The danger to the Britannic nations was expressed in May 1911: "The truth is that the safety of the Imperial system cannot be maintained much longer by the arrangements which exist at present. No one, in the face of the facts brought {228} forward in this article, can believe that the need for national strength is disappearing. The British naval budget and the creation of the Dominion navies alone disprove it. Yet it is quite clear that Great Britain alone cannot indefinitely guarantee the Empire from disruption by external attack. The further one looks ahead the more obvious does this become. A nation of 45,000,000 souls, occupying a small territory and losing much of the natural increase in its population by emigration, cannot hope to compete in the long run even against single powers of the first magnitude--with Russia, for instance, with its 150,000,000 inhabitants, with America with its 90,000,000, with Germany with its 65,000,000, increasing by nearly a million a year, to say nothing of China with its 430,000,000 souls. Far less can if hope to maintain the dominant position it has hitherto occupied in the world, with a dozen new powers entering upon the scene. Each of these powers, of small account by itself, is already an important factor in the scale which measures the balance of power. And as they are steadily increasing in wealth and population, it is only a question of time before some of them will become first-class powers in their turn. What will be the position of the Empire then, if it has to depend upon the navy of England alone? Obviously the day must come when, if the Empire is to continue, it must be defended by the joint efforts of all its self-governing peoples."[228-1] In March 1913 another Britannic writer states: "The urgency of the situation does not diminish. {229} Already, without striking a blow, Germany has practically detached the British navy from every sea except the North Sea--a result which no Englishman a few years ago would have believed to be possible in any circumstances whatever."[229-1]