may they continue to remain so—but they have not always been so in the past, and there is no guarantee that they will remain our friends for ever. So vital is naval supremacy to us that we cannot tolerate any nation or pair of nations, however friendly at the moment, being stronger than ourselves at sea. Once we allow that to happen, the whole framework on which our Empire is built will fall to pieces. Admitting that, then we are bound to keep up the competition. Whatever naval programme they fix upon, we have got to surpass. If their naval budgets rise to fifty millions, we shall have to follow suit; and if they raise them again to sixty, seventy, or eighty millions, we still can do nothing else but follow. But in a competition of this sort with States growing so enormously in industrial strength, and established on so broad a basis of territory and population, we cannot hope in the long-run to succeed. The burden will press more and more heavily on our narrower shoulders, and sooner or later we shall come to grief. Whether our downfall will take the shape of financial exhaustion, or of displacement from our position; whether it will be by war, or by the menace of superior force in peace, is immaterial.
There is only one way out of the difficulty—that is, to find the material basis of our defence policy, not in the United Kingdom, but in the British Empire. At present that Empire is unorganized and undeveloped; but if we can unite its scattered components, and develop its vast territories and immense natural resources, then we may hope to build up an industrial power, and to create a population fully capable of providing for the needs of Imperial policy without fainting beneath the burden. How are we, then, to secure that union and foster that development? Immediate political union presents many difficulties. There is at present no sufficient unity of interest on which a political constitution can be based. Neither we nor the Colonies are ready for it, and it can only come gradually, along with, and as the result of, other forms of the union.
