Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/238

 "Were you shown the grain supply at either?"

"Can't remember that I was."

"No matter. Malta and Gibraltar possess store-houses, cellarage, in fact, containing grain to feed the population for years in case of a siege; yet here's our own home island unprovided with any Government storehouse of food. The fate of England, in case of a European war against her, will hang on the food supply; not on the question of invasion. England could be starved into surrender in a very few weeks. When you remember what a single steamer like the Alabama did, practically wiping off the ocean all the United States shipping, imagine what might be accomplished by the German mercantile marine, with its magnificent fleet of fast steamships, excelling in speed anything on the waters except less than half-a-dozen of our own. One well-placed shot would sink a grain ship, and these huge boats of the German-Lloyd and Hamburg-American lines could carry enough coal and provisions to keep them at sea for weeks, if not months, and after the first dozen or so food-ships were destroyed, no grain tramp would venture out from the American ports."

"But what would our fleet be doing all this time?"

"Our fleet couldn't catch them."