it. And I tell you, and I have proved it, that the national spirit
is not there. I will go further," the Prince continued with increased
earnestness, "if you still are not weary of the subject. I will point
out to you how little encouragement the youth of this country receive
from those who are above them in social station. In every one of your
counties there is a hunt, cricket clubs, golf clubs in such numbers that
their statistics absolutely overwhelm me. Everywhere one meets young men
of leisure, well off, calmly proposing to settle down and spend the best
part of their lives in what they call country life. They will look after
their estates; they will hunt a little, shoot a little, go abroad for
two months in the winter, play golf a little, lawn tennis, perhaps, or
cricket. I tell you that there are hundreds and thousands of these
young men, with money to spare, who have no uniform which they could
wear,--no, I want to change that!" the Prince cried with an impressive
gesture,--"who have no uniform which they will be able to wear when the
evil time comes! How will they feel then, these young men of family,
whose life has been given to sports and to idle amusements, when their
womankind come shrieking to them for protection and they dare not even
handle a gun or strike a blow! They must stand by and see their lands
laid waste, their womankind insulted. They must see the land run
red with the blood of those who offer a futile resistance, but they
themselves must stand by inactive. They are not trained to fight as
soldiers,--they cannot fight as civilians."

"The Prince forgets," Bransome remarked dryly, "that an invasion of this
country--a practical invasion--is very nearly an impossible thing."

The Prince laughed softly.

"My friend," he said, "if I thought that you believed that, although
you are a Cabinet Minister of England I should think that you were
the biggest fool who ever breathed. Today, in warfare, nothing
is impossible. I will guarantee, I who have had only ten years of
soldiering, that if Japan were where Holland is today, I would halve
my strength in ships and I would halve my strength in men, and I would
overrun your country with ease at any time I chose. You need not agree
with me, of course. It is not a subject which we need discuss. It is,
perhaps, out of my province to allude to it. The feeling which I have in
my heart is this. The laws of history are incontrovertible. So surely as
a great natio