But the comparison of the new conditions with the old becomes most unfavourable when we extend our view from the British to the German coast. It is difficult to find any sea front of greater natural defensive strength than the German North Sea coast. Intricate navigation, shifting and extensive sandbanks and currents, strong tides, frequent mists and storms, make the Heligoland Bight a very difficult theatre for oversea operations. The deep re-entrant widening into a broad debouch, flanked at each side by lines of islands and sustained in the centre by Heligoland, confers the greatest possible natural advantages upon the defence. To these have been added, and are being added, everything that military art can devise. Heligoland is an almost impregnable fortress and an advanced torpedo and airship station. Borkum and Sylt are both heavily defended by batteries, minefields, and strong garrisons, and both can be commanded by fire from the mainland. Into this great defended area, with its wide debouch facing towards us, access is given from the Ems, the Elbe, the Weser, the Jade and from the Kiel Canal communicating with the Baltic, and open for Dreadnoughts at the present year. Within this area are all the naval establishments of Germany. A fleet or transports assembled at either end of the Kiel Canal have the widely separated alternatives of emerging either from the Heligoland Bight or from the Baltic for offensive purposes. There would be no difficulty on the declaration of war in assembling unperceived at Hamburg, Kiel, Wilhelmshaven, and other ports, the shipping necessary to transport at least 20,000 men; enough to transport 10,000 men is always in those ports. Large garrisons exist in the neighbourhood, amply sufficient to supply whatever military force was required. The Germans possess to-day large ships of the liner class suitable for transport in a way which the French never did. The rigour with which agents suspected of sending information have been pursued during the last five or six years has made it difficult to arrange for the transmission of intelligence. Consular officers are marked men; and it is to be expected that their communications by the usual postal and telegraphic channels will be delayed if hostilities are imminent. Although the sources from which information may be obtained have been increased in numbers during recent years, and are still being increased as opportunity offers, yet the Admiralty are not prepared to make any confident assertion that a force of upwards of 20,000 men could not be collected in time of peace, and embarked without their knowledge. As a matter of fact, very considerable embarkations of a test character have been carried out without our having any knowledge until some days after the event.