There is a school of politicians who imagine that Great Britain’s weakness can be supplemented from other parts of the British Empire.  That is an idea which ought not to be received without the most careful examination and in my judgment must, except within narrow limits, be rejected.

In a war between Great Britain and a continental State or combination the assistance which Great Britain could possibly receive from the King’s dominions beyond the sea is necessarily limited.  Such a war must in the first place be a naval contest, towards which the most that the colonies can contribute consists in such additions to Great Britain’s naval strength as they may have given during the preceding period of peace.  What taken together they may do in this way would no doubt make an appreciable difference in the balance of forces between the two contending navies; but in the actual struggle the colonies would be little more than spectators, except in so far as their ports would offer a certain number of secure bases for the cruisers upon which Great Britain must rely for the protection of her sea-borne trade.  Even if all the colonies possessed first-rate armies, the help which those armies could give would not be equal to that obtainable from a single European ally.  For a war against a European adversary Great Britain must rely upon her own resources, and upon such assistance as she might obtain if it were felt by other Powers on the Continent not only that the cause in which she was fighting was vital to them and therefore called for their co-operation, but also that in the struggle Great Britain’s assistance would be likely to turn the scale in their favour.

Can we expect that history will repeat itself, and that once more in case of conflict Great Britain will have the assistance of continental allies?  That depends chiefly on their faith in her power to help them.  One condition of such an alliance undoubtedly exists—­the desire of other nations for it.  The predominance of Germany on the Continent rests like a nightmare upon more than one of the other States.  It is increased by the alliance of Austria, another great military empire—­an empire, moreover, not without a fine naval tradition, and, as is proved by the recent announcement of the intention of the Austrian Government to build four “Dreadnoughts,” resolved to revive that tradition.

Against the combination of Germany and Austria, Russia, which has hardly begun to recover from the prostration of her defeat by Japan, is helpless; while France, with a population much smaller than that of Germany, can hardly look forward to a renewal single-handed of the struggle which ended for her so disastrously forty years ago.  The position of Italy is more doubtful, for the sympathies of her people are not attracted by Austria; they look with anxiety upon the Austrian policy of expansion towards the Aegean and along the shore of the Adriatic.  The estrangement from France which followed upon the French occupation