"Picture a great railroad which has for its main line a track four or five thousand miles in length, curving from Archangel in Russia to Alexandria in Egypt, a track which touches on its way the coasts of Norway, of the British Isles, of France, of Portugal, of Spain, of Italy, of Greece. Picture from this immense arc of communication branch lines longer still, diverging to America, to Africa, to India, knitting the ports of the world together in one vast railway system. That railroad system, with its engines and rolling stock, its stations and junctions, its fuel stores and offices, over which run daily and nightly the wagon loads, of food, munitions, stores for a dozen countries at war with the Central Powers, is a railroad of British ships. To dislocate, to paralyze it, Germany would willingly give a thousand millions, for the scales would then descend in her favor and victory indubitably be hers. For consider the consequences of interruption in that stream of traffic. Britain herself on the brink of starvation, her troops in France, in Egypt, in Salonica, cut off without food, without ammunition, unable to return to their homes. But for this fleet that bridges the seas, Britain could not send or use a single soldier anywhere save in defense of her own shores. India, Australia, Canada, all her dependencies would be cut off from the Mother Country, the bonds of empire immediately dissolved. Some little importance then may be attached to this matter of bridging the waterways, and some admiration extended towards the men who do it and the manner of the doing. "If you ask what have the Allies gained, take this evidence of a French writer in _Le Temps_: 'If at the beginning of the war we were enabled to complete the equipment of our army with a rapidity which has not been one of the least surprises of the German staff, we owe it to the fleet which has given us the mastery of the seas. We were short of horses. They were brought from Argentina and Canada. We were short of wool and of raw materials for our metal industries. We applied to the stockbreeders of Australia. Lancashire sent us her cottons and cloth, the Black Country its steel. And now that the consumption of meat threatens to imperil our supplies of live stock, we are enabled to avoid danger by the importation of frozen cargoes. For the present situation the mastery of the sea is not only an advantage but a necessity. In view of the fact that the greater part of our coal area is invaded by the enemy the loss of the command of the sea by England would involve more than her own capitulation. She indeed would be forced to capitulate through starvation. But France also and her new ally, Italy, being deprived of coal and, therefore, of the means of supplying their factories and military transport, would soon be at the mercy of their adversaries.'