ot
to be supposed that this can be done only by making pecuniary
contributions to its maintenance. It is, indeed, very doubtful
if any real good can be done by urging colonies to make them.
It seems certain that the objections to this are greater than
any benefit that it can confer. Badgering our fellow-subjects
beyond sea for money payments towards the cost of the navy is
undignified and impolitic. The greatest sum asked for by the
most exacting postulant would not equal a twentieth part of the
imperial naval expenditure, and would not save the taxpayer of
the mother country a farthing in the pound of his income. No one
has yet been able to establish the equity of a demand that would
take something from the inhabitants of one colony and nothing from
those of another. Adequate voluntary contribution is a different
matter.

There are other ways in which every trans-marine possession of
the Crown can lend a hand towards perfecting the efficiency of
the fleet--ways, too, which would leave each in complete and
unmenaced control of its own money. Sea-power does not consist
entirely of men-of-war. There must be docks, refitting
establishments, magazines, and depots of stores. Ports, which
men-of-war must visit at least occasionally in war for repair or
replenishment of supplies, will have to be made secure against
the assaults which it has been said that a hastily raiding enemy,
notwithstanding our general control of the communications, might
find a chance of making. Moderate fixed fortifications are all
the passive defence that would be needed; but good and active
troops must be available. If all these are not provided by the
part of the empire in which the necessary naval bases lie, they
will have to be provided by the mother country. If the former
provides them the latter will be spared the expense of doing
so, and spared expense with no loss of dignity, and with far
less risk of friction and inconvenience than if her taxpayers'
pockets had been nominally spared to the extent of a trifling
and reluctantly paid money contribution.

It has been pointed out on an earlier page that a country can be,
and most probably will be, more effectually defended in a maritime
war if its fleet operates at a distance from, rather than near,
its shores. Every subject of our King should long to see this
condition exist if ever the empire is involved in hostilities. It
may be--for who can tell what war will bring?--that the people
of so