forthwith rejoin one or other of the flag officers at sea. There is reason to anticipate that this process will be continual during naval warfare, and the Admiralty will have to find comparatively small numbers of officers and men to make good the incidental casualties of war. This contention runs directly counter to popular ideas, but it emphasises the views of the most experienced naval officers, and has been supported by the conclusions arrived at by Sir Edward Grey's Committee after the most careful consideration.

REDUNDANT COLONIAL RESERVISTS.

In spite of the limited requirements of the Admiralty and the ample resources at their disposal, the British ratepayer, who bears practically the whole burden of the naval defence of the Empire, is expected to regard with feelings of gratitude and admiration the efforts of the Colonies to provide reservists for the Navy who are not required and in time of war could not be employed. According to the last Estimates several of the Colonies are devoting themselves with patriotic but misdirected enthusiasm to the task of building up such naval reserves. Newfoundland already has under training 600 men; Australia has 400; and Malta provides a similar quota. In the case of Newfoundland no monetary contribution is made to the support of the Fleet which defends this island, but the colonists are under the impression that they are assisting the Mother Country to bear the burden - of Empire by providing a number of men who are trained in naval duties largely at the expense of home taxpayers; for this Colony pays only a matter of £3,000 annually towards the outlay upon this costly experiment in Imperial naval defence. A large proportion of the men are periodically taken for cruises in his Majesty's ships, and are received in the home training establishments to perfect their knowledge in gunnery and torpedo drills. This training provides the reservists with employment at good pay during the dull season of the year; it enables them to see something of the world, affords facilities for a visit to the Mother Country under the most pleasant conditions, and then they return to their homes to carry on their avocations as fishermen. No one has yet explained how in time of war the Admiralty intend to utilise these colonial bluejackets. When hostilities break out they will probably be several thousand miles away from the war fleets.

Then we have the case of the Australian Commonwealth. A more extraordinary story of misapplied patriotism and waste of financial resources it would be difficult to imagine. The Australian Commonwealth and the Dominion of New Zealand contribute annually £240,000 towards the maintenance of an Aus

tralian squadron and the establishment of a branch of the Royal Naval Reserve. This has always been regarded by the Mother Country as an indication of the generous desire of the Australasian peoples to co-operate in naval defence; but they have received good value. Probably the sum spent on the local squadron, the dockyard and hospital, and other establishments at Sydney, and the colonial reservists, who receive far higher pay than British sailors, is not much less than twice this contribution. Has such a squadron any justification in any Imperial scheme of defence on strategic grounds? What enemy has Australasia at her doors? The sub-continent is isolated. Its inhabitants are between 4,000 and 5,000 miles from the shores of our ally Japan, and are rather nearer the British squadron at Hong Kong. They have nothing to fear from the United States, divorced by nearly 7,000 miles of ocean. Germany has one old gunboat only in that part of the world. The Australasians have no cause to anticipate attack by sea until the British Fleet as a whole has been defeated irretrievably, and then no local defence would be of any avail to them. An impregnable Imperial Navy is and must remain their sheet anchor. A cursory glance at the map is sufficient to show that Australia is defended by the naval forces which are based upon Aden, Hong Kong, and Simonstown immediately, and ultimately by the battle fleets in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, the English Channel, and the North Sea.

The Mother Country and the Colonies are treading the wrong road, or rather roads. The United Kingdom has held on its own course, without reference to the colonists, because it finds the money, and at the same time has preached in professional jargon to deaf ears the gospel of a single and indivisible Empire defended by a single Fleet. It has been at no pains to explain to the trans-marine peoples, by an appeal to history, the principles upon which the Fleet is maintained, distributed, and controlled. The colonists, on their part, with the sole exception of Canada, have groped in the dark for some means of co-operating with the Mother Country. Some of them have made contributions in cash, which now, with India's subvention, amount to 15 per cent. of the aggregate expenditure, and in return a far larger sum is returned out of the Navy Votes in the way of pay to colonial reservists, in the outlay on local squadrons, and in the sums which naval officers and men spend in colonial ports.

SAFETY IN NAVAL CO-OPERATION.

For years the Mother Country and the Colonies have been wandering in the wilderness, they have got no nearer a satisfactory goal, and in these circumstances has arisen the desire in the Commonwealth for a local navy, and the decision of Canada

to appoint Rear-Admiral C. E. Kingsmill as naval adviser, apparently with the intention of creating a Canadian Navy, of which the nucleus already exists. The British Government stands by, an impassive spectator, while the daughter lands are drawn into the vortex of the competition of armaments waged by the naval Powers of the world. If Australia is to provide a navy, can she rest content with one less powerful than that of Japan? If Canada is to maintain a fleet, which can only be used against the United States, can she be satisfied with a naval establishment less considerable than that of the United States, which entails an annual outlay of upwards of £20,000,000. For about a million and a half per annum any British Colony could secure such a Navy as Holland possesses-a few coast-defence ships and a flotilla of torpedo craft. Such a force would tickle local pride in time of peace, but of what value would it be in time of war? It might vary for a short period the ultimate course of a war. But an even smaller sum added by each of the principal Colonies to the Imperial Naval Budget would enable such a fleet to be maintained as would guarantee peace throughout the Empire. This is the end of British naval expenditure; the standard of expenditure is high because we have adopted a TwoPower Standard not to make victory sure, but in the hope of making war impossible owing to our impregnability.

The maintenance in the future of such a guarantee of peace is worthy of effort. Some scheme of co-operation for naval defence between the Mother Country and the great self-governing Colonies could surely be reached by negotiation. The strategical disposition of the Fleet must remain in the hands of the experts -the Sea Lords, who in the future, as in the past, may be of colonial birth, like Admiral Sir Archibald Douglas, a Canadian. But for the rest there is no obstacle to representatives of the over-sea dependencies having a voice in administration as members of a real and effective Committee of Imperial Defence. This would prove an additional and powerful bond of union, each Colony contributing and being represented in proportion to its contribution. In these circumstances, the present plan of conferring naval commissions on the sons of colonists might be extended, and arrangements could be made to enable colonial lads of humble parentage to enter the Navy not as reservists, but as ordinary ratings for long service. They would necessarily be trained in the Mother Country, where the great "naval schools" are situated, but those coming from Australia might return to serve a large part of their time in their own waters, under a proportion, at least, of their own officers. The same procedure could be followed in the case of New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, and Newfoundland.

The only limit to the success of such a scheme would be the measure of naval enthusiasm in the Colonies. Instead of possessing small flotillas, which could hardly prove of local service in war, they would have the knowledge that by their contributions of money, brains and muscle they were joint partners in a scheme of defence which, by very reason of the unity of sentiment and control and of the extent of its ramifications, would be a practical guarantee of peace. Such an arrangement would save the Colonies from being drawn directly into the extravagant contest of naval armaments, and would thus result in vast economies; it would relieve appreciably the burden which the Fleet must otherwise cast on the Mother Country, and it would secure to the Empire another hundred years of peace on the sea despite the efforts of rivals.

In the near future the cost of the British Navy must rise to £40,000,000 if the Two-Power Standard is to be maintained, and under a scheme of Imperial co-operation the burden might be distributed thus:

Such a plan of co-operation would safeguard the Two-Power Standard for one hundred years, would effect a union of purpose between the Mother Country and the over-sea dominions, would enable the Admiralty to place half a dozen battleships at any desirable moment once more at Hong Kong and thus assuage all possible cause of anxiety in the Commonwealth, and would give cach section of the Empire an interest in the Flect as the emblem of unity of a sea-divided Empire. A Navy on this basis would be the subject of an Imperial contract for a fixed term of years, and through the reconstructed Committee of Imperial Defence each portion of the Empire would have a channel for making its voice heard, while every Colony would have the right of entry for its sons into the force, as officers or as men. Under such a scheme the naval shams which are being fostered to-day would die a natural and unregretted death. They make provision for playing with war, whereas an Imperial Fleet, by its very size and the spirit animating it, would be a guarantee of peace. ARCHIBALD S. HURD.

KAMIL PASHA AND THE SUCCESSION IN TURKEY.1

IN the night of Saturday, the 12th, to Sunday, the 13th January, 1907, there occurred in Smyrna, the second largest city of the Ottoman Empire, in some respects more important than the capital itself, an event which created a sensation throughout the Turkish dominions, although the British Press confined itself to a few brief paragraphs, some containing ridiculous errors. The great Austrian newspapers had long, minute, and correct accounts, even leaders; the German Press was also fairly complete and accurate in its reports; but all that the London dailies could, or chose to, offer to their readers was a few lines in obscure corners. Only those who are in the habit of reading the Vienna dailies know how singularly bald, illinformed, and unreliable the British Press is on all that concerns the Near East.

The incident referred to is the flight of Kamil Pasha, Governor of Aidin, to the British Consulate in Smyrna. To gauge its importance to the Turks, we would have to imagine a parallel case in England, say Mr. John Burns flying from the wrath of his colleagues in the Cabinet into the French Embassy in London, and claiming sanctuary there.

For in Turkish popular opinion the Governor (Vali) of the province (vilayet) of Aidin, in Asia Minor (of which province Smyrna is the capital), is the second highest official of the Empire, the first being the Grand Vezier; moreover, this particular Governor has several times held the higher office. Legally, of course, the Aidin Vali does not rank next to the Grand Vezier; but it is the popular belief, and is also a "legal fiction," taken into account in promotions.

I was an eye-witness of the events of that memorable Sunday and the days following. A few weeks later I wrote a brief account of the incident, and sent it, together with my notes taken day by day, to a person in London, with instructions to make a continuous narrative and fair copy of the whole. I myself did not start for England until eight months afterwards, and was shipwrecked on the coast of Asia Minor. In the turmoil of the salvage my box containing memoranda was lost.

The FORTNIGHTLY has now requested me to bring the account up to date. On consideration I have decided to reproduce it

(1) This article was written some months ago. in the most startling manner confirmed its general

Recent events in Turkey have tenour.-[ED. F. R.]