certain One is that there will be a loss of time by the fleet that uses it, and in war time is all in all; the other is that but a portion of the sum necessary for its construction would suffice to make the French navy much stronger than the employment of the canal as proposed can possibly do. The considerations justify us in declining to include a ship canal between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic amongst the effective components of French naval power.

In

To enter upon an examination of the position in the Mediterranean is to be irresistibly reminded of our connexion with Egypt as betokened by the presence of an English force-though now an attenuated one-in that country. Discussion of the right or the wrong of the British occupation does not come within the scope of this article. But it may be affirmed with some confidence that the occupation of Egypt does not materially affect the naval and the military power of Great Britain in the Mediterranean. time of peace our commercial interests in Egypt and the passage of the Suez Canal need no protection. In the event of war, if the British fleet were hostile, no power in Europe could land a military force in Egypt or provide one there with supplies; and only the British fleet would have a chance of being able to escort an expedition to that country or to keep it supplied afterwards. The truth is that our occupation of Egypt is a consequence, not a cause, of our naval predominance.

6

We may fairly assert our maritime position in the Mediterranean; and, truly, we are the leading power there, naval as well as commercial. One of the German writers previously alluded to prefaces his warnings with the statement that unquestionably, by reason of the superiority of her naval and mercantile fleet, Great Britain takes the leading place in the Mediterranean as in all other seas.' If the Suez Canal were to become impassable to-morrow, we should still be engaged in an enormous trade with the countries approached by the road that runs between the Pillars of Hercules. This trade is far too valuable to be sacrificed without a struggle. What is more, if we ceased to do the carrying part, no one else could take over the work from us. This fact is ignored by the gentlemen, some of them claiming to be statesmen, who hold the comforting belief that our carrying trade can be conducted by the mercantile marine of foreign States when we happen to be at war. There are some public men who profess this belief, and who cannot. have given much study to the question.

It is extraordinary how few of those whom we reasonably expect to be well informed on such a matter seem to be aware of the enormous statistics of our shipping or of all that is involved in them. Of the effective ocean tonnage of the world, the British flag flies over about 70 per cent. This proportion has a tendency to increase. In the ports of nearly every civilised nation British tonnage takes either the first place or is second only to that which is under the flag of the country visited. Now, should circumstances occur to prevent free navigation by the ships of any country in the world except our own, we could take over the work without difficulty, because the shipping of the country affected would equal but a small fraction of ours, and would hardly outnumber the surplus of it usually out of employment at any given moment. But to transfer our mercantile marine to another flag, or to several other flags, would be to double, or more than double, at one stroke their shipping strength. The difficulties in the way of a sale of our ships to the new carriers would be enormous, though we may admit that they would not be insuperable.

The ships having been transferred, more serious difficulties would remain. No country in the world, and no group of countries, if we except those who would be belligerents when we were engaged in war, could find the necessary crews. Captains, officers, and engineers cannot be created in a minute. We must remember, too, that the maritime trade of the other participators in the war would be interfered with also, so that the neutrals would have to take over not our carrying trade only, but also some, at least, of that of our allies and antagonists. Is there the smallest prospect of this being found practicable? If we were to express the question in terms of land transport, the impossibility would be at once apparent. Let us suppose that the London and North-Western Railway had been engaged in a contest with the London and Brighton, and that, except a small portion of it for use in local traffic, the whole of the rolling stock of both companies was destroyed, and that all the guards, engine-drivers, firemen, pointsmen, and porters had emigrated. Though the permanent way and the stations still remained intact, is it conceivable that any other company could take up the traffic of both lines without a long delay ?

We are told that the Americans could take over our carrying trade, buying or pretending to buy our ships, and easily naturalising our ships' crews. If the United States

were not a Protectionist country, this might be possible, though difficult. One result of it would be the ruin of the shipbuilding interest on the ocean coasts of the Republic. Not only the ships taken over, but also those needed to supply the periodical waste, would be built in Great Britain, or not be built at all. As the greater portion of the carrying trade must continue to be with our own ports, there would be no special difficulties in the way of keeping up the supply of substitutes for worn-out or wrecked vessels, or of refitting others in English establishments. The necessary conditions of economy under which the trade would have to be conducted would compel a resort to the cheapest market for completed ships and for repairs; and for a long time to come the cheapest market will not be found on the other side of the Atlantic. It is nearly certain that the whole Protectionist interest would combine to prevent their system being breached by the ruin of the shipbuilders, enginemakers, and allied trades.

6

It is evident that, unless we wish to suffer grievous, perhaps disastrous, loss, we must defend our trade in war, instead of transferring it. That we can do the former has been proved in many a war. In four years,' says the writer of a recent French book,* speaking of the Seven Years' War, France lost twenty-seven ships of the line. 'Commerce no longer existed. The premium of insurance was 30 per cent. for French vessels; whilst English vessels 'did not pay more than in time of peace.' Our Mediterranean interests, as we have already said, are too great to lose; and we can only secure them by retaining our naval predominance in that sea. Our gratitude to the great seamen of former days, and our admiration of their feats, executed often with heavy odds against them, should not blind us to the fact that our wonderful success at sea has been largely owing to the possession of a strong navy. In the Seven Years' War, and in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars-the contests on which we can look back with most satisfaction-our fleet was always much stronger than that of any single enemy, and not much, if at all, inferior in effective strength to those of all our enemies put together.

Not only is the maintenance of our naval position in the Mediterranean beneficial to the British Empire; we are

* Essai sur l'Administration de la Marine Française, 1689-1792,' by Lambert de Sainte-Croix. Paris, 1892. P. 184,

sincerely of opinion that it is also beneficial to all the Mediterranean States, not excepting even France. As long as England is unquestionably at the head of all the Mediterranean Powers, tranquillity in that sea is assured. As long as we can peacefully carry on our trade there, so long will the wealth of the countries with which we do business be able to increase. Banish the British flag from the ports of Spain, of Austria-Hungary, of Italy, of France, of Algeria, and what would be the effect on their industrial development? Add to the absence of the British trading-vessel the activity of the British cruiser in belligerent guise, and what would become, for example, of the trade of Algeria ?

Pre-eminence at sea is so manifestly essential to the British Empire, that the French, in all probability, are not really jealous of it any more than we are jealous of their immense strength on land. As far as fighting-power goes, France is unquestionably the most powerful nation in the world at this moment. Her army is equal too, if not stronger than, that of her great neighbour and late antagonist; and she has a navy which far surpasses in numbers and in every phase of efficiency that of any other Continental State. We have already intimated that it is extremely improbable that France can ever succeed in her expressed desire of making the Western basin of the Mediterranean a French lake. There is one event which, if it should happen, will effectually destroy all chance of that result and at the same time prevent her from retaining the respectable eminence which she now enjoys in the Levant. That event is the appearance of a Russian fleet in the Mediterranean proper. Our own position will not be materially affected thereby; at all events, it will not be affected so far that it cannot be restored with ease. As regards France it will be different. She will experience more than a decline of the influence which she undoubtedly exercises in the Levant at present; she will be to a great extent excluded from it. If there be any country which should hesitate to disturb the balance of power in the Mediterranean, that country, before all others, is France.

ART. V.-Memoirs of the Verney Family during the Civil War. Compiled from the Letters and .illustrated by the Portraits at Claydon House. By FRANCES PARTHENOPE VERNEY. 2 vols. 8vo. London: 1892.

2. Letters and Papers of the Verney Family, down to the End of the Year 1639. Printed from the original MSS. with the permission of Sir HARRY VERNEY, Bart. Edited by JOHN BRUCE, Esq. Printed for the Camden Society. London: 1853.

A UNION of fertility and rural beauty is certainly the essential element of typical English landscape. The moorlands of Yorkshire, the downs of Sussex, have a peculiar charm, but they are not typical English landscape, for the sense of fertility is absent. But anyone who may perchance be led into the northern parts of the county of Buckingham finds himself surrounded by it. From almost any one of the villages which crown the summits of the gentle hills which rise and fall between the steep edges of the Chilterns and the town of Buckingham, the eye is filled with a fertile and beautiful country. Rich meadows and abundant timber, grey churches and thatched cottages, half hidden by overshadowing elms, combine the elements of fertility and beauty, not only when field and hedgerow shimmer in the summer haze, but when the rifts in the rain clouds, broken and driven by a February gale, reveal across a valley of pastures the outline of each distant hill.

In this attractive country, midway-not to speak too accurately between Buckingham and Aylesbury, lie the three Claydons--Steeple, Middle, and East-with the hamlet of Botolph Claydon. Steeple and East Claydon are villages which, like so many of those in the Vale of Aylesbury, are but a small group of picturesque cottages, surrounding the church which crowns the hill. Middle Claydon is, as its name implies, between the two other villages; but the church is not its centre. For, like Hampden Church, where the remains of the great patriot lie, it is in the park of the squire-or, rather, at his door, on his very lawn. It cannot be dissociated from Claydon House, either in fact or in sentiment; in the one are tombs and effigies of Verneys, in the other the walls are covered with pictures of them and of their Buckinghamshire kinsmen, and each written record strengthens by historic continuity the tie of locality.

Claydon House, indeed, has been long the property and