Page:Letters to a friend on votes for women.djvu/99

 confidence that our present army is sufficient for our defence. It is uncertain, as we all now know, whether our navy can of itself guarantee the United Kingdom against invasion. On the Englishmen who, civilians though they remain, must, as high authorities tell us, receive military training, will depend the maintenance of England's independence, and the existence of the British Empire. In Ireland we have resistance to the law which Ministers refuse to put down, and which may any day be transformed into organized sedition. The spirit of nationality is moving in Egypt. From India we hear of widespread conspiracy which might some day make armed revolt a possibility. Meanwhile grave questions are pending in Eastern Europe, whence an armed conflict may arise from which our honour and our interests may make it impossible for us to hold aloof. The very vastness of our Empire, and the envy with which it is regarded by other nations, provoke and expose us to attack. The necessary intricacy and entanglement of our foreign and colonial policy make it more than ever needful that the country should be guided by the cool head,