int where British commerce
might be assailed. We should cease to be interested in {236} the
freedom of the seas because sharing the dominion of the seas. We
should have no leisure and no inclination to seek a more equal
utilisation of the backward countries. We should need armies and
navies to protect the approaches to England and to hold back the land
nations. Against us would work immense potential forces. Strong,
growing, ambitious populations, envying our arrogant sea-power and
forced by their insecurity to remain militaristic and become navalistic
would prepare unceasingly for the day when they could try conclusions
with us. The Anglo-Saxon Federation may be an exhilarating conception,
but it is not peace.

Parenthetically an agreement or understanding with Great Britain, less
ambitious and pretentious than the proposed federation, is in the
interest of the two nations. In the more than one hundred years of
acrid peace between the two countries, there has been revealed a
certain community of interest, which might properly be utilised to
prevent future conflicts. While we are not ready to involve ourselves
in Britain's European and imperialistic policies, and do not want a
whole world in arms against us, we do wish to avoid misunderstandings
with England. We should be better off were we to give Great Britain
assurances that we would not contest her naval supremacy (however much
we may strive to alter its nature), and if we were to obtain from
England her unconditional support of the doctrine that the
Latin-American countries are not to be colonised or conquered.

In our efforts to secure a basis of international peace, however, we
must rely not upon England or any other single nation or group of
nations but upon a league, into which all nations may enter upon
identical terms. We must depend upon all-inclusive, not upon exclusive
alliances.

{237}

At this point it may be well to recapitulate the difficulties and
inevitable limitations of any such plan. In the first place
nationality exists and cannot be exorcised. The several nations,
though they have common interests, are also sundered in interest, and
in present circumstances may gain more from a given war than they lose.
No nation, because of a moral appeal, will surrender its vital
interests, and each believes that its own ambitions are morally
justified. To pursue these interests the nations arm, and this
competitive armament breeds fear, whi