Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/200

188 declared the need for a strong British Navy, but the rank and file of the Manchester School were so persuaded that Free Trade made for peace that they gave little thought to the special industrial requirements of sea-power; in their view any trade was equally good provided it were profitable. Yet Britain was fighting for her South American markets when her fleet maintained the Monroe doctrine against Germany in the Manila Incident, and for her Indian market when her fleet kept Germany at bay during the South African War, and for the open door to her China market when her fleet supported Japan in the Russian War. Did Lancashire realise that it was by force that the free import of cottons was imposed on India? Undoubtedly India has profited vastly on a balance by the British Raj, and no great weight of guilt need rest on the Lancashire conscience in this matter; but the fact remains that repeatedly, both within and without the Empire, free-trading, peace-loving Lancashire has been supported by the force of the Empire. Germany took note of the fact and built her fleet, and that fleet in being, and still in being to the end of the War, neutralised a mighty British effort which would have been available otherwise in support of our army in France.