THE sagacity of England is in nothing more clearly shown than in the foresight with which she has provided against the emergency of war. Let it come when it may, it will not find her unprepared. So thickly are her colonies and naval stations scattered over the face of the Earth, that her war-ships can speedily reach every commercial centre on the globe.
There is that great centre of commerce, the Mediterranean Sea. It was a great centre long ago, when the Ph?nician① traversed it, and, passing through the Pillars of Hercules,② sped on his way to the distant and then savage Britain. It was a great centre when Rome and Carthage③ wrestled in a death- grapple for its possession. But at the present day England is as much at home on the Mediterranean as if it were one of her own Canadian lakes.
Nor is it simply the number of the British colonies, or the evenness with which they are distributed, that challenges our admiration. The positions which these colonies occupy, and their natural military strength, are quite as important facts. There is not a sea or a gulf in the world, which has any real commercial importance, but England has a stronghold on its shores. And wherever the continents tending southward come to points, around which the commerce of nations must sweep, there is a British settlement; and the cross of St. George salutes you as you are wafted by. There is hardly a little desolate, rocky island or peninsula, formed apparently by Nature for a fortress, and nothing else, but the British flag floats securely over it.
These are literal facts. Take, for example, the great Overland④Routefrom Europe to Asia. Despite its name, its real highwayis on the waters of the Mediterranean and Red Seas. It has threegates-three only. England holds the key to every one of these gates. Count them-Gibraltar, Malta, Aden. But she commands the entrance to the Red Sea, not by one, but by several strongholds. Midway in the narrow strait is the black, bare rock of Perim, sterile, precipitous, a perfect counterpart of Gibraltar; and on either side, between it and the mainland, are the ship-channels which connect the Red Sea with the great Indian Ocean. This England holds.
A little farther out is the peninsula of Aden, another Gibraltar, as rocky, as sterile, and as precipitous, connected with the mainland by a narrow strait, and having a harbour safe in all winds, and a central coal dep?t. This England bought in 1839. And to complete her security, she has purchased from some petty sultan the neighbouring islands of Socotra and Kouri, giving, as it were, a retaining fee, so that, though she does not need them herself, no rival power may ever possess them.
As we sail a little farther on, we come to the Chinese Sea. What a beaten track of commerce is this! What wealth of comfort and luxury is wafted over it by every breeze! The teas of China! The silks of Farther India! The spices of the East! The ships of every clime and nation swarm on its waters! The stately barques of England, France, and Holland! The swift ships of America! And mingled with them, in picturesque confusion, the clumsy junk of the Chinaman, and the slender, darting canoe of the Malaysian islanders.
At the lower end of the China Sea, where it narrows into Malacca Strait, England holds the little island of Singapore-a spot of no use to her whatever, except as a commercial depot, but of inestimable value for that; a spot which, under her fostering care, is growing up to take its place among the great emporiums of the world. Half way up the sea she holds the⑤island of Labuan,whose chief worth is this, that beneath
