necessity of a supply of coal, and therefore by the secure possession
of coaling-stations at suitable intervals along any route by which the
fleet proposes to move, or by the goodwill of neutrals in permitting it
to coal at their depots. To-day, moreover, there are navies established
even in distant seas. In the Pacific, for example, are the fleets of
Japan and of the United States, and these, in their home waters, will
probably be too strong to be opposed by European navies acting at a vast
distance from their bases.

It seems likely, therefore, that neither Great Britain nor any other
State will in future enjoy that monopoly of sea power which was granted
to Great Britain by the circumstances of her victories in the last great
war. What I have called the great prize has in fact ceased to exist, and
even if an adversary were to challenge the British navy, the reward of
his success would not be a naval supremacy of anything like the kind or
extent which peculiar conditions made it possible for Great Britain to
enjoy during the nineteenth century. It would be a supremacy limited and
reduced by the existence of the new navies that have sprung up.

From these considerations a very important conclusion must be drawn. In
the first place, enough victory at sea is in case of war as
indispensable to Great Britain as ever, for it remains the fundamental
condition of her security, yet its results can hardly in future be as
great as they were in the past, and in particular it may perhaps not
again enable her to exert upon continental States the same effective
pressure which it formerly rendered possible.

In order, therefore, to bring pressure upon a continental adversary,
Great Britain is more than ever in need of the co-operation of a
continental ally. A navy alone cannot produce the effect which it once