fully the subject is examined upon this side, the more clearly will it appear, in the present writer's judgment, that the economic factor in its reaction upon every other factor of the Imperial problem must prove decisive.
II.
The security of the King's dominions would be best based upon the power of a white population, proportionate in numbers, vigour, and cohesion to the vast territories which the British democracies in the Mother Country and the Colonies control. That surest of all guarantees is obviously lacking. Although we hold a quarter of the world, we are not more numerous than Americans or Germans, and we cannot safely believe we are more efficient. At the present moment, the white populations of the three great countries competing for trade and sea-power compare as follows: the Unites States, about 78,000,000[1]; that of Germany, nearly 61,000,000; and that of the British Empire, not more than 54,000,000. These are remarkable figures as they stand. To any thoughtful mind they must appear disquieting figures. But they by no means express the whole force of the case.
The colossal burthen of British sea-power rests exclusively upon the shoulders of the British democracy at home. Sea-power has become fundamentally a question of finance in an epoch when Germans, Americans and Japanese can build and manage battleships as well as ourselves (for we can base no policy upon presuming the contrary). Every witness competent to speak for colonial opinion agrees that without a radical alteration of our economic policy we can never hope to secure an Imperial Federation for defence purposes. Canada and Australia will not contribute to a naval expenditure which, for all the purposes of war and peace, would give precisely the same protection to
- ↑ Excluding negroes, who number another 10,000,000, and ought, perhaps, to be more properly reckoned as an integral part of the productive force of the Republic.
