1500l. to settle a family, yet each settler could and would gladly pay 3 per cent. on such an outlay to any Government that established him on the land, and that Government would hold the best possible security in the land and the homestead. Any Government would find it a safe investment for public money, an investment that would save by increased production some 150,000,000l. a year.

We are told that Disraeli made a fine investment for public money when he took up the Suez Canal shares, but it was a bare speculation compared to the establishment of our derelict people at home on their own native land, to produce the necessaries of life, thereby saving this country many millions a year; it cannot be compared to the benefit that would be derived by stabilising and giving security to labour through a comprehensive national land settlement policy.

Such a policy would galvanise into life a new and vigorous internal trade such as has never been known in this country, and would go far to balance our import and export trade.

It has been said that this country could only regain its export trade if the Treasury started to print and issue unlimited paper money, that this would bring down our exchange from the Olympic heights at which it at present stands to a level at which our export trade could once more compete in the world market.

Be this as it may, it certainly would be sound finance to raise on the national credit, by exchequer bonds or any other bonds, a sum to start in motion a great land settlement scheme on a completely revised Small Holding Act.

If we raised on our high national credit 400,000,000l., trade would benefit, not suffer, if it reduced the pound sterling in the markets of the world. Our export trade would flow easier at every fall of our exchange, while at home our trade would directly benefit to the extent of 400,000,000l. spent on organising our internal agricultural resources. And when these developments were completed and in full working order, we should save annually some 150,000,000l. a year.

Is there any reason why a Land Ministry should not be formed on the lines of our self-governing colonies for the purpose of settling suitable families on the land? In the colonies they have brought their legislation to a point of great efficiency where it relates to agriculture and the development of the resources of the land. New Zealand has a clause in her Land Laws Amendment Act of 1913 which gives the following powers to her Land Ministry :

That the Government can compulsorily take over private land (not within a borough or town district) in cases where, in the opinion of the Board of Land Purchase Commissioners, such land has been acquired by way of aggregation, and where such aggregation is contrary to the public interest. Compensation is payable for all land so taken.

The land policy of all our colonies, notwithstanding their vast unpopulated areas, has been to check and control the evils resulting from harmful aggregation, and through the careful supervision and distribution of small settlers they have grown rich and prosperous.

Is it too much to ask that our Government should do the same? Is it too much to expect our people, the crude material which our colonies in the past have found so valuable, to be moulded into useful agricultural workers owning their own land and enriching the country of their birth in the same way?

Such a Land Settlement policy would at once absorb all the artisans unemployed in constructive work. It would solve naturally the housing problem, and save the Government and corporations from the blunder of building tenement houses for tenants who have lost their means of subsistence.

Every house built under the Land Settlement policy would have land to maintain the occupants and enable them to pay 3 per cent. on capital outlay. Surely this is wise legislation and sound finance ?

We have seen how the disabled ex-service men have struggled to keep their holdings, in spite of the harsh treatment of an unsympathetic Ministry of Agriculture.

Can we not safely expect from what we know to-day of the existing small holders, and from the craving of our urban population for allotments, that the derelict industrialists would gladly take up holdings and make good under a Land Ministry modelled on colonial lines, especially if this Ministry was made responsible for instruction in profitable intensive cultivation and the grading of produce ?

Is it too much to expect a Government of ours to adopt and carry out such a policy? Is it too much to expect public opinion to endorse such a policy and actively to insist upon its being carried out in the shortest possible time?

E. HAMMOND FOOT.

THE IMPERIAL CONFERENCE AND THE PACIFIC

'Peace is the dream of the wise. War is the history of man.'-SEGUR.

THE acid test of the success or failure of the Imperial Conference which is to meet this month will be found in the decisions taken or avoided with regard to the problems of the Pacific. The Conference has to reach an agreement-(a) as to Imperial policy; (b) as to plans to carry out that policy; (c) as to coordinated executive action-in other words, machinery and funds to carry out those plans. Provision has to be made for an organ, on which soldiers and sailors shall be represented as well as politicians, to receive information on all the above points at the centre, to co-ordinate it, eliminating departmental friction, and to distribute so much of it as may be made public, so that the electorate here and beyond the seas may know what is going forward.

In general, the task of the Conference is to continue and develop the unity or concentration of power displayed in the Great War with economy, but without undue limitation of expenditure where efficiency is concerned.

British foreign policy appears to foreigners to be continuous and consistent. It is, in fact, the maintenance of our maritime strength and thereby of our trade and security.

The balance of power of which historians and diplomatists talk is only a means towards the maintenance of our naval position, not an end in itself. Our naval position was established in 1340 at the Battle of Sluys, and at the beginning of the next century' English policy' was defined as ' to cherish merchandise, keep the Admiralty that we be masters of the narrow sea.' Our sphere of influence has widened, but our policy has never varied. It would be an advantage if all British statesmen were constantly aware of this continuity and what it involves. British home policy has had in consequence, in spite of occasional backsliding, for centuries two main objects: the maintenance of a sound system of finance and of complete naval preparedness. These are the means on which, under Providence, British foreign policy has relied against Louis XIV., Napoleon, and William II. Whatever may be the

future of the League of Nations, the British Empire at the present moment represents a league of peace in which men of all colours and religions are concerned, embracing not less than one-fifth of the surface of the globe and not less than a fourth of mankind. That Empire is scattered all over the globe, and is connected, not by roads, but by sea. Its heart and nerve centre contains about three-quarters of the British population, and is dependent on the import by sea of the largest part of its food and raw materials, which are paid for by the export of coal and manufactured goods. The outlying population is scattered over Dominions and Dependencies which are in many cases crying aloud for more of the superabundant home population. Financial soundness is the domestic affair of each of the sister States represented at the Conference, but naval preparedness is an Imperial problem on which there must be deliberation in common.

The questions, then, to be considered are, What is the relation of the Pacific to the whole Empire, and in what way is the maintenance of our naval position there threatened? What decisions must be taken to meet that risk? In what proportion are the expenses involved to be shared among the nations represented at the Imperial Conference?

The Far Eastern naval problem is one which concerns the Empire as a whole, for, as Lord Jellicoe says, we have to take into consideration the naval requirements of the Pacific and Indian Oceans at one and the same time. The question is, How can the naval forces of the Empire stationed in Far Eastern waters co-operate? Sea communications in Indian and Chinese waters as well as in the remainder of the Pacific are matters of concern to the people of Australia and New Zealand, and conversely the safety of communications in the South Pacific and in the China Seas is of interest to the people of India. Similarly the safety of the bases at Colombo 1 and Singapore is vital to Australia and New Zealand, and the safety of Sydney and other naval bases in the South Pacific and of Singapore and Colombo is of the greatest importance to India. Even the prosperity of South Africa is associated with the problem in a lesser degree, while Canada is intimately connected therewith.

1

It follows that the Far Eastern fleet should be provided by those constituent parts of the Empire, including Great Britain, for which it is a vital necessity, and that there should be the closest co-operation, with unity of direction in war, between the various squadrons composing that fleet.

It may be remarked in passing that ever since 1815 the British Fleet has not only been the sure shield of the Empire against

1 Trincomali, which was more or less abandoned as a subsidiary base before the Great War, is more suitable than Colombo. (Cp. The Times, July 1923.)

aggression, but it has also policed the seas in the interests of mankind, putting down, for instance, the curse of slavery in the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf and on the East Coast of Africa, and securing to the smaller nations, such as the Dutch and the Portuguese, possessions of great value which would otherwise undoubtedly have been taken from them by stronger Powers.

We are now in the trough of the aftermath of the war, and no one can believe that any highly educated and intelligent nation can wish to renew its horrors, but we must remember the aphorism of Segur, 'Peace is the dream of the wise. War is the history of man,' and the still older maxims' Si vis pacem para bellum'; When the strong man armed keepeth his house, his goods are in peace.' 2

But what, it will be asked, are the reasons which would induce, or perhaps compel, an enlightened and far-seeing Governmentand such we all recognise the Government of Japan to be-to nourish the ambitious project of crossing the path of its former ally?

The reasons may be summarised under the following heads: (1) Population and habits; (2) commerce and markets; (3) industry and Socialism; (4) finance; (5) strategy; (6) history; (7) politics.

Population.

The international problem in the Pacific is primarily due to the excess of population in Japan. According to the census of 1920, the islands of Japan, of which the main are Nippon, Shikoku, Kiushiu and Yezo (Hokkaido), with a total area of 148,756 square miles, have a population of 55,961,140, in other words a density almost equal to that of the British Islands and almost double that of France; but the density is even greater because of the far larger proportion of mountain and uninhabitable land. Although essentially an agricultural land, in 1919 Japan imported food to the value of 25,000,000l. Rice is the staple food, yet the area of rice cannot be increased, and a rise in the price of rice provokes populace revolts. The outlets of population to America, Canada and Australia are closed. The outlet to the North is not utilised because the Japanese population prefers warmer countries where rice can be grown. In fifteen years (1905-20), in spite of every effort, the population of Japanese Saghalien has only reached 75,000, of whom 17,000 actually inhabit the island, while the rest come for the summer. In the last fifty years only has Japan begun to colonise Yezo (Hokkaido). Apart from the want of warmth for the cultivation of rice, the Japanese is essentially an islander and prefers to be near

It is easy to deplore with Lord Grey the renewa of competition in armaments, but Lord Grey himself admits that the country which does not take measures for its defence will perish' (Hansard, July 11, 1923, p. 980).