d trust in luck still holds his hand. The
American "alliance" too, may yet come off. The Entente with France,
already of great value, can be developed into something more assuredly
anti-German, and if present-day relations of friendship with the
United States can be but tightened into a mutual committal of both
Powers to a common foreign policy, then the raid on Germany may never
be needed. She can be bottled up without it. No man who studies the
British mind can have any doubt of the fixed trend of British thought.

It can be summed up in one phrase. German expansion is not to be
tolerated. It can only be a threat to or attained at the expense of
British interests. Those interests being world-wide, with the seas
for their raiment nay, with the earth for their footstool--it follows
that wherever Germany may turn for an outlet she is met by the British
challenge: "Not there!" British interests interdict the Old World; the
Monroe Doctrine, maintained, it is alleged by British naval supremacy,
forbids the New.

Let Germany acquire a coaling station, a sanitorium, a health resort,
the ground for a hotel even, on some foreign shore, and "British
interests" spring to attention, English jealousy is aroused. How
long this state of tension can last without snapping could, perhaps,
be best answered in the German naval yards. It is evident that some
7,000,000 of the best educated race in the world, physically strong,
mentally stronger, homogeneous, highly trained, highly skilled,
capable and energetic and obedient to a discipline that rests upon and
is moulded by a lofty conception of patriotism, cannot permanently be
confined to a strictly limited area by a less numerous race, less well
educated, less strong mentally and physically and assuredly less well
trained, skilled and disciplined. Stated thus the problem admits of a
simple answer; and were there no other factor governing the situation,
that answer would have been long since given.

It is not the ethical superiority of the English race that accounts
for their lead, but the favourable geographical situation from which
they have been able to develop and direct their policy of expansion.

England has triumphed mainly from her position. The qualities of
her people have, undoubtedly, counted for much, but her unrivalled
position in the lap of the Atlantic, barring the seaways and closing
the tideways of Central and North-eastern Europe, has counted for
more.

With this ke