on the 18th, came in contact with his enemy on the 19th, but
met with no considerable hostile force till the 20th, when the
Japanese cavalry arrived just in time to collide with the Russian
rearguard of two squadrons. On this General Mischenko 'retired
at his ease for some thirty miles along the Japanese flank and
perhaps fifteen miles away from it.' These Russians' raids did
not alter the course of the war nor bring ultimate victory to
their standards.

It would be considered by every military authority as a flagrant
absurdity to deduce from the history of these many raids on land
that a strong army is not a sufficient defence for a continental
country against invasion. What other efficient defence against
that can a continental country have? Apply the reasoning to the
case of an insular country, and reliance on naval defence will
be abundantly justified.

To maintain that Canada, India, and Egypt respectively could
be invaded by the United States, Russia, and Turkey, backed by
Germany, notwithstanding any action that our navy could take,
would be equivalent to maintaining that one part of our empire
cannot or need not reinforce another. Suppose that we had a military
force numerically equal to or exceeding the Russian, how could any
of it be sent to defend Canada, India, and Egypt, or to reinforce
the defenders of those countries, unless our sea communications
were kept open? Can these be kept open except by the action of
our navy? It is plain that they cannot.

VIII

QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER SEAMEN[65]

[Footnote 65: Written in 1900. (_Nineteenth_Century_and_After_,
1901.)]

An eminent writer has recently repeated the accusations made
within the last forty years, and apparently only within that
period, against Queen Elizabeth of having starved the seamen
of her fleet by giving them food insufficient in quantity and
bad in quality, and of having robbed them by keeping them out of
the pay due to them. He also accuses the Queen, though somewhat
less plainly, of having deliberately acquiesced in a wholesale
slaughter of her seamen by remaining still, though no adequate
provision had been made for the care of the sick and wounded.
There are further charges of obstinately objecting, out of mere
stinginess, to take proper measures for the naval defence of the
country, and of withholding a sufficient supply of ammunition
from her ships when about to meet the enemy. Lest it should be
supposed that this is an