Now, the first question that we must ask ourselves is this: Will the Expeditionary Force sail from one port or several? and to answer it we must consider what would be the effect on our own great ports of a sudden influx of 246,000 men—150,000 troops, 96,000 non-combatants. It would nearly double the population of Newcastle-on-Tyne (285,000) or Hull (280,000); more than double the population of Portsmouth (217,989), and treble the population of Southampton (127,159), or Plymouth (126,265); and whereas these figures include men, women, and children, down to infants in arms, the quarter of a million newcomers would all be strong young men who, hard at work from morning till night, would require full rations to keep them in proper condition, and the same would be true of the 78,000 horses.
Now, I assert that, within a few days of the descent of this multitude upon Newcastle, Hull, Portsmouth, Southampton, or
