f
European diplomacy. This is the origin of the rivalry, and it is to the
resentment which has been diligently cultivated in Germany against the
supposed British claim to supremacy at sea that is attributable the
great popularity among the people of Germany of the movement in favour
of the expansion of the German navy. Since 1884 the people of Germany
have been taught to regard with suspicion every item of British policy,
and naturally enough this auspicious attitude has found its counterpart
among the people of this country. The result has been that the
agreements by which England has disposed of a number of disagreements
with France and with Russia have been regarded in Germany as inspired by
the wish to prepare a coalition against that country, and, in view of
the past history of Great Britain, this interpretation can hardly be
pronounced unnatural.

Any cause for which Great Britain would fight ought to be intelligible
to other nations, first of all to those of Europe, but also to the
nations outside of Europe, at any rate to the United States and Japan,
for if we were fighting for something in regard to which there was no
sympathy with us, or which led other nations to sympathise with our
adversary, we should be hampered by grave misgivings and might find
ourselves alone in a hostile world.

Accordingly it cannot be sound policy for Great Britain to assert for
herself a supremacy or ascendency of the kind which is resented, not
only by Germany, but by every other continental State, and indeed by
every maritime State in the world. It ought to be made clear to all the
world that in fact, whatever may have been the language used in English
discussions, Great Britain makes no claim to suzerainty over the sea, or
over territories bordering on the sea, not forming parts of the British
Empire; that, while she is determined to maintain a navy that can in
case of war secure the "command" of the sea against her enemies, she
regards the sea, in peace, and in war except for her enemies, as the
common property of all nations, the open road forming the great highway
of mankind.

We have but to reflect on the past to perceive that the idea of a
dominion of the sea must necessarily unite other nations against us.
What in the sixteenth century was the nature of the dispute between
England and Spain? The British popular consciousness to-day remembers
two causes, of which one was religious antagonism, and the other the
claim set