tate possessed a naval force strong
enough to assail them seriously, it is manifest that the naval force
required to defend them need be no greater than is sufficient to
overcome the assailant, and would not therefore be determined in any
degree by the volume of the interests to be defended. Each State
determines for itself the measure of naval strength which it judges to
be necessary to its security. No State expects to have to encounter the
whole world in arms or makes its provision in view of any such
chimerical contingency. The utmost that any State can do is to adjust
its naval policy to a rational estimate of all the reasonably probable
contingencies of international conflict, due regard being had to the
extent of its financial resources and to such other requirements of
national defence as circumstances impose on it. Germany, for example,
has proclaimed to all the world in the preamble to the Navy Law of 1900
that--

"In order to protect German trade and commerce under existing
conditions, only one thing will suffice, namely, Germany must possess a
battle fleet of such strength that even for the most powerful naval
adversary a war would involve such risks as to make that Power's own
supremacy doubtful. For this purpose it is not absolutely necessary that
the German fleet should be as strong as that of the greatest naval
Power, for, as a rule, a great naval Power will not be in a position to
concentrate all its forces against us."

I am not concerned in any way with the political aspects of this
memorable declaration. But its bearing on the naval policy of the
British Empire is manifest and direct. England is beyond all question
"the greatest naval Power" in the world. The declaration of Germany thus
lays upon England the indefeasible obligation of taking care that by no
efforts of any other Power shall her "own supremacy"--that is her
capacity to secure and maintain the command of the sea in all reasonably
probable contingencies of international conflict--be rendered doubtful.
There is no State in the world on which decisive defeat at sea would
inflict such irretrievable disaster as it would on England and her
Empire. These islands would be open to invasion--and if to invasion to
conquest and subjugation--the commerce of the whole Empire would be
annihilated, and the Empire itself would be dismembered. I need not
attempt to determine what measure of naval strength is required to avert
this unspeakable calamity.