1. We see every nation in the world armed to the teeth, the great nations increasing their navies with feverish anxiety. We see that you are alarmed in this country, for your naval expenditure has almost doubled in the last fifteen or twenty years. If war is out of the question this great expenditure is useless. 2. We see that the United Kingdom which once grew 17,000,000 quarters of wheat, now produces about 6,500,000 quarters. We see that a combination of two Powers with an embargo on food would bring you to your knees in a few months, and compel you to surrender, and perhaps pull us down also as a people in the general smash of the Empire which might ensue. We know that our Empire cannot be either a free, independent, or great Power, until it is self-sustaining, and has its food grown on its own soil, and in the hands of its own people. 3. We see a great Empire with great possessions, with resources unparalleled, with possibilities of future strength and prosperity almost beyond imagination; with no organisation, no combination, no complete system of defence: and this in the face of what you admit to be a possibility of the dangers of war. 4. We see a commercial war going on of the most extreme type--many nations seemingly organising all their forces to injure the trade of Great Britain. We see that your export trade for the ten years 1881-1890 amounted to £2,343,000,000, while in the following ten years, 1891-1900, it had only increased to £2,398,000,000, or an increase of £55,000,000 in the ten years. But the exports of coal in the first ten years amounted to £125,000,000, in the last ten years to £210,000,000--an increase of £85,000,000; which makes the exports of manufactured goods less by £30,000,000 during the years 1891-1900 than during the previous ten years, for export of coal is only a sale of national assets or capital. 5. We see that while your trade is stationary at less profits, foreign nations are increasing theirs enormously. German exports in 1895 amounted to £171,203,000, in 1901 to £237,970,000. The United States in 1871 exported about £90,000,000, in 1901 about £300,000,000 (1,487,764,991 dollars). While your trade is in a weak condition, we see also the carrying trade passing into the hands of our rivals. The Morgan combine will control the North Atlantic trade if something is not done. It will fix the rates of freight, and, as a great portion of your food comes from the United States, they can make the British people pay the extra rates which will enable them to carry American manufactures of all kinds at the smallest cost, and so deprive your workmen of their employment and wages at the cost to themselves of dearer food.