as Germany unquestionably--nay,
avowedly--now does, needs not only large and widely dispersed
colonies; she further needs influence upon those routes of commerce
which connect together countries and colonies, and for that she wants
possession of minor points, whose value is rather military than
commercial, but which essentially affect the control of the sea and of
the communications.

Now the secrets of the Emperor and of his more confidential advisers
are not all worn upon the sleeve, as might be inferred from the
audacity and apparent imprudence of occasional utterances. It is
known, however, not only from his words, which might be discounted,
but from his acts, that he wants a big navy, that he has meddled in
South Africa, and that he has on a slight pretext, but not, it may
well be believed, in any frivolous spirit, seized Kiao-chou, in China.
What all this means to himself can be only a matter of inference. The
present writer, after inquiring in quarters likely to be well
informed, has been able to obtain nothing more positive than
deductions, reasonably made, by men whose business it is to watch
current events in Europe; but the idea has long been forming in the
minds of political thinkers, looking not only upon the moves of the
political chess-board as they superficially appear in each day's news,
and are dictated largely by momentary emergencies, but seeking also to
detect the purpose and temperament of the players--be they men in
power or national tendencies--that the German Emperor is but
continuing and expanding a scheme of policy inherited from his
predecessors in the government of the state. Nay, more; it is thought
that this policy represents a tendency and a need of the German people
itself, in the movement towards national unity between its racial
constituents, in which so great an advance has already been
accomplished in the last thirty years. Elements long estranged, but of
the same blood, can in no way more surely attain to community of
interest and of view than by the development of an external policy, of
which the benefits and the pride may be common to all. True unity
requires some common object, around which diverse interests may cling
and crystallize. Nations, like families, need to look outside
themselves, if they would escape, on the one hand, narrow
self-satisfaction, or, on the other, pitiful internal dissensions.
The far-reaching external activities fostered in Great Britain by her
insular