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in England's vulnerability was based. As the scope of this Commission's investigations was confined to the sufficiency and efficiency of the British land forces, the witnesses, with one exception, were military men or civilians, but their answers to the searching questions addressed to them made it so clear that, in their opinion, no French transports would ever put to sea so long as our Fleet kept the command of the Channel, that Mr. Balfour, in his double character of Prime Minister and President of the Defence Committee, felt justified in assuring the House of Commons that an openly organised invasion of this country might be regarded as impossible, and that a surprise attack was equally out of the question, as there would be no concealing the assembling of the large number of ships that would be needed to carry 100,000 men, allowing three tons of shipping per man—without counting horses—a figure which must have been