Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/239

 "Torpedo-boat destroyers could."

"But hang it all, man, our torpedo-boat destroyers can't live in mid-Atlantic, and if they could, have no coal storage sufficient for such a voyage. Mid-Atlantic, do I say? Why, these German boats could cruise just outside the three mile limit, fronting every principal port in North or South America from which wheat could be shipped, and nab the grain boats before they were five miles away from home."

"Not if the grain boats flew the American flag."

"Food is contraband of war, and the grain vessels would have to take their own risks. During the Civil War blockade-runners were destroyed by the United States, no matter what flag they flew."

"Granting all this is true"

"Granting? Why, of course it's true, every word of it. These islands could be starved into surrender within a month."

"I'm afraid you exaggerate, Mr. Wilmot. I myself have seen a man who fasted sixty days and was still in the ring."

The Right Honourable treated this interruption with the scorn that it deserved.

"You are making light of a serious question," he said, severely. "If the people of this country