president of the Alliance, and one of its founders; but there is no chance of the acceptance of the bill by the present Parliament. The extension of the franchise to the farm laborers, which is expected to take place this year, will greatly improve the chances of agricultural reformers.

Two proposals for land-tenure reform, not yet mentioned, deserve notice. The first, which is not likely to be realized, is Mr. Jesse Collings's scheme for settling farm laborers on the land as peasant-proprietors with the aid of State funds. The second is of far greater importance, and is likely to exercise a very important influence upon the politics of the future. I refer to the nationalization of the land, rendered very popular among our working classes especially by the wide circulation of Mr. Henry George's "Progress and Poverty" and Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace's "Land Nationalization." Mr. George's arguments are exceedingly powerful, though some of his statements are greatly exaggerated, and his political economy is shaky; but his practical scheme is in all respects as bad as it could possibly be. In the first place, it would be a gross injustice to take the land without compensating existing owners; and in the second place, to tax the land up to within ten per cent. of its letting value and still to leave owners to do what they can with it, would lead to such extremes of rack-renting as would ruin agriculture altogether. Mr. Wallace's scheme is a very different one. would value the bare land, apart from improvements and buildings, pay the annual value of the bare land to owners and the last of their living heirs for life, take the same annual value from the occupiers of the land as rent, and give the latter fixity of tenure and the power of selling their Tenant Right, including all improvements. When owner and tenant are both entitled to some of the improvements, one would have to buy the other out. The present owners might hold as much land as they chose to occupy, paying rent to the State; but subletting would be forbidden. Rents would be revalued at fixed intervals, so as to take the "unearned increment" for the State, but not to touch improvements. The general effect of the scheme would be to give the three F's to the occupiers of land, and to make the State the sole landlord. There would be no risk of loss to the State, unless the value of the whole land of the country should diminish an exceedingly unlikely contingency, especially as ground rents in towns would be nationalized as well as agricult

He

ural rents. This scheme has been utterly misrepresented by all its adverse critics. The chief ground of objection taken is the alleged expense of State superintendence; but there would not be any more expense in collecting the quit-rent on the land than in collecting an ordinary land or income tax. One thing is certain: if the land in this country ever should be nationalized, landowners will be fairly dealt with. As to the compensation to landlords, some say it is too much, and others that it is too little. Of course, the difficulty of carrying the scheme into effect would be enormous, and for that reason, if for no other, the proposal is not yet within the region of practical politics; but if our landlords continue to oppose the most moderate reforms of our land system, as they have done hitherto, public indignation will some day force a sweeping measure through Parliament.

WILLIAM E. BEAR.

A DEFENSELESS SEA-BOARD.

NEARLY twenty-two years ago (March 9, 1862), the famous naval duel between the Monitor and the Merrimac, in Hampton Roads, effected a revolution in sea-coast defense and maritime warfare. Prior to this memorable event, our system of coast fortification was as good as any in the world, and the ordnance with which our forts were armed was as heavy and as effective as that of any power in Europe; while our navy, though small, was a source of just pride, because of the perfection of its models and the construction of its vessels, and of their armament and equipment.

In the winter of 1858-59, while I was on leave of absence from the army, in Europe, I went aboard the Wabash in the harbor of Genoa. She was one of four frigates constructed about two years previously in our navy-yards,- of which the Merrimac, afterward used against us with such fatal effect, was another, -and was the flag-ship of the Mediterranean squadron. I can never forget the emotions of pride that surged up to my very throat on pacing her deck and contrasting her with the warvessels of other powers, of which there were several in port. She was the gem of the harbor; in power, speed, grace, and beauty the superior of everything that rode the waves of the Mediterranean at that time.

On my subsequent visits abroad, in 1869 and again in 1870, the change in our naval status relatively to other powers was painfully marked. It was notably lower, though foreign naval architecture and armament were very far from having attained the stage of perfection which they have now reached; and the military and naval prestige we had gained during our protracted civil war was still comparatively fresh. After a more recent residence of a few years in Europe, whence I returned in 1881, I am compelled to say that now the condition of our navy and

the estimates made of its efficiency by foreign officers are most humiliating to the national pride.

By many of the younger officers in foreign naval services,the indiscreet Hotspurs who rashly give vent to their uppermost thoughts, a hostile demonstration of armored ships along our sea-board is hoped for, in the belief that it would turn out a sort of holiday excursion, accompanied by some glory, cheaply earned, and followed by unexampled prize-money. Laying the western Atlantic coast under tribute is a day-dream of many an embryo Peterborough and Paul Jones. And what is there to prevent its realization?

The diffuseness of official reports, and frequently their dry elaboration of detail rendered necessary by the requirements of official routine, often deter the general public from a careful examination of them; and the warnings and remonstrances of the ablest and most experienced officers of our army and navy, whose duties have specially led them to the consideration of this subject, remain practically unheeded. All appropriations by Congress for our sea-coast defenses have been limited, during the past eight years, to the protection, preservation, and repair of our obsolete and now utterly inefficient fortifications. Indeed, this has been the case practically since 1865. While large sums have been voted and expended for the improvement of harbors without commerce, and of streams which no expenditure of money could make available for commercial navigation, the harbor defenses of our great sea-port cities, where the commerce of the entire country is chiefly centered, have been shamefully neglected.

After the absolute impotence of wooden walls to resist iron walls had been conclusively demonstrated by the operations of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads, and the brilliant action between the Monitor and herself had revealed the capabilities and possibilities of this new system of naval warfare, Great Britain at once proceeded to meet the new and startling exigencies developed, and appropriated £8,000,000 for the defense of its most important harbors. Since then it has expended, in addition, not less than £20,000,000 for armored ships and rifled ordnance, and in experimental tests of guns and projectiles of the greatest crushing and penetrating energy attainable, and of armor-plates capable of withstanding the impact of these ponderous projectiles (the densest and largest being of compressed

steel and weighing 2110 lbs.), impelled by charges of powder so immense as to surpass the wildest dreams of the artillerists of twenty years ago.

The extreme test of heavy guns fired with enormous powdercharges was made by the Italian Government in 1882, at Spezzia. An Armstrong breech-loading, rifled 100-ton gun, caliber 17 inches and 33 feet length of bore, was fired with a charge of 776 lbs. of powder, giving the projectile, which weighed 2000 lbs., an initial velocity of 1832 feet a second and an initial energy of 46,580 foot-tons. This tremendous result is certainly exceptional, and the charge of powder employed to accomplish it equally so; but charges of a quarter of a ton of powder are common for this immense gun, and give the projectile a velocity of more than a thousand feet a second at the distance of over five miles.

When these, and similar results of the new rifled ordnance of smaller caliber are contrasted with the old ordnance of our fortifications along the sea-board, and attention is directed to the fact that these fortifications—which were planned and constructed to resist the ordnance of twenty-five years ago—have not been essentially modified nor materially strengthened, the defenselessness of our sea-ports will be plainly manifest.

The protection of our cities and ports necessarily depends upon the ability of our navy and our sea-coast and harbor defenses to resist successfully the approach and entrance to our harbors of any fleet that a hostile power may be able to concentrate for the purpose. Our navy is in no condition to operate along the coast outside, in the open sea, with the slightest effectiveness against such fleets as half a dozen naval powers could easily put in motion against us. Its sphere would necessarily be limited chiefly to operations within our principal harbors, in conjunction with our sea-coast fortifications, batteries, and other land defenses.

In a report to the Secretary of the Navy, during the last Congress, Admiral Porter remarks:

"Our entire system of arming ships must be changed, if we expect the navy to be of any service in case of war with a foreign power.

"It is of little use to build ships when we are without guns of proper caliber to mount on them.

"We possess no government workshops of sufficient magnitude to supply even the small navy we have at present with large guns.