really great naval Power, soon dropped out of the list of serious competitors for external empire. Holland, after showing natural genius for sea warfare and for commerce, and helping in stern conflict to train a race of seamen as stubborn as her own, was practically disqualified by geographical position and inability to hold her land frontiers. In her case, as in that of Portugal, whom she had supplanted, the sea may be said to have been conquered by the land. Thus the tremendous struggle for over-sea dominion virtually left France, represented by Napoleon, and Great Britain, aptly personified by Nelson, face to face. Spain and Holland, under compulsion or buoyed up by vain hopes, might find themselves arrayed on the side of France; the issue might be complicated by the revolt of the American colonies, which heavily handicapped the mother country in her struggle for existence; Russia, Prussia, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, and Turkey, might all be involved; but from the War of the Austrian Succession onwards the successive contests assumed more and more the character of a direct competition for colonial supremacy between the two great Western nations. It was the insular position of Great Britain which invested sea power with supreme importance and made it the final arbiter. If Great Britain had not entered the lists, and if

the struggle had been restricted to the Continental Powers, the issues would have been determined on land.

The close of the nineteenth century has been marked by a fresh outburst of keen commercial rivalry, arising in part from the natural desire to emulate British success, but also from the increasing pressure of rapidly growing populations. Meanwhile territorial expansion over-sea has proceeded apace, without invoking the agency of great wars. Great Britain, as Lord Rosebery recently reminded us, has since 1884 annexed or brought under control 2,600,000 square miles of the earth's surface, increasing the total area of her dominions by about one-third. Germany may be said to have initiated the great African scramble, and to have commenced the partition of China; but France, in the acquisition of mere acreage, has far outstripped her military rival. Italy has shown symptoms of the prevailing colonial fever. The remnants of the old colonial empire of Spain have passed under the sway of the United States and of Germany, Japan has relieved China of Formosa and asserted her influence in Korea. Russia alone, conforming to geographical conditions, has ordered her footsteps upon the land, striding across Asia with set purpose and a scientific precision attained by no other Power. Of colonies, as we understand the word, there is not one outside the British Empire, nor are there any signs of the true colonising process. The envious nations,' as the Poet Laureate has described them, produce officials in place of either administrators or colonists. France has no spare population, and her people have no inducement except a Government salary to leave their favoured land. The large majority of German colonists dwell under the British flag, finding a measure of prosperity and a scope for their energies unattainable under the artificial arrangements prescribed by Berlin officialdom. It is difficult to conceive the socalled colonies of Germany as objects of pride or of enthusiasm.

The nations, however, if 'envious,' as Mr. Alfred Austin gives us to understand, may perhaps reason on the following lines. Great Britain owes her commercial supremacy to expansion across the seas. That expansion was in the first instance the direct gift of sea power, the result of triumphantly successful naval warfare. It has since been maintained and further developed under the ægis of the flag; in other words, by the aid of the naval prestige won in great wars. Let us, therefore, annex far and wide and build up great fleets. Then will our commerce and prosperity equal or exceed that of Great Britain.'

The argument, so stated, is crude and historically incomplete. If, in the crucial struggle, the navy of England had gone under and France had emerged mistress of the seas, it does not follow that she could have built up an empire or a commercial system comparable to our own. It may even be said with certainty that this could not

have been, since politically as well as industrially France was not qualified for the gigantic task. How would Great Britain have fared without coal and iron? The argument, in fact, leaves out of consideration the genius of races and the natural resources of countries-factors of the very first importance. Germany, without any assistance from foreign possessions, which have been merely a drain upon her exchequer, and with a relatively small navy, which has its prestige still to win, has within a short period succeeded, by sheer natural aptitude and steady endeavour, in building up an immense and rapidly increasing commerce. So, too, the United States, whose over-sea expansion began only last year, have created a vast trade second only to our own. It is not too much to say that this trade would have attained its present dimensions if no American warship had ever crossed the Atlantic; and when, in 1861-64, the ocean commerce of the United States-then relatively small-was assailed, the navy was unable to afford it efficient protection. In the recent war, the sea power of the United States, in conflict with the decadent navy of Spain, proved quickly decisive, and with the resulting expansion a new political era dawned; but the great and rapidly increasing trade of the United States is due to splendid natural resources and to the abundant energies and business capacity of the American people, not to either colonies or a fleet. It is frequently forgotten that, from the purely commercial point of view, colonies are not necessarily advantageous. For Germany, trade with the Cameroons is not intrinsically more valuable than that exchanged with France or Russia. The mutual profits of commerce are independent of nationality; and although political affinities or antipathies may stimulate or retard the interchange of commodities for which no urgent demand exists, trade is in the main and must always be cosmopolitan. Great Britain and France, even when engaged in the throes of a life-and-death struggle, managed to carry on a surreptitious trade, and in future maritime wars an indirect exchange will doubtless be carried on between belligerents who still experience commercial need of each other. Such an irregular trade can be far more easily organised now than at the beginning of the century. National sentiment may draw the line at the supply of munitions of war; but so strong is the trading instinct and the fascination of high prices, that the subjects of one belligerent might possibly be found supplying another with arms or ships if the secrecy of the transaction could be guaranteed. The argument for promiscuous fleet-building derived from our wonderful history during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries needs much qualification. It is, however, plausible until examined, and it has unquestionably played a part in promoting naval competition.

Another potent influence may be traced to the sudden reassertion in recent years of the policy inaugurated by Offa, King of Mercia,