if not avowing the letter of this, accepted the spirit and acted on it, had much to recommend it. Only very great necessity, however, would allow of such action being taken now-a-days. I once at the Royal United Service Institution read a paper in which it was tentatively suggested that if we declared that for every merchant ship captured we should destroy some unfortified town of the enemy, the mere threat of this would ensure perfect safety to commerce. A number of distinguished admirals, however, rose one after the other and with perfect unanimity condemned the scheme in most scorching terms on the grounds that it was brutal and inhuman. Public opinion would no doubt say the same about the hanging of corsairs' crews. At the same time both remain as England's demiers ressorts—and might seem more reasonable in the stress of war than when calmly discussed in peace.
Still there is every reason to believe that such a necessity ought not to arise, if only the British public representing the interests concerned can be persuaded that whatever defence scheme may be organised by the Navy, and whatever seeming failures may result, the really serious failures would arise over a scheme, half naval and half designed to satisfy popular notions as to what is most likely to constitute safety.
If past history of Parliament is any criterion Members of Parliament are probably the most dangerous menace. Compelled by the nature of things to voice any popular clamour, however 'engineered,' they
