Page:The Specimen Case.djvu/150

Rh "Then I have," retorted Trentford, with a touch of senile stubbornness. "I propose that the seat of government be transferred to Oxford; that Gurney shall be instructed to join fleets with Colenso and force the passage of the Elbe, while France fulfils her obligations by demonstrating along the frontier, and"

Sir William Mollineux glanced down the table and nodded to a colleague.

"My lord," interposed the man who had been singled out, "we have received the most explicit warning that while this incredible fleet of Krupp-Parsevals is in being, France will be unable to make any move."

Trentford stared blankly at the speaker. "In the face of the most definite"

"Mastery of the air overrides all treaties," commented another.

"It is no use, Trentford," said the Premier, gathering the decision of the Council at a glance. "All the navies and all the armies in the world are not worth one Krupplin in the light of our present information. Let us dismiss armies and navies from our calculations. There are only two classes of Powers to-day: Germany, and the rest of the world."

"And if we accept the terms forced on us, and abandon all hope of building a rival air-fleet, there can never be anything else."

"Until a new force comes into being," replied the Premier, with a sudden gleam of kindling enthusiasm. "What form it will take we cannot guess, and perhaps we shall never know; but in the future I can confidently foresee some undreamt-of bending of the forces of nature to the use of man's ingenuity by which the Krupplins of that time will be as impotent as the Dreadnoughts of to-day, and the nation that relies on their pre-eminence to usurp the sovereignty of the world will be trapped and