ften raised the white flag and surrendered, without necessity,
sometimes to a few Boers, and they may do the same to a German
invading force. Free Trade which "benefits the consumer" and the
capitalist has, unfortunately, through the destruction of our
agriculture and through forcing practically the whole population of
Great Britain into the towns, destroyed the manhood of the nation."
(Modern Germany page 251, by J. Ellis Barker, 1907). An army of slum
dwellers is a poor base on which to build the structure of a perpetual
world dominion.

While the navy shows an imposing output of new battleships
and cruisers for 1913, the record, we are told, of all warship
construction in the world, it takes blood as well as iron to cement
empires. Battleships may become so much floating scrap iron (like the
Russian fleet at Tsushima), if the men behind the guns lack the right
stamina and education.

We learn, too, that it is not only the slum dwellers who are failing,
but that to meet the shortage of officers a large number of transfers
from the merchant marine to the Royal Navy are being sanctioned.
To this must be added the call of the Great Dominions for men and
officers to man their local fleets. As the vital resources of England
become more and more inadequate to meet the menace of German naval and
moral strength, she turns her eyes to Ireland, and we learn from the
London _Daily Telegraph_ that Mr. Churchill's scheme of recruiting at
Queenstown may furnish "matter for congratulation, as Irish boys make
excellent bluejackets happy of disposition, amenable to discipline,
and extremely quick and handy."

As I can recall an article in this same journal, written during the
course of the Boer War, in which Ireland was likened to a "serpent
whose head must be crushed beneath the heel," the _Daily Telegraph's_
praise to-day of the Irish disposition should leave Irish boys
profoundly unmoved--and still ashore.

There is yet another aspect of the growing stream of British
emigration. "Death removes the feeble, emigration removes the strong.
Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa, have no use for the
sick and palsied, or of those incapable of work through age or youth.
They want the workers and they get them. Those who have left the
United Kingdom during 1912 are not the scum of our islands, but the
very pick. And they leave behind, for our politicians to grapple with,
a greater proportion of females, of children and of di