their own flags; while the English-speaking people
of the British Empire and the United States had twenty times as much
land, fit for whites, on which to grow bigger and bigger populations of
their own blood under their own flags. This meant that the new,
strong, and most ambitious German Empire was doomed to an
ever-dwindling future as a world-power in comparison with the British
Empire. The Germans could not see why they should not have as good a
"place in the sun" of the white man's countries as the British, whom
they now looked on very much as our ancestors looked upon the oversea
Spaniards about the time of the Armada. "Why," they asked, "should the
British have so much white man's country while we have so little?"

There are only three answers, two that the Germans understand as well
as we do, and one that, being what they are, they could hardly be
expected to admit, though it is the only one that justifies our case.
The two answers which the Germans understand are of course these: that
we had the sea-power while they had not; and that, because we had it,
we had reaped the full benefit of "first come, first served." But the
third answer, which is much the most important, because it turns upon
the question of right and wrong, is that while the Germans, like the
Spaniards, have grossly abused their imperial powers, we, on the whole,
with all our faults, have not.

There are so many crimes for which the Germans have to answer that this
whole book could not contain the hundredth part of them. But one crime
in one of their oversea possessions will be enough to mention here,
because it was all of a piece with the rest. In German South-West
Africa the Herreros, a brave native people, were robbed if they worked
hard for the German slave-drivers, flogged till their backs were flayed
if they did not, and killed if they stood up for their rights. There
are plenty of German photographs to prove that the modern Germans are
very like the Spaniards of Philip II and utterly unlike the kindly
modern French, Italians, Americans, and British. The world itself is
witness now, and its conscience is the judge. So there we shall leave
our case and turn to follow the ever thickening plot of coming war.

In 1889 Britain spent an extra hundred million dollars on building new
men-of-war. Next year Germany got Heligoland from Britain in exchange
for Zanzibar. Heligoland is only a tiny inland off the North Sea coast
of Germany.