hand, and yet in both there is the touch of the woman's natural pity, and shrinking from the deed of blood even when she herself has set her hand to it.

For me 'tis all-sufficient meed,

Tho' little wealth or power were won,
So I can say, 'Tis past and done.
The bloody lust and murderous,
The inborn frenzy of our house,

Is ended by my deed. (Agam. 1551.)

Had he not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done 't. (Macbeth, II. ii. 13.)

The close juxtaposition on the stage of these two writers, so diverse, so similar, both so strangely modern in their dealing with the great problems of life and duty, of Fate and ordinance divine, will doubtless reveal to us many new contrasts and new analogies.

There could be no more fitting or more legitimate use for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre which Stratford-on-Avon owes to the wise and generous initiative of the late Charles Edward Flower.

R. S. DE COURCY LAFFAN.

NAVAL EXPENDITURE AND NAVAL

STRENGTH

Of all subjects of imperial importance the most abiding interest attaches to the navy. And two things with regard to the navy force themselves with special urgency at the present time on the minds of all who are really in the habit of thinking imperially. One is the enormous height to which naval expenditure in this country has now reached. The other is the problem of discovering a sure test by which we may satisfy ourselves whether all this expenditure is really justified or not. Nearly three years ago, in an article contributed to this Review at the time of what was known as the Mediterranean scare, I endeavoured to put together some part of the information available to, but not easily accessible by, the public on these two points. But the figures of 1901 are already out of date. I purpose now, not indeed to continue, or correct, or bring up to date the comparative statements of the former article, but to approach anew the consideration of the naval question in its two leading aspectsthe financial, and what for want of a better term I will call the political aspect. We have to realise how much we are spending and have spent, and how much more we may be committing ourselves to in the future. We have also to consider what the true standard of our naval strength ought to be, and that, as everybody now admits, is essentially a political question.

The expenditure on the navy is large and growing, but it is only one element in a continually increasing total. If we were saving in other directions we might more easily acquiesce in our naval budgets, but in considering whether we can afford even our present. naval expenditure we must have regard to our liabilities in other directions. Ten years ago the Chancellor of the Exchequer framed. his budget on an estimated total expenditure of nearly 94,000,000l. The corresponding figure this year, Lord Welby estimates, will probably be 144,000,000l. The Army Estimates, which ten years: ago stood at about 18,000,000l., are now close on 29,000,000l. The Navy Estimates have risen from 17,000,000l. to about 37,000,000l.; the Civil Service and Revenue Estimates from about 32,000,000l.

to about 47,000,000l. It will be seen that by far the largest increase has taken place in the expenditure on the navy. The figures I have given are for estimated as distinguished from actual expenditure, and for net as distinguished from gross estimates. In ten years the annual expenditure of the nation thus measured has increased by, say, fifty millions, and of this sum not less than twenty millions falls to the share of the navy.

But these figures do not tell the whole tale of naval expenditure. We have now what may be described as two naval budgets-one contained in the ordinary estimates for the year, the other in the Naval Works Act for the time being. The real expenditure on the navy for the financial year about to begin may be stated thus:

Gross estimate (including appropriations in aid)
Expenditure for naval service provided in Civil Service
and other estimates.

Anticipated expenditure on naval works provided for
by loan (Naval Works Act)

£

38,327,838

335,010

5,000,000 £43,662,848

From this sum should be deducted the amount of the annuities falling due in payment of interest and sinking fund for loans made in previous years-viz. 634,2381. The balance-viz. 43,028,610l.-is the true naval expenditure of the coming year. The whole of this vast sum, less contributions from India and the colonies to the extent of 431,400l., falls on the resources of the United Kingdom. The outside Empire will this year contribute as nearly as possible 1 per cent. of the cost of the Imperial Navy. The true aggregate expenditure of 1894-5, calculated in the same way, would be as nearly as possible 18,600,000l., and the real increase in actual expenditure would be about twenty-four millions and a half.

It is imperative that the country should realise the true aggregate of its naval expenditure and the rapid rate of its increase. But this necessary financial review would be incomplete if we did not emphasise once more the peculiar feature of naval expenditure which makes its increase so serious a matter for the future. You might conceivably call a halt in the civil or military expenditure of the nation by merely continuing without increasing the existing scale. There is no dominant item in that expenditure, as there is in the vote for the navy, automatically entailing future, though it may be distant, increases. The increase of the expenditure on what is called new construction-the making of new vessels of all kinds-involves an early increase in the number of men and in the total of the votes for pay and victualling, and a later but equally certain increase in the pension votes and other votes. In the last decade the estimate for new construction has risen steadily and rapidly from four and a half to more than eleven millions. If we resolve not to increase, but only

to maintain, the provision for new construction, we shall not stop the automatic increase of the Naval Estimates. The other votes will grow in spite of ourselves. I admit that new schemes with respect to personnel may probably make the ultimate increase less serious than it would otherwise have been. But the fact remains that the rate at which we have been adding new ships to the navy necessitates a gross expenditure the full extent of which will not be apparent for many years.

It is not surprising that the First Lord of the Admiralty should have felt it necessary to offer some justification of this stupendous outlay. Usually the naval demands of the year have been laid before Parliament without any explanation beyond the statement that they were deemed necessary by the responsible advisers of the Crown. This year the First Lord's statement contains the following

sentences:

The Board of Admiralty are well aware that the charge they are asking Parliament to sanction is a heavy one, but Parliament must remember how heavy is the responsibility cast by it on the Board of providing the country with a navy strong enough to sustain a struggle with the navies of any two Powers, and also strong enough to ensure reasonable security to its vast sea-borne trade and to the food supply of the people.

These are remarkable words. There seems to me to lurk in the last lines some confusion of expression, if not of thought. I can hardly think that the First Lord meant to say that the navy must be strong enough to beat any two hostile navies and, over and above all that, to provide a defence for sea-borne trade and food supplies. The intention of the writer, I imagine, was to define the standard of strength and also to state one of the important objects for which a navy should exist. It is by being strong enough to defeat hostile navies that our navy will defend trade and protect food supplies. But it is probable that those who are interested in trade and food supplies cherish the belief that in time of war our navy, or part of it, will be told off for the special protection of the mercantile marine at sea by convoys, or by policing of trade routes or otherwise. The first object of our navy in time of war, it has been again and again declared, will be to obtain command of the sea by the destruction of the enemy's fleets. No minor purpose will be suffered to interfere with that dominating one. We should not divert strength into attacks on foreign commerce, and foreign navies, it may be supposed, would find it equally necessary to follow the same policy. The idea of making the destruction of commerce a prime object in naval warfare is condemned by Captain Mahan as a delusion:

Especially is it misleading [he says] when the nation against whom it is to be directed possesses, as Great Britain did and does, the two requisites of a strong sea power-a widespread healthy commerce and a powerful navy. Where the revenues and industries of a country can be concentrated into a few

treasure-ships, like the flota of Spanish galleons, the sinews of war may perhaps be cut by a stroke; but when its wealth is contained in thousands of coming and going ships, when the roots of the system spread wide and far and strike deep, it can stand many a cruel shock and lose many a goodly bough without the life being touched.1

From this point of view the very magnitude of our sea-borne trade is in a certain sense its salvation.

Assuming, then, that the official words are not intended to throw doubt on this doctrine, we may confine ourselves to the question of the standards. It will be observed that the First Lord speaks of the two-Power rule as having been imposed upon the Admiralty by Parliament. Historically the statement might be questioned. The formula was not invented by or in the House of Commons. It was an official inspiration; Parliament acquiesced in it, as it has for years been accustomed to acquiesce in official proposals and to accept the reasons alleged in support of them. But it contains an important admission which should be placed on record. It admits by implication that the question of the standards is essentially what I have called a political rather than a naval question. It is for the Government of the day, having regard to its own policy and its own international relations, to say against what or how many foreign Powers it must be on its guard. The types of ships, their distribution into squadrons, and all other technical questions must be settled by the Admiralty on the usual terms of official responsibility. But the size of the navy is not, any more than the size of the army, a question to be settled by the department in charge.

When the First Lord, therefore, lays down the two-Power rule as the last word of Parliament, the taxpayer will be justified in asking whether it is a sound rule. I have for some time doubted whether the handy formula of ten years ago is applicable to the circumstances of the present day. It appears to me that it is open to two criticisms. The international naval position is no longer what it was. And our naval energies, so far as they can be tested by means intelligible to laymen, appear to have been directed, perhaps unconsciously, by a rather different rule.

When the rule first became familiar in parliamentary discussions, the two Powers nearest to ourselves in naval strength were France and Russia. The apparently abstract formula had really a concrete meaning, and was so understood by those who took the trouble to think about the question at all. It was not really a naval formula; an international theory or policy lay behind. But consider for a moment the changes that have taken place in international relations and in the comparative strength of navies in ten years. Our relations with France appear to have wholly changed their character. There appears to be good reason to believe that a settlement has been 1 Influence of Sea Power upon History, p. 539.

1