TIMES OF NATIONAL PERIL

Evening Star, Issue 11605, 19 July 1901, Page 7

TIMES OF NATIONAL PERIL

We arc oftener in peril than we think. It is startling even now to be told by Mr Balfour that at a critical moment in our history we were left with no more than 3,300 rounds of small-arm ammunition in England. Ihere was a day two or three years ago when the quantity of maize, wheat, "and flour in England was barely enough to feed the population three weeks. Had anything happened to cut off our supplies we coiud hardly have held out a month, in spite of our ships and guns. Every year our dependence on imported breadstuffs grows greater, and it is calculated that five out of six people in England live on these imports. Li a recent year, according to a writer on the subject, we-.were dependent for half our *ood on Russia, America sending us another 25 per cent.; and-it would be an easy matter, certain authorities tell us, for Franco to buy up American " futures" in tho event of a Franco-Russian alliance against us. In that case we should probably find ourselves living, as Sir Charles Duke once said, on lentils and green peas. Such exciting moments,' it may be consoling to know, are not peculiar to ourselves. There was a moment when America was in a position as critical as our own in January, 1900. .Tie Main© had sunk in Havana Harbor with practically all the ammunition the American Navy had ready, and, when the crisis reached its height America could not' give its troops one single round per man. Tho arta of peace were prolonged while ammunition was prepared, and Spain, under the impression that America was determined on a peaceful issue, gave her enemy time to prepare the powder and shot which took away from her the last remnant of her colonial Empire.