The proverbial luck of England is very marked here. When the great harbour was decided upon, the menace of a German Navy and of the remarkable German war preparations at Emden had not arisen. The Germans themselves were still enjoying the fun of calling the German Emperor “gondola Willy,” in ridicule of his desire to create a fleet. No one laughs now at the spectacle of a German Navy, which is emphatically “a fleet in being”; and the strategy of the Board of Admiralty is now directed, in consequence of that new factor, rather to guarding the North Sea than the seas patrolled by the old Channel Fleet. Bismarck once rightly described the Baltic Sea as “a hole,” in which a German fleet could be easily shut up. The Baltic Canal was cut by the Germans as a way, and a short way, out of that hole; but the new British strategic base at Dover, closing the English Channel to the passage either way of a hostile fleet, has, together with other naval bases, constructed, or constructing, along the East Coast and up to the extreme north of Scotland, and in the Orkneys, rendered the North Sea itself something of a “hole,” on a larger scale. If we take a map and look at the relative positions of Great Britain and Germany, we shall clearly see that Britain, with the will to do it, can stop the way, and in the event of war close both the Channel and the way round by the North; thus preventing an attack upon the British possessions over-seas, even though we bear the shock of war along our whole eastern face. But Harwich, Grimsby, and the Tyne; Rosyth, Dundee, Wick, and Scapa Flow, will in due course be able to stiffen the new front of our position. That the rise of the German Navy has made the North Sea our front is seen in the new dispositions, by which the Channel and the Mediterranean have lost their relative importance, while the North Sea is now the cruising-ground of some thirty of the foremost ships of the Navy. The last word, the final appeal, is with the land and sea forces of the nation. Orators in Parliament, or stumping the country, may thrill audiences with enthusiasm or indignation, but there is no thrill to equal that which comes of conscious power. Such a thrill the Englishman may experience here. Let us hope politicians, in their party juggling, may not starve our defences too often, so that they be found wanting in our hour of need. We have beheaded a King, with some justice, we have shot an Admiral, without justice or sense in the doing of it, and we have from time to time degraded Generals; but, strange to say, we have never yet hanged a statesman, although the occasion has warranted, often enough. It seems a strange immunity! Yet in the coming great struggle, if we be unprepared, it may well be that this immunity will no longer hold. Tennyson, many years ago, contemplating some such national disaster, had a vision of the mob’s way with recreant ministers: “The wild mob’s million feet shall kick you from your place.”