We feel that to save our Empire, to consolidate it, to make it strong and secure, there are several points that must be considered and that, as all these points are essential, to spend money on some and leave out others that are vital would be a useless and dangerous waste. If our Empire is to live, she must maintain her trade and commerce, she must keep up her manufactures, she must retain and preserve her resources both in capital and population for her own possessions, she must have bonds of interest as well as of sentiment, and she must have a system of defence that shall be complete at all points. An army or a navy might be perfect in equipment, in training, in weapons, in organisation, in skilled officers, &c., and yet if powder and cordite were left out all would be useless waste. If food were left out it would be worst of all, and yet Mr. Loring asks us to contribute large sums to maintain a navy, and to have that navy directed and governed by a department in which we would have little or no voice--a department under the control of an electorate who in the first war with certain Powers (one of which we at least know is not friendly) would be starving almost immediately, and would very soon insist on surrendering the fleet to which we had contributed in order to get food to feed their starving children. They might even be willing to surrender possessions as well. While you in England maintain this position, that you will not include food in your scheme of defence, do you wonder that we in Canada should endeavour to perfect our own defence in order to secure our own freedom and independence as a people, if the general smash comes, which we dread as the possible result of your obstinate persistence in a policy, which leaves you at the mercy of one or two foreign nations. I wish to draw attention to the following figures, which seem to show that there is weakness and danger in your commercial affairs as well: 1900. United Kingdom imports (foreign) £413,544,528 United Kingdom exports (foreign) 252,349,700 ------------ Balance of trade against United Kingdom £161,194,828 1901. United Kingdom imports (foreign) £416,416,492 United Kingdom exports (foreign) 234,745,904 ------------ Balance of trade against United Kingdom £181,670,588 We see the result of this great import of foreign goods in the distress in England to-day. The cable reports tell us of unemployed farm labourers flocking into the towns, of unemployed townsmen parading the streets with organised methods of begging, of charity organisations taxed to their utmost limit to relieve want. We see the Mother Country ruining herself and enriching foreign nations by a blind adherence to a fetish, and we begin to wonder how long it can last.