"Dreams, dreams? I wonder if they are only dreams. If they are dreams they are surely vivid enough--painfully vivid." He paused for an infinitesimal fraction. "No, no, Dad, I am no visionary in the sense that imagination runs away with me. I see many things that every other man sees, and it is only a question of different reading. What do you think the majority of people in this country will do when they really understand all that our little adventure means? They will metaphorically fling up their hats, and deride the wretched Teuton, and his merciless delight in the slaughter of innocent life upon the high seas. In a few years' time, when they see our sea-borne traffic carried by great submersibles of eight and ten thousand tons, their confidence will be unbounded, and they will reiterate again the old song 'Britannia Rules the Waves,' and--they will have justice on their side. But the questions which I ask myself, which I must keep on asking myself, are--'Does Britannia rule the waves? Can she continue to rule the waves?'" He shook his head, and gently removed the ash from his cigar. "In spite of all the evidence, in spite of our wholly promising new move for protecting our overseas traffic, in spite of the brilliant manner in which our Navy has met, and defeated, every ingenious method of attack by our enemies in the past, I do not believe we can ever hope to continue indefinitely our rule of the seas, or _even the safeguarding of our overseas traffic_. "Oh, yes, I know what everybody will say in answer to such a statement," he went on, in reply to the interrogatory in his father's eyes. "But they are wrong, a thousand times wrong," he declared, almost passionately. "It is no sound argument or real logic that what we have done for the past few hundred years we can continue to do. Our men are giants among the men of the sea. But they are only human. The days of 'wait and see' are over. We must not wait for trouble to arise to attempt its counter. We must look ahead with all the experience of the late war behind us. The reason we rule the seas at the moment--if we do rule them--is because we are an island country, and because our past necessities have forced us to stride far ahead in maritime affairs of all other nations, while they possessed no full realization of the value of sea power. But the late war has shown us that now, at last, every country in the world understands to the full the necessity for wresting from any one Power the dominance of the seas. Look back. Germany was fighting for sea power as greatly as she was fighting for anything else. Russia, that vast land-locked world, could only hope for an outlet to the sea as a result of all her sacrifice. The Balkan countries, their national aspirations, every one of them was a harbor on the high seas. The whole world intends to possess each its share of the great waterways, without fear of the dominance of any one nation. It is plain, plain as the writing on the wall.