QUEEN ELIZABETH'S NAVY.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1714, 3 April 1913, Page 6

QUEEN ELIZABETH'S NAVY.

Sir Sidney Lee, delivering at the ltoyal Institution, London, the first of a scries of. lecturcs on "Tlio Dawn of Empire in Shakespeare's Era," said that, on a liberal estimate, tho British dominions at tho end ot«Shakespearo's lifo covered less than 140,000 square miles, and tho subjects of the Crown numbered no rioro titan 5,000,000. The existing British Empire had an area a hundred times as great, and for each one of King James i's subjects King George had ninety. Sea power was a primary condition of colonisation and Empire, yet its signillcauco was unrecognised by Shakespeare or the mass of his countrymen. Even tho stirring episode of the Spanish Armada failed to bring fully liomo to the English Government tlio country's need of a national ihaval organisation. Tho nation owned alt Queen Elizabeth's death no ntore than twenty-nine ships of 100 ton 9 and . upwards. The naval expenditure averaged about .£15,000. It roso to .£90,000 at the time of tho Armada, but subsequently declined to tho average. Such figures looked odd beside tho =£45,000,000 which the Fleet costs to-day.