If all these are not provided by the part of the empire in which the necessary naval bases lie, they will have to be provided by the mother country.  If the former provides them the latter will be spared the expense of doing so, and spared expense with no loss of dignity, and with far less risk of friction and inconvenience than if her taxpayers’ pockets had been nominally spared to the extent of a trifling and reluctantly paid money contribution.

It has been pointed out on an earlier page that a country can be, and most probably will be, more effectually defended in a maritime war if its fleet operates at a distance from, rather than near, its shores.  Every subject of our King should long to see this condition exist if ever the empire is involved in hostilities.  It may be—­for who can tell what war will bring?—­that the people of some great trans-marine dependency will have to choose between allowing a campaign to be conducted in their country or forcing the enemy to tolerate it in his.  If they choose the latter they must be prepared to furnish part at least of the mobile force that can give effect to their choice.  That is to say, they must be prepared to back up our sea-power in its efforts to keep off the tide of war from the neighbourhood of their homes.  History shows how rarely, during the struggle between European nations for predominance in North America, the more settled parts of our former American Colonies were the theatre of war:  but then the colonists of those days, few comparatively as they were, sent strong contingents to the armies that went campaigning, in the territory of the various enemies.  This was in every way better—­the sequel proved how much better—­than a money contribution begged or extorted would have been.

Helping in the manner first suggested need not result in dissociating our fellow-subjects beyond the seas from participation in the work of the active sea-going fleet.  It is now, and still would be, open to them as much as to any native or denizen of the mother country.  The time has fully come when the people of the greater outlying parts of the empire should insist upon perfect equality of treatment with their home fellow-subjects in this matter.  They should resent, as a now quite out-of-date and invidious distinction, any difference in qualification for entry, locality of service, or remuneration for any rank or rating.  Self-respect and a dignified confidence in their own qualities, the excellence of which has been thoroughly tested, will prompt the King’s colonial subjects to ask for nothing but equal chances in a force on which is laid so large a part of the duty of defending the empire.  Why should they cut themselves off from the promising career that service in the Royal Navy opens to the capable, the zealous, and the honourable aspirant of every grade?  Some of the highest posts in the navy are now, or lately have been, held by men who not only happened to be born in British Colonies, but who also belong to resident colonial families.  Surely in this there is a strong moral cement for binding and keeping the empire together.  It is unnecessary to expatiate on the contrast between the prospect of such a career and that which is all that a small local service could offer.  It would soon be seen towards which the enterprising and the energetic would instinctively gravitate.