ne, which traverses the Empire from north to south and
constitutes its greatest single trade route, gives to Germany a more
vital interest in Holland than ever France had. Her most important iron
and coal mines and manufacturing industries are located on this
waterway or its tributaries, the Ruhr, Mosel, Saar and Main. Hence the
Rhine is the great artery of German trade and outlet for her enormous
exports, which chiefly reach the sea through the ports of Belgium and
Holland. These two countries therefore fatten on German commerce and
reduce German profits. Hence the Empire, by the construction of the
Emden-Dortmund canal, aims to divert its trade from Rotterdam and
Antwerp to a German port, and possibly thereby put the screw on Holland
to draw her into some kind of a commercial union with Germany.[661]
Heinrich von Treitschke, in his "_Politik_," deplores the fact that the
most valuable part of the great German river has fallen into alien
hands, and he declares it to be an imperative task of German policy to
recover the mouth of that stream, "either by a commercial or political
union." "We need the entrance of Holland into our customs union as we
need our daily bread."[662]

[Sidenote: Prevention of monopoly of river mouth.]

When the middle and upper course of a river system are shared by several
nations, their common interest demands that the control of the mouth be
divided, as in the case of the La Plata between Argentine and Uruguay;
or held by a small state, like Holland, too weak to force the monopoly
of the tidal course. The Treaty of Paris in 1856 extended the territory
of Moldavia at the cost of Russia, to keep the Russian frontier away
from the Danube.[663] Her very presence was ominous. The temptation to
giant powers to gobble up these exquisite morsels of territory is
irresistible. Hence the advisability of neutralizing small states
holding such locations, as in the case of Roumania; and making their
rivers international waterways, as in the case of the Orinoco,[664]
Scheldt, Waal, Rhine and Danube.[665] The Yangtze Kiang mouth, where
already the treaty ports cluster thick, will probably be the first part
of China to be declared neutral ground, and as such to be placed under
the protection of the combined commercial powers,[666] as is even now
foreshadowed by the International Conservancy Board of 1910.[667] The
United States, by her treaty with Mexico in 1848, secured the right of
free navigation on the lo