with increased vigour.  In any case, when war threatens we must lose no time in preparing a road on which we can import the most essential foodstuffs and raw materials, and also export, if only in small quantities, the surplus of our industrial products.  Such measures cannot be made on the spur of the moment.  They must be elaborated in peace-time, and a definite department of the Government must be responsible for these preparations.  The Ministry of Commerce would obviously be the appropriate department, and should, in collaboration with the great commercial houses, prepare the routes which our commerce must follow in case of war.  There must be a sort of commercial mobilization.

These suggestions indicate the preliminary measures to be adopted by us in the eventuality of a war with England.  We should at first carry on a defensive war, and would therefore have to reckon on a blockade of our coasts, if we succeed in repelling the probable English attack.

Such a blockade can be carried out in two ways.  England can blockade closely our North Sea coast, and at the same time bar the Danish straits, so as to cut off communications with our Baltic ports; or she can seal up on the one side the Channel between England and the Continent, on the other side the open sea between the North of Scotland and Norway, on the Peterhead-Ekersund line, and thus cripple our oversea commerce and also control the Belgo-Dutch, Danish, and Swedish shipping.

A close blockade in the first case would greatly tax the resources of the English fleet.  According to the view of English experts, if a blockade is to be maintained permanently, the distance between the base and the blockading line must not exceed 200 nautical miles.  Since all the English naval ports are considerably farther than this from our coast, the difficulties of carrying on the blockade will be enormously increased.  That appears to be the reason why the estuary at Harwich has recently been transformed into a strong naval harbour.  It is considered the best harbourage on the English coast, and is hardly 300 nautical miles from the German coast.  It offers good possibilities of fortification, and safe ingress and egress in time of war.  The distance from the German ports is not, however, very material for purposes of blockade.  The English, if they planned such a blockade, would doubtless count on acquiring bases on our own coast, perhaps also on the Dutch coast.  Our task therefore is to prevent such attempts by every means.  Not only must every point which is suitable for a base, such as Heligoland, Borkum, and Sylt, be fortified in time of peace, but all attempts at landing must be hindered and complicated by our fleet.  This task can only be fulfilled by the fleet in daytime by submarines; by night torpedo-boats may co-operate, if the landing forces are still on board.