It is seven years, almost to the day, since I had the honour of addressing a meeting of City men in this historic House on the subject of Imperial Defence. On that occasion I prefaced my remarks by saying: "I have but one object in coming before you to-day, namely, to bring home to my fellow-countrymen the vital necessity of their taking into their earnest consideration our unpreparedness for war." I then affirmed that the armed forces of this country were as absolutely unfitted and unprepared for war as they were in 1899-1900. And, my Lords and gentlemen, I grieve to have this afternoon to repeat to you that we are now scarcely better fitted or better prepared to carry on a war to-day than in 1905. The experience that we gained in the Boer War has had little effect upon our general military policy. We have neglected, except as regards the Regular Army, to profit by the lessons which that war ought to have taught us. What are the causes of this indifference and this deep-seated apathy? The causes, I think, are not far to seek. In the first place, if you will permit me as a soldier to speak with the frankness of a soldier, it is one of the most dangerous tendencies of a nation, especially a democratic and self-confident nation, devoted to commerce and industry as we are, to ignore so disturbing and apparently so remote a contingency as our being forced into war. But there is another more immediate and a more particular cause, and it is to this that I mainly wish to direct your attention this afternoon. Those who are responsible for our defences--and I must include in this category the late Minister for War--are, I maintain, either so blind to the lessons of history, or so enamoured of their own schemes, that they have deliberately lulled the nation into the belief that our present system is adequate, and that we are amply prepared to meet any dangers which come within the sphere of consideration by practical men. Thus the very men who ought to declare the facts in the plainest terms to the nation, the very men who ought to be endeavouring to rouse the nation from its fatal apathy, are the men who are fostering that spirit of indifference and self-confidence to which the nation of itself is already too prone. A democracy like ours will never take the necessary measures to safeguard itself so long as Ministers and a partisan Press proclaim that we are as a nation perfectly safe, when, as a matter of fact, our position is precarious in the extreme. This is a serious statement; but, if you will have patience with me, I hope to convince you that it is well founded, and it can be demonstrated from the principles of Imperial Defence which Lord Haldane has so frequently, and, it must be admitted, so plausibly, urged upon us.