A glance at a globe turned so as to bring the British Isles directly under the eye will at once reveal the most effective of all the material causes which have made them the seat of the great naval power among nations. It is the unrivalled advantage of their position. They lie between the Old World and the New, with free access to the great ocean, surrounded by seas, which, though stormy, are not unmanageable. Their coasts are never blocked by ice. No long intervals of calm varied by mere puffs of wind reduce sailing ships to immobility, and limit their size by imposing on them the necessity of relying on the oar. Steam has freed maritime war and commerce from dependence on the wind, but the naval power of England was created during the ages of the sailing ship. Steam, too, has only made the benefit of free access to the ocean if possible more valuable. It is commonly said that an island is peculiarly fitted to be the seat of a naval power, and no doubt freedom from the perpetual risk of invasion by land is a material advantage. Immunity from that danger has saved us from the necessity for expending our resources on armies, which crippled Holland, exhausted Spain, and has hampered France. But it must be remembered that the great maritime powers of antiquity and the Middle Ages were on the mainland round the Mediterranean, not on the islands. Again, it is clear that if, in the place of Ireland, there lay to the immediate west of us any great bulk of territory too strong to be conquered, too alien to be absorbed, our insular position would not have saved us from being much confined, if not wholly shut in. But to the west of us lies the Atlantic Ocean, the beginning of the road which leads to wealth and empire all over the world. No power can block our way thither while we exercise even equal strength on water. Before full advantage could be taken of our position, three conditions had to be fulfilled. These islands had to become the seat of an organised State, and to cease from being merely the field in which hostile races were fighting for the mastery. The weapon of sea-power, which is the seaworthy and sea-keeping ship, had to be created. The New World had to be opened to the enterprise of the Old, and the globe to be explored. Ages passed before these conditions were fulfilled.