When at Liverpool shortly after on my way back to Canada, I asked the manager of the Bank of Liverpool, to whom I had a letter of introduction, if he would introduce me to the highest authority on the corn trade in Liverpool. He introduced me to the late Mr. Paul, ex-President of the Corn Exchange, and I had a long conversation with him on the question of the food supply. As soon as I mentioned the subject he told me that the corn trade people in Liverpool had been asked from London to make a report on the possibility of supplying grain in case of war. Mr. Paul told me that they had considered the matter (I suppose he meant the leading corn merchants), and that their report was practically that they must have the command of the sea, that was essential; but that secured, and the enhanced war prices paid, they could supply all the corn required in any contingency. I questioned him as I had Sir Robert Giffen and found the same underlying belief. The law of supply and demand would settle the question. The corn would be allowed to go in neutral ships to neutral ports, and then be transhipped to England. An embargo had not been considered or treated seriously as a possibility, and when I cornered him so that he could not answer my arguments, he said, "Well, if we could not get wheat we could live on potatoes." I told him potatoes could not be kept over a year, that a large quantity was imported which would be stopped. I said he had better make another report. The whole thing was very disheartening to me, for I saw how the Government were depending upon peaceful traders for information how to guard against war dangers. In 1902 when Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, proposed a small tax on wheat and flour, I was pleased to see that Sir Robert Giffen was the first prominent man to write to the Press endorsing and approving of the bread tax, as it was called. It showed me that Sir Robert had carefully considered the question, and was manly enough to advocate what was not altogether a popular idea.