effect without criticism to uncounted numbers of meddlesome legislative experiments. But in the last resort it is the one and only bulwark remaining between the people of these kingdoms and government by Cabinet decree, and with that bulwark the people will not readily part. The veto still possessed, and occasionally used, by the House of Lords is its one invaluable function. The nearer Socialism seems to come, the more threateningly the hand of Government approaches the pocket of the individual, so much the more invaluable becomes this last line of defence between the individual and the brigand-crowd incarnate in the form of an all-powerful Cabinet.

In the nature of things the Cabinet does not desire to see the power of the House of Lords increased. It is in the nature of all committees to resist the limitation of their powers. All Cabinets are certain to wish to keep the House of Lords under. It is equally in the nature of things that the House of Commons should desire to limit the power of a rival body. All crowds are hostile to all other groups of men. Oxford is hostile to Cambridge, Eton to Harrow, the North to the South. It is the nature of crowds to hate a rival. The value of the House of Lords lies in the hostilities which it creates, and the consequent compromises which it involves. Of course, from the theoretical democratic point of view, the country ought to dislike the House of Lords, but as a matter of evident fact it does not dislike them. The country as a crowd rather likes the spectacular element about them.

It is easy to indict the House of Lords on all manner of obvious counts. As has been said, it is a far from efficient body for the work it has to do, but such instincts as it possesses as a body are sound. Lord Killanin recently wrote a letter to the Times, entitled 'Party Spirit in the House of Lords,' in which he justly claimed that the organising structure of the party system is out of place in that House. With the reasons he gave I am not here concerned. The overwhelming reason is that the House of Lords, if it is to perform its proper function of being a restraint on the other House, must not be a duplicate of that House. The House of Commons is a crowd. The House of Lords must therefore be an assemblage of independent individuals. The moment the individual peers lose their independence, that moment their House loses its value and ceases to perform any useful function.

It happens that the independence of the individual peers has been preserved down to the present day by means of the hereditary principle. It might be hedged around by many other contrivances. Life appointment arrived at by any of a thousand conceivable methods would produce a similar result. Individuals can only retain the free use of their individuality so long as they have not to give an account of their actions to any body holding the right to cancel their appointment. Irresponsibility is essential to the freedom of a man of ability and honour. An Irish representative peer, though elected, is not responsible

to those who elect him because he is chosen for life. Election in that sense might be a suitable method of filling an Upper Chamber. But the ancient English method has been by means of the hereditary principle. Unfortunately, that principle has been unscientifically applied. Regard is only paid to a peer's descent from his father. Modern science has thrown an entirely new light on the whole question of heredity. If the science of eugenics were applied to the breeding of the House of Lords, as it is actually, to a considerable extent, applied to the breeding of kings, very remarkable results would be attained. A prince may morganatically marry whom he pleases, but a crown can only descend to the offspring of a marriage controlled by public law of a special kind. If peerages could, similarly, only descend to the offspring of eugenically defined marriages, the House of Lords would be revolutionised in one or two generations. This, however, is at present outside the range of practical politics, though it will probably not remain so for a very long period of time. The day is certainly at hand when the breeding of our whole race will have to be considered, and to some extent controlled, and no better body could be selected for experiment than a House of Lords actually holding powers and duties under an old-fashioned custom of heredity.

This side-issue, however, has taken me away from the main line of my argument. By any of a hundred conceivable plans an Upper House can be recruited and so constituted as to be a bulwark against Cabinet and crowd despotism. The will of the people at a given moment is an important factor to be borne in mind in the act of legislation, but it is a thing so changeful and so ill-informed that it cannot be given supreme control. That lovely Labour Parliament that voted one day by a large majority against Socialism and in favour of it the next is an invaluable example of the worthlessness of the popular mind. Its whims need to be known, but not to be immediately obeyed.

A small supreme committee, which we call a Cabinet, is likewise an essential element in the government of a modern democratic State. Even a club has to have a committee. But an executive committee must not be allowed to become a despotic oligarchy, as the Cabinet now tends to become. A third power is needed to deliberate and, if necessary, veto ill-considered or rash legislative experiments. To it the veto is essential, or it is not a power at all. The House of Lords exists to fulfil that necessary function. To deprive it of its veto is to enthrone the Cabinet in a position of despotic power. What is obviously essential is to reform the constitution of that House, not so as to make it, like the House of Commons, a mirror of the moods of the popular mind but so as to render it more efficient, more independent, more self-respecting. The useless and noxious peers for the most part remove themselves from an active part in the business of their Chamber. It would be well if they could be removed from it

altogether; but it is far more important to add a new vital element than to cut away what is practically innocuous through inanition. So long as the House of Lords remains feebly organised, feebly affected by party spirit, and continually supplied with a fair sprinkling of men of large interests, large experience, large general culture, and great independence of character, it will fulfil with tolerable efficiency the main purpose for which it exists-namely, to defend the individual everywhere from the dominance of the passionate crowd, to preserve his rights to do the unpopular thing so long as it is not illegal, to defend him from laws fussily interfering with his liberty, and to keep for minorities that freedom of which the crowd and its despotic instrument, the Cabinet, would so willingly deprive them.

MARTIN CONWAY.

THE NAVAL POLICY OF GERMANY

On the 7th of March, the first German Dreadnought was launched in the presence of the German Emperor at Wilhelmshaven. In about three and a half years from now, by the end of 1911, Germany intends to have at sea thirteen ships of the Dreadnought and Invincible type, whilst Great Britain, as has been pointed out by Mr. Balfour and confirmed by Mr. Asquith on the 10th of March in the House of Commons, will by that time, according to our shipbuilding programme, have only twelve Dreadnoughts and Invincibles afloat. The ships of the Dreadnought and Invincible type have made obsolete practically all the existing battleships and armoured cruisers, which soon may share the fate of the old wooden and iron vessels, because an improved Dreadnought should be able to destroy a whole squadron of modern battleships, owing to her superior speed and heavier armament. Being faster, a Dreadnought can always keep out of the effective range of the enemy's guns, and destroy, with its farther-carrying guns, ship after ship of a squadron of pre-Dreadnought battleships, and these, being much slower, can neither come to closer quarters if they wish to attack their mighty antagonist, nor escape by flight unless they scatter in all directions. An encounter between a Dreadnought and a number of older battleships resembles, therefore, the encounter in a plain of a horseman armed with a rifle with a number of unmounted men armed with pistols, and it should end in the destruction or the dispersal of the older battleships, unless the Dreadnought's ammunition should prematurely become exhausted. Under these circumstances, it is clear that the advent of the Dreadnought has opened a new era by revolutionising naval warfare; that the battles of the future will be decided by Dreadnoughts; that in naval matters the nations of the world are starting with a clean slate. It is also clear, as the figures relating to German and British Dreadnoughts and Invincibles built or completing in 1911 show, that Germany and Great Britain are at present engaged in a neck-to-neck race for naval supremacy, that Germany tries to outbuild this country in those ships which will decide the wars of the future. Hence thoughtful Englishmen may well ask themselves: Why is Germany building thirteen Dreadnoughts against our twelve? What is the German Navy for? Is its object

peace or war? What is the aim of Germany's naval policy? Does she mean to challenge Great Britain's naval supremacy in earnest ? Is our naval predominance threatened?

Opinions are divided on these questions. The advocates of an overwhelmingly strong British fleet habitually assert that Germany is building a huge Navy with feverish haste because she intends to attack Great Britain. The champions of naval economy, on the other hand, assure us with equal confidence and emphasis that Germany is a peaceful country, that William the Second, as he has lately so often declared, is a friend of peace and of Great Britain, that there is no reason to doubt his sincerity, that he has no warlike designs, and that therefore we need not fear a German attack.

Both explanations betray great crudity of thought. Both spring from insufficient acquaintance with the realities of statesmanship. Both arise from a mistaken attempt of applying to matters of national policy and to international relations the motives of private intercourse and the standards of private morality. It may be absurd to speak of Germany's 'warlike intentions' regarding Great Britain, although Germany undoubtedly follows a policy which, as she well knows, may ultimately bring her into collision with this country; but it is surely still more absurd for Englishmen to proclaim that the intentions of Germany and of the Emperor are peaceful. Such assertions should be left to professional thought-readers who may know the sentiments and intentions of Germany and of her impulsive ruler better than his Majesty knows them himself.

The policy of States is not directed by the personal sentiments and publicly-expressed intentions of their rulers, but by considerations of national interests, by political and economic necessity. In considering Germany's naval policy, we had therefore better leave out of our calculations the problematical intentions, warlike or peaceful, of Germany, and her ruler, and study the factors which shape Germany's naval policy by investigating those interests which her naval policy is evidently meant to promote.

The naval policy of all great nations is directed rather by economic necessity than by ambition. Great Britain became a great sea Power and a colonial and maritime empire by sheer force of circumstances. The British world-empire was built up during the time when England had practically the world's monopoly in trade and manufactures, in shipping and in banking. Great Britain, like all the great colonial and maritime empires of the past from Phoenicia to Holland, was forced into a career of conquest and expansion over sea by economic pressure. Our powerful industries, which made Great Britain the workshop of the world, and the necessities of our trade, imperatively demanded markets outside these islands, and led to the conquest of India and of various other colonies. The rapid increase of our population beyond the national means of subsistence equally urgently demanded settle