But, my Lords and gentlemen, we have not had to wait for war to see the effects of this pernicious policy; its evil effects are already upon us, though nominally we are at peace with all the world. Year by year, during the past decade, the ocean area over which the British flag floats has been steadily narrowed, and within the past three months, the most presageful, the most ominous narrowing of all, has taken place. We have abandoned the Mediterranean Sea. But yesterday that great sea was like a British lake; to-day not a single British battleship disturbs the blue of its waters. Could any more significant, more startling warning ever be given to a Government not wilfully deaf, or to a nation not wedded to luxury and self-indulgence, indifferent alike to its past glories and its present security? What better exemplification could be imagined of the truth of Mahan's axiom that "a fleet charged with the care of its base is a fleet so far weakened for effective action"? And what does this whole process of the withdrawal of the British flag from one sea after another and its concentration in home waters indicate? It indicates just this, that while "the British Navy a hundred years ago was superior to the combined navies of all Europe," it is to-day little more than equal to the next largest European Navy, and is quite inadequate in proportion to the interests it has to guard. This revolution in our relative strength at sea is mainly owing to the want of foresight on the part of successive Lords of the Admiralty, and it is incidentally an additional condemnation of our retention of the old voluntary system of our land defence. While we are standing still, Germany is moving, and we have this year the announcement of a new and larger programme, a programme which goes much beyond the Navy Law of 1900, and will, when completed, give Germany--the greatest military Power in the world--a group of battle fleets in the North Sea calculated to make us consider whether even our concentrated naval strength will be sufficient to cope with them.