ation seeks an outlet to the sea. Nations
will build navies against Great Britain so long as {248} without navies
their commerce and colonies are threatened.

The case of the German-British conflict is in point. England lies on
Germany's naval base. It is an unfortunate thing for Germany, and
indeed for England, but it is a geographical fact and unalterable. For
Germany this situation is tolerable so long as peace endures, but when
war breaks out, all her commerce is stopped. The future of Germany
depends upon her developing industrially to a point where she can no
longer feed her population from her own farms. She needs, if not
colonies, at least markets. She requires a foreign base for her
industry and uninterrupted access to that foreign base both in war and
peace. She can be throttled, strangled, starved under the present
usages of sea war. The war may not be of her own making. In other
words twenty or fifty years of commercial development may be swept away
at a moment's notice in a war, declared, it may be, by England for
purely commercial purposes.

To these apprehensions of the Germans, England may answer that in peace
times German commerce is secure. But immunity in war as well as in
peace is necessary. Therefore, the Germans do what other nations would
do in like circumstances, take the matter into their own hands. They
build a navy strong enough to make England hesitate to attack their
merchant marine. It is an understandable attempt to protect what is an
absolutely vital interest. But for Germany to build a navy capable of
measuring arms with the British Navy is intolerable to Great Britain.
It is useless for Germany to protest that she will not use her fleet
aggressively. So long as she can use it aggressively, she is a menace
to England's life. England must prevent Germany from building {249} a
navy equal in power, for if she is defeated at sea, her fate is sealed.
Germany must be threatened on land by France and Russia or she will be
able to devote her energies exclusively to her navy and thus out-build
England. Given this situation, an Anglo-German war is inevitable.

Nor is the situation in the North Sea unique. Once this conflict of
interest begins, it spreads everywhere. Germany may not have Morocco
or Tripoli because with a foothold and a naval base on the
Mediterranean, she could exert pressure there in order to change
conditions elsewhere. Similarly the Pacific commerce of Rus