Mr. Balfour is generally sound on questions of national defence,
and his speech on Thursday was no exception. He dwelt with gravity on the terrible evils which had flown from the relaxed shipbuilding programme. He also pointed out that though Germany might be embarrassed by an unsua- cessful sea war with this country, she would not be in any vital sense injured, but that our existence as a nation would come to an end. That of course is our ground for saying that if there is ever to be a limitation of armaments by agreement, it must be on the basis of our commanding the sea,—a basis which of course the other nations, and certainly Germany, will never voluntarily accept as part of the public law of the civilised world. Mr. Balfour ended his speech by expressing grave doubts as to whether we still possess an adequate margin of safety. By the Prime Minister's own account, said Mr. Balfour, there was no earthly reason for supposing that we may not at the end of 1912 have a margin of only three Dreadnoughts' over the German Fleet. "Has the House ever been content with so small a margin as that ? " Finally, Mr. Balfour noted that the Prime Minister had made no reference to the two-Power standard.
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