full force of overseas agricultural competition, crop farming in Great Britain decayed drastically.2 Cheaper bread for consumers, however beneficial to the urban working classes, also meant a radically increased vulnerability. By the 1880s, when 65 percent of Britain’s grain came from overseas, a fleet of enemy cruisers capable of intercepting grain shipments from the other side of the Atlantic could be expected to bring Great Britain face to face with starvation in a matter of months.