The ocean trade
of those off-shoots or dependencies of the United Kingdom, viz.
the United States, Australasia, and India, is largely or chiefly
conducted by shipping of the old country. So that of Carthage was
largely conducted by old Phoenicians. These may have obtained a
'Carthaginian Register,' or the contemporary equivalent; but they
could not all have been purely Carthaginian or Liby-Phoenician.
This must have been the case even more with the war-navy. British
India for a considerable time possessed a real and indeed highly
efficient navy; but it was officered entirely and manned almost
entirely by men from the 'old country.' Moreover, it was small. The
wealth of India would have sufficed to furnish a larger material
element; but, as the country could not supply the _personnel_,
it would have been absurd to speak of the sea-power of India
apart from that of England. As soon as the Romans chose to make
the most of their natural resources the maritime predominance
of Carthage was doomed. The artificial basis of the latter's
sea-power would not enable it to hold out against serious and
persistent assaults. Unless this is perceived it is impossible to
understand the story of the Punic wars. Judged by every visible
sign of strength, Carthage, the richer, the more enterprising,
ethnically the more predominant amongst her neighbours, and
apparently the more nautical, seemed sure to win in the great
struggle with Rome which, by the conditions of the case, was to be
waged largely on the water.
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