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THE INTEREST OF AMERICA 
 
 IN INTERNATIONAL 
 
 CONDITIONS 
 
THE 
 
 INTEREST OF AMERICA 
 
 IN INTERNATIONAL 
 
 CONDITIONS 
 
 BV 
 
 A. T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D. 
 
 Captain, United States Navy 
 
 Author of " The Influence of Sea Power upon History ," ' The 
 Interest of America in Sea Power, " etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
 
 1918 
 
<. 
 
 
 Copyright, iqio, 
 By A. T. Mahan. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 bioioa*« 
 
 printers 
 8. J. Paekhjll <fc Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 I. The Origin and Character of Present 
 
 International Groupings in Europe . i 
 
 II. The Present Predominance of Germany in 
 Europe — Its Foundations and Tend- 
 encies 69 
 
 III. Relations between the East and the West 125 
 
 IV. The Open Door 185 
 
 •12 i I 
 
I 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER 
 
 OF PRESENT INTERNATIONAL 
 
 GROUPINGS IN EUROPE 
 
THE INTEREST OF AMERICA 
 
 IN 
 
 INTERNATIONAL CONDITIONS 
 
 THE ORIGIN AND CHARACTER OF PRESENT 
 INTERNATIONAL GROUPINGS IN EUROPE 
 
 IN all countries, the tendency of the 
 general population is to concentrate at- 
 tention upon those questions which are 
 commonly called domestic. The individual 
 man's immediate neighborhood, the state, 
 territory, or province, where he lives, the 
 particular needs of the region in which his 
 interests lie, have with him a prominence 
 upon which it is needless to insist, and 
 which is both natural and proper. The fa- 
 miliar phrase, " local self-government," rep- 
 resented to American thought by the rights 
 of the States and by the tradition of the 
 town meeting, conveys to our minds, and 
 
The interest of America 
 
 there maintains, the necessary recognition 
 that those immediately upon the spot, and 
 conversant with conditions by actual daily 
 contact, are best fitted to control and 
 administer the affairs of the local commu- 
 nity. The State governments, the various 
 municipalities, the subdivisions into towns 
 and villages, are outward visible signs of 
 this conviction; which with most of us, 
 however, reflects a simple tradition, not 
 our own reasoned apprehension and knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 A due recognition of this general truth, 
 which intrusts the immediate locality with 
 the functions of local administration, lies 
 at the foundation of successful working 
 institutions. But at a very early period 
 of our national history, before independence 
 was achieved, in measure even before it had 
 been declared, — that is, during the colonial 
 period, — it was seen that much more than 
 local self-government was needed, if the 
 
In International Conditions 
 
 results at which such government aimed 
 were to be attained effectually. The habit 
 of mind bred by acquaintance with such a 
 system only, which did not look outward, 
 upon other communities, except with a 
 jealous prepossession notoriously common 
 in the inter-relations of the thirteen colonies, 
 militated distinctly, not only against the 
 advantage of all, the common advantage, 
 but also against the advantage of each. 
 The necessity was seen of formal inter- 
 colonial relations, corresponding in char- 
 acter to inter-national relations, although 
 pregnant of a still closer tie. 
 
 The epithet " provincial," by its associa- 
 tions more applicable to Europe than to 
 America, nevertheless, by its implication 
 of narrowness, befits the prejudices and 
 conduct which notoriously characterized 
 our early history, colonial, state, and sec- 
 tional, up to the War of Secession. The 
 harm of provincialism, of provincial habits 
 
The Interest of America 
 
 of thought and act, is not that they reflect 
 the conditions of the province, or section; 
 for in so far they are beneficial. It is that 
 they excluded proportioned sense of the 
 relations of other communities to one's 
 own. In this, a metropolis may be as 
 hopelessly provincial as the remotest cor- 
 ner of the country, and with less excuse. 
 Wall Street is perhaps provincial, despite 
 its numerous outlying interests. 
 
 The same line of thought applies to the 
 inter-relations of the greater community, 
 that of nations. The first concern of each 
 member of this is doubtless its own internal 
 affairs, the ordering of its own house. There 
 is nothing that the individual, whether man, 
 or community, or nation, can contribute 
 to the general welfare of greater value than 
 the soundness of his or its own principles 
 and life. But a realization of this truth 
 which stops short there, neglecting to con- 
 sider and to appreciate the conditions and 
 
In International Conditions 
 
 necessary tendencies of other men, or of 
 other members of the international com- 
 munity, is provincial in the worst sense. 
 
 An apt illustration of the usual indiffer- 
 ence of our American public to international 
 conditions, except for brief moments when 
 some circumstance out of the usual course 
 threatens to involve ourselves, or traverses 
 some of our accepted notions, is to be found 
 in the stationary condition of the organiza- 
 tion of the Department of State between 
 the close of the War of Secession and the 
 end of the War with Spain. The impetus 
 given to international relations by the later 
 war, alike in its immediate antecedents 
 and in its consequences, is obvious even to 
 a casual consideration; but the require- 
 ment for development has been little ap- 
 preciated, outside of the Government circles 
 directly involved in the additional labor en- 
 tailed, or by the very few and for the most 
 part silent persons who interest themselves 
 
The Interest of America 
 
 in such matters. The public attitude still 
 holds good which a shrewd old member of 
 Congress is said to have expressed in his 
 advice to one newly elected: to avoid ser- 
 vice upon a fancy committee like that 
 of Foreign Affairs, if he wished to retain 
 his hold upon his constituents, because 
 they cared nothing about international 
 questions. 
 
 It is curious to remember that this at- 
 titude of international indifference was less 
 marked among Americans in the colonial 
 period, when the several colonies were in 
 the strictest sense provinces, than it after- 
 wards became; perhaps even less than it 
 now is, with all our advantages of steam 
 and telegraph, of daily information from 
 the four quarters of the globe. The rea- 
 son, of course, is not far to seek, either of 
 the earlier interest, or of the later indif- 
 ference. The American of the ante-revolu- 
 tionary period was directly connected with 
 
In International Conditions 
 
 Europe, economically as well as politically, 
 to a greater degree, relatively to that period 
 of development, than he is now. He was 
 affected not only by the relations of his 
 community to European states, but also, 
 and very closely, by the relations of those 
 states to one another; precisely as the 
 whole European family of to-day under- 
 goes a tremor when a shock occurs in any 
 one of its more unstable commonwealths. 
 Rumors of European wars disquieted the 
 American colonist; the outbreak of war 
 involved him as a participant. To use a 
 graphic expression of Macaulay's, concern- 
 ing the great Frederick's seizure of Silesia, — 
 "The evils produced were felt in lands 
 where the name of Prussia was unknown. 
 In order that he might rob a neighbor 
 whom he had promised to defend, black 
 men fought on the coast of Coromandel, 
 and red men scalped each other by the 
 Great Lakes of North America." 
 
io The Interest of America 
 
 Rare and scanty as communications then 
 were, they were characterized by the de- 
 liberateness and fullness of the letter writer, 
 not pressed to catch a mail; while the 
 reader had time more closely to discern 
 and appreciate the determining conditions 
 of affairs, because his attention was less dis- 
 tracted by a. daily succession of numerous 
 insignificant items. The contrast between 
 such comprehension and the foreign-news 
 columns of most American newspapers of 
 to-day is that between a telegram and 
 the domestic correspondence of near rela- 
 tions. Few things are more significant, or 
 suggestive, than the space and character 
 of the information concerning foreign com- 
 plications to be found in American dailies, 
 and that given by their British contempora- 
 ries. This reflects the difference of interest 
 in readers; between those who, like our 
 colonial forefathers, felt themselves directly 
 interested, and those who, like most among 
 
In International Conditions n 
 
 ourselves, believe the United States only 
 remotely concerned in events, unless they 
 touch us immediately. 
 
 There was much to originate the exist- 
 ing attitude of mind, and there is still 
 much to perpetuate it; though it may be 
 believed that it has now become an anach- 
 ronism. Speedily after our War of In- 
 dependence came the French Revolution 
 and the wars ensuing from it. The new 
 nation found itself at once in a network of 
 successive embarrassments, arising from 
 engagements with France contracted in the 
 past. Upon this followed a variety of vex- 
 atious incidents resulting from the maritime 
 war between that country and Great Brit- 
 ain. Hence sprang Washington's fervent 
 warning against entangling alliances, and 
 a most earnest desire on the part of his 
 successors in the Presidency to keep free 
 from involvement in European quarrels. 
 Events seconded this wish. The extension 
 
12 The Interest of America 
 
 of our territory from the Atlantic to the 
 Pacific, and to the Gulf of Mexico, by the 
 acquisition of Louisiana and the Floridas, 
 in 1803 and 1821, gave to our boundaries 
 precision of definition by natural features, 
 thus avoiding contentions inherent in arti- 
 ficial demarcation; while the revolt of 
 Spanish America eliminated European lo- 
 calized contact with the new republic, 
 except on the side of Canada. 
 
 Coincident with these realized conditions 
 came the Monroe Doctrine, in the early 
 twenties of the last century. The leading 
 purpose of this was to exclude European 
 intrusion from this hemisphere, and thus 
 to accomplish the wish to avoid entangle- 
 ments, whether of alliance or dispute. Ex- 
 perience of centuries had demonstrated 
 that disturbance in America was sure to 
 arise from European conflicts, and to be 
 colored by them, when European posses- 
 sion existed. To prevent the extension of 
 
In International Conditions 13 
 
 such a cause, by new acquisitions or by 
 exchanges between European Powers, was 
 the essential spirit of the Doctrine; and 
 although the maintenance of it has been 
 fruitful of contentions, it doubtless has con- 
 tributed markedly to the end in view. It 
 also fixed and intensified the repulsion to 
 association with European policies, hard- 
 ening into a prepossession still operative, 
 and which perhaps has become unreason- 
 ing, and obstructive, as prejudice always 
 is; preventing a clear vision of the ten- 
 dencies shown by the present evident 
 unrest in the state of the world. Conser- 
 vatism is a fundamental and admirable in- 
 gredient in national policy; but like the 
 Constitution, the great exponent and guar- 
 dian of the conservative forces, there must 
 be found in national ideals a certain elas- 
 ticity, and capacity for progress. No de- 
 gree of conservatism will prevent changes 
 external to one's self; and if the man or 
 
14 The Interest of America 
 
 nation cannot find adaptation to the times, 
 even that which seems to be held most 
 firmly may be lost. 
 
 The origin of American aloofness from 
 questions of European policy, as well in 
 interest as in act, is thus to be found 
 in incidents of our early history, already 
 briefly noticed. It is needless to com- 
 ment, beyond mere mention, upon the fact 
 that this indifference was fostered and 
 perpetuated by the internal sectional diffi- 
 culties consequent upon the disputes about 
 slavery. From the promulgation of the 
 Monroe Doctrine to the end of the War of 
 Secession the nation was occupied almost 
 exclusively in endeavoring to keep its 
 house in order, and to settle national self- 
 government upon solid foundations. This 
 entire period, of over a generation, was 
 spent in attempting the problem of main- 
 taining unity — the essence of national 
 vigor — by reconciling the irreconcilable. 
 
In International Conditions 15 
 
 In any country, particularly in one as ex- 
 tensive as ours, divergence of interests be- 
 tween sections must give rise to oppositions 
 which may be called sectional; but in our 
 experience no such divergence has been 
 virulent and menacing, as was that which 
 confronted with each other two systems 
 of labor, radically hostile in spirit as in 
 form, and modifying, not only industrial 
 and economical conditions, but the mental 
 and moral characteristics of the communi- 
 ties affected. To our present subject this 
 situation is of interest chiefly as contribut- 
 ing to explain the persistent alienation of 
 national thought from international rela- 
 tions. The nation did not possess the 
 conditions of external effectiveness. In- 
 ternally sick, only partially developed, im- 
 mature, it had not the strength; while, 
 preoccupied with the symptoms of its 
 malady, it had no attention to spare for 
 remote external events. 
 
1 6 The Interest of America 
 
 Yet, inasmuch as this portion of our 
 national progress is in essential character- 
 istics only a repetition of other history, 
 though differing in the particular causes, 
 it is well that the stage thus differentiated 
 by its peculiar features from that which 
 preceded and from that which followed — 
 from the present in which we are now 
 living — be viewed in its analogies to 
 other historical periods. States are made 
 up of human beings; and hence there is in 
 their experience a certain inevitableness 
 of tendency which needs to be observed, 
 if only to avoid, or to modify in action. 
 Slavery has not been the only cause that 
 has divided nations sectionally. Sectional 
 division has arisen from differences of re- 
 ligion, and from differences of race. In 
 Germany the line of division was between 
 north and south; the south Roman Catho- 
 lic, the north Protestant. The issue was 
 a political disintegration of the entire ter- 
 
In International Conditions 17 
 
 ritory which has been remedied only in our 
 own day, — subsequent to the War of 
 Secession. In France the general line of 
 demarcation was again East and West; 
 the strength of Protestantism was in the 
 south. In these two nations, the religious 
 feature was not the sole cause of internal 
 dissensions; but it alone was distinctly 
 sectional, and in virtue of this local con- 
 centration it was the most powerful, the 
 most persistent, the longest to survive. 
 
 The instructive feature for us to note 
 is that while this internal dissension lasted 
 the international relation of the nations 
 concerned was that of being acted upon by 
 other people; in short, defensive. Spain, 
 unified in spirit by the perpetual religious 
 wars with the Moors, and consolidated in 
 territory by their expulsion, and by the 
 marriage of Castile with Aragon, was then 
 the united nation which found itself able 
 to impress its policy upon foreign com- 
 
1 8 The Interest of America 
 
 munities. Were its aims good or bad, it 
 was in a position to enforce them; to carry- 
 on vigorous external action wherever its 
 particular interests, or its more general 
 views, disposed it to interfere. For over 
 a century, therefore, Spain was the domi- 
 nant power in Europe; because united, 
 while Germany and France were rent 
 asunder by internal divisions, and Great 
 Britain was still politically a divided island, 
 England against Scotland. In general out- 
 line, whatever the particular manifesta- 
 tion from time to time, all these stood 
 on the defensive, internationally, against 
 Spain, for over a century 
 
 France was the first to extricate herself 
 from her internal difficulties. The nations 
 of western Europe were in one respect hap- 
 pier than ourselves, to whom slavery has 
 bequeathed a still unsolved racial question, 
 mainly sectional in its distribution, but 
 intensified by fundamental distinctions. 
 
In International Conditions 19 
 
 While not without sectional characteristics, 
 they possessed elements of homogeneous- 
 ness which lent themselves to national 
 consolidation. To recall the events which 
 led to the concentration of national power 
 in France is not in point here. The fact 
 alone concerns us, that, under the succes- 
 sive administrations of Henry IV, Riche- 
 lieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV, consolida- 
 tion and concentration were effected; while 
 during the process, and consequent upon 
 its completion, there developed and was 
 sustained a powerful external policy which, 
 like that of Spain, whose it supplanted, 
 made itself felt, as by a necessary law of 
 being, in all the international relations of 
 the day. To France there belonged the at- 
 tribute, which we now see so often named 
 in current writing, called the hegemony of 
 Europe; one accompaniment of which was 
 the subversion of the preponderance pre- 
 viously exerted by the Empire of Spain. 
 
20 The Interest of America 
 
 The propriety of the policy and measures 
 which under these circumstances marked 
 the conduct of France is less to our modern 
 purpose, as observers of contemporary 
 events, than is the reaction provoked. An 
 overweening power, which by its varied 
 influence trammeled and affected the in- 
 ternal and international relations of all 
 other states, incited a general alliance 
 among the nations of Europe to withstand 
 the progress of a predominance which 
 already threatened and, if unchecked, might 
 accomplish the dependence of the whole of 
 Europe upon a single state. This was the 
 manifestation of a tendency analogous to 
 that by which Nature herself restores con- 
 ditions after a disturbance; a movement 
 towards an equilibrium among the members 
 of the European family, then the entire 
 world of civilization, as we understand 
 that term. It was a spontaneous effort of 
 self-preservation, among numerous scat- 
 
In International Conditions 21 
 
 tered communities, directed against a single 
 concentrated highly organized oppressor; 
 and, despite the inherent feebleness of 
 alliances and coalitions, it effected its pur- 
 pose. Louis XIV was dragged down from 
 the height of his power. A century later, 
 under Napoleon, a similar preponderance 
 was attained by France; but the gigantic 
 fabric erected by him was overthrown also 
 by the same process of combined resistance. 
 To the imagination of statesmen, these 
 beneficent achievements consecrated the 
 means by which they had been effected, 
 viz.: a concert of action among states, 
 framed to resist such oppression as had 
 been recently experienced on the part suc- 
 cessively of Spain and of France. Upon 
 observers of international politics had been 
 produced an impression, closely analogous 
 to that made upon the people of England, 
 at about the same time, by the burden of 
 Cromwell's rule by means of a standing 
 
22 The Interest of America 
 
 army. The concentration of military force 
 within Great Britain, as an instrument of 
 government, dominating all interests and 
 all other elements of popular self-expres- 
 sion, reflected on a smaller scale the con- 
 dition of international relations when the 
 physical force of a single state, by its con- 
 centration of energy, predominated over 
 the disseminated and often conflicting wills 
 of the remainder of the group. The means 
 of counteraction, beginning in alliances, 
 was formulated into the familiar expres- 
 sion, "Balance of Power," the opposite of 
 preponderance; a conception which, while 
 it anteceded the birth of the phrase itself, 
 continued for three centuries to influence 
 decisively the actions of statesmen. The 
 distinguished English historian, Bishop 
 Stubbs, has written: "The Balance of 
 Power, however defined, that is, whatever 
 the Powers between which it is necessary 
 to maintain an equilibrium, such that the 
 
In International Conditions 23 
 
 weaker should not be crushed by the 
 stronger, is the principle which gives unity 
 to the plot of modern European history. 
 It is the foremost idea of the three centu- 
 ries, 1 500-1 800. Whatever the drama, 
 this is the key to the plot." In the course 
 of time the conception received an elabora- 
 tion which it was thought would assure 
 its effectiveness as a preserver of the status 
 quo, of equilibrium and of peace. This 
 process of formulation resembled the elab- 
 oration which of late years has been deal- 
 ing with International Arbitration as a 
 means to an end; indeed to the same end, 
 of peace, by cooperation on an established 
 basis of international equity. 
 
 Artificial arrangements such as these 
 are effective only in so far as they take ac- 
 count of, and correspond to, the contem- 
 porary qualities of human nature; to its 
 virtues, defects, passions, interests. The 
 remark applies equally to Balance of Power 
 
24 The Interest of America 
 
 and to schemes of Arbitration. Underly- 
 ing them all is a raw material, which can- 
 not be worked into a finished product 
 possessing characteristics not found in the 
 material itself. In the great settlement 
 following the downfall of Napoleon, it was 
 thought that by territorial distributions 
 there could be constituted an effective 
 equilibrium, or balance, among the five 
 great Powers; while the integrity of the 
 lesser states, as then determined, would be 
 secured by a basis of guarantees. Attempts 
 to violate such conditions would be the 
 business of everybody, as had been con- 
 sciously the case during the previous cen- 
 tury concerning the stipulations of Utrecht 
 in 1 7 13; the last universal settlement prior 
 to that of 181 5. Ascendencies, such as the 
 world had seen, were to be stopped in their 
 beginnings; not allowed, as with Philip II 
 of Spain, Louis XIV, and Napoleon, to 
 grow into a colossus, overshadowing the 
 
In International Conditions 25 
 
 continent. Thus the Balance of Power en- 
 dorsed international Intervention upon 
 recognized occasion. 
 
 The scheme practically assumed that 
 equilibrium of power and assurance of 
 quiet, if realized, gave also equality of con- 
 ditions and opportunity; otherwise, how- 
 ever adroit the momentary adjustment, 
 how could contentment be permanent? 
 and without contentment how expect men 
 to be quiet? The assumption is much like 
 one which should maintain that, give all 
 men an equal degree of physical strength, 
 they start fair on the race of life. We know 
 from experience that equalities much more 
 extensive in scope result speedily in in- 
 equalities, due to individual capacities, 
 mental, moral, or artificial; and that from 
 these inequalities spring social and eco- 
 nomical dissatisfaction and dissension. The 
 status quo of Europe in 181 5 was not merely 
 one of a balance of regularized power, arti- 
 
26 The Interest of America 
 
 ficially constituted. There were among 
 the different states, upon the equilibrium 
 of which the scheme depended, varying 
 stages of political, social, and industrial 
 development; varying conceptions of right; 
 varying degrees of wealth and opportunity. 
 These speedily, and progressively, as time 
 advanced, would give rise to national dis- 
 satisfactions, whence in due order follow 
 national ambitions and disputes. The sub- 
 sequent history of Europe to to-day is the 
 record of these strivings; of their workings 
 and results, based upon and conforming to 
 the raw material of human nature swayed 
 by interest and sentiment. 
 
 With the overthrow of Louis XIV the 
 predominance in Europe had passed to 
 Great Britain. This was almost unnoted 
 at the time, but increasingly demonstrated 
 by the events of the eighteenth century, 
 and clearly recognizable in 1815. The new 
 condition, however, was essentially differ- 
 
In International Conditions 27 
 
 ent from that of its predecessors; and was 
 so understood, though perhaps not formally 
 analyzed by contemporaries. The power of 
 Great Britain was not that of predominance, 
 strictly so called. She never had the mili- 
 tary strength, as for a time Philip II, Louis 
 XIV, and Napoleon had, to make her 
 successfully aggressive against a continent 
 determined on resistance. Her predomi- 
 nance was that of a determinative factor, 
 resembling a third party in politics; of a 
 make-weight, which casts the balance from 
 one side to the other. Her ability to do 
 this lay in the defensive strength of her 
 insular position, which had enabled her to 
 concentrate attention upon industrial en- 
 terprises and commerce; secured from the 
 disturbances of war, which are most griev- 
 ous when the national territory is open to 
 invasion. This immunity began with the 
 union of England and Scotland under one 
 crown, in 1603; consummated by the full 
 
28 The Interest of America 
 
 political union, with a single parliament, in 
 1707, six years before the Treaty of Utrecht. 
 Again an internal union, of provinces polit- 
 ically separate but racially homogeneous, 
 was the precursor of national expansion 
 and self-assertion. 
 
 The expansion and aggression of Eng- 
 land, again, differed from those of her 
 predecessors; in this, that she turned not 
 towards Europe, but towards the world 
 outside. This may be considered truly as 
 the beginning of that which we now know 
 as "world politics." In this England led 
 the way; not that she had not predecessors, 
 and competitors, but in that she alone, in 
 addition to an insatiate thirst for colonies, 
 saw in them not so much possessions as 
 extensions of England herself. The British 
 colony in this resembled the Roman Colonia; 
 it was politically as well as industrially an 
 expansion of the mother state. This did 
 not save Great Britain from a selfish policy 
 
In International Conditions 29 
 
 towards her colonies; but because they, 
 as formally constituted, were considered 
 the abode of Englishmen, entitled to all 
 the traditional and constitutional privi- 
 leges of English citizens, there existed from 
 the first an underlying spirit of apprecia- 
 tion, which, after the severe lesson of the 
 War of American Independence, — during 
 which the English rights of the colonists 
 were admitted by a very large minority of 
 the English at home, — has resulted in 
 the formal and cordial relations that are 
 now the common aim, professed by all 
 the English-speaking communities of the 
 British Empire. 
 
 It therefore is not the individual part 
 played by Great Britain in the struggle 
 against Napoleon which concerns us here. 
 Decisive as that was, it was founded upon 
 the advantages before named, insular and 
 industrial, which had enabled her, and 
 induced her, to the acquisition of her colo- 
 
3<d The Interest of America 
 
 nial markets, and upon them and her own 
 defensive security had developed the com- 
 mercial and industrial resources which fi- 
 nanced the alliances against the Emperor. 
 That struggle over, the industrial and 
 commercial preeminence remained, as did 
 the colonies. These constituted the start 
 over all the other Powers, possessed by- 
 Great Britain in the European race then 
 beginning, which characterized the whole 
 of the wonderful century but recently 
 ended. Disfigured though this was in its 
 course by not infrequent wars, and marked 
 by great political changes, its distinguish- 
 ing feature has been that of industrial 
 development, seconded by the coincident 
 advances of science. The start which Great 
 Britain had, not only in material wealth, 
 but in national expertness based upon un- 
 interrupted industrial and commercial hab- 
 its, enabled her easily to take the lead and 
 long to keep it unchallenged. 
 
In International Conditions 31 
 
 This was not the only great disparity 
 under which the European states labored 
 in 181 5. The exhaustion from wars almost 
 incessant for twenty years had grievously 
 affected the populations of the continental 
 countries, as well as their industries. The 
 victims of war are chiefly men in the prime 
 of life, the potential fathers of a new genera- 
 tion. Great Britain had fought, and many 
 of her citizens had fallen; but her armies 
 were relatively small, and naval control, 
 her special military function, called for 
 few great battles. France came out of her 
 Revolutionary struggles, of which the wars 
 of Napoleon are an integral part, not only 
 with immense losses, but with the incubus 
 of voluntary non-increase of population 
 which has qualified her position in the 
 world. She was embarrassed also, and has 
 remained embarrassed, by a dissemination 
 of national power into an extensive admin- 
 istrative system, an army of functionaries; 
 
32 The Interest of America 
 
 the maintenance of which not only is 
 unduly burdensome, but by the cumber- 
 someness of its constitution defeats its own 
 end of efficient government. Unlike the 
 Germany of to-day, the preponderant ele- 
 ment of French influence is not in the govern- 
 ment, but in the thrift of the individual 
 Frenchman. 
 
 Germany remained an assembly of states, 
 mostly petty, mutually independent, as 
 before the Revolution. The existence of 
 two great powers, Austria and Prussia, 
 recognized as German, rather emphasized 
 than mitigated the absence of union in the 
 German race. Their mutual opposition, 
 traditional and otherwise, constituted an 
 impediment to political unity until the 
 one or the other could be definitely subordi- 
 nated. The coincidence, that at this very 
 moment, three months before Waterloo, 
 Bismarck was born, 1 though trivial, is 
 1 April i, 1815. 
 
In International Conditions 33 
 
 impressive. While the rivalry of Austria 
 and Prussia lasted, Germany by inherited 
 prepossessions divided into two groups; 
 each finding its center of attraction in one 
 or other of the two great monarchies. The 
 primacy by ancient custom and remaining 
 prestige rested with Austria, the older 
 state. The political constitution of both 
 was that of absolute monarchy, intensified 
 momentarily by the reaction from French 
 revolutionary excesses. Of Russia, the 
 fifth great Power, there is less need to 
 speak. The uncontrolled sway of the Czar, 
 tempered by assassination but unchallenged 
 by popular sentiment, gave an appearance 
 of strength which was by no means wholly 
 misleading. The strength was there; but 
 in it, as in its German contemporaries, 
 despotism was a political weakness, owing 
 to the unavoidable administrative inter- 
 position of an irresponsible bureaucracy 
 between the ruler and the ruled. The last 
 
34 The Interest of America 
 
 decade has witnessed the result, but not 
 yet the end, of conditions which have 
 handicapped Russia, and for an indefinite 
 future paralyze her great inherent strength 
 through defective organization and imper- 
 fect national institutions. The tendency 
 has been to throw her out of the European 
 race, back upon Asia, to which her political 
 organization associates her. 
 
 In the situation thus sketched, as con- 
 stituted in 1815, the leading features, bear- 
 ing upon our own contemporary conditions, 
 were the material prosperity and world 
 system of Great Britain, and the disunion 
 of the German race, which kept Germany 
 in political and industrial backwardness; 
 making her, to quote the late Chancellor 
 of the Empire, Prince Blilow, simply a 
 geographical expression, and denying her 
 as a whole the name of a great Power. 
 This condition had been fostered deliber- 
 ately by France, from the days of Richelieu 
 
In International Conditions 35 
 
 to those of Napoleon; and was by him 
 continued, though modified. In these two 
 facts lay the germs from which have sprung 
 the decisive present characteristics of Euro- 
 pean international relations, wherein are 
 continuously to be traced an effort towards 
 equilibrium. It would be perhaps more 
 accurate to define this effort as the coin- 
 cident struggle towards preponderance on 
 the part of opposite groupings of the prin- 
 cipal states, the result of which is to con- 
 stitute an unstable and shifting balance. 
 How unstable and how shifting this equi- 
 poise will be realized by those who have 
 considered attentively the series of events 
 following the revolution in Turkey in the 
 summer of 1908; not in themselves alone, 
 but in the intricate network of national 
 necessities, ambitions, and jealousies, which 
 the occasion brought prominently into view. 
 In Germany, thus for a long time dis- 
 tanced in the race of material prosperity, 
 
36 The Interest of America 
 
 and handicapped by traditions of disunion 
 extending over centuries, is now to be 
 found the beginnings and potentiality of 
 an overshadowing concentrated power; simi- 
 lar in that respect, however different in 
 origin and in characteristics, to those suc- 
 cessively known to modern history in Spain, 
 France, and Great Britain. It differs from 
 the two former, when in the height of their 
 power, in that their determining ambitions 
 were confined to Europe, which then con- 
 stituted for itself the total of European 
 politics; all outside enterprise then resting 
 for its basis upon European conditions. It 
 differs again from that of Great Britain 
 in that her power rested wholly upon the 
 sea, and she at no time wielded an irresisti- 
 ble army, such as the combination of 
 Austria and Germany now presents. 
 
 There is found now in Germany great 
 preponderance of power, not only military 
 but in organization of every kind, coinci- 
 
In International Conditions 37 
 
 dent with a well ascertained purpose of 
 playing a part in world politics, the precise 
 character and direction of which can as 
 yet be only surmised, even by the Germans 
 themselves, as it must depend upon cir- 
 cumstances not yet mature, nor to be cer- 
 tainly foreseen. After writing these words, 
 I find in a recent instructive article, 1 "Why 
 does Germany build war-ships?" by Pro- 
 fessor Delbriick, professor of history in the 
 University of Berlin, the following just 
 remarks: "The great conquests of the 
 world's history have seldom been inspired 
 by mere ambition. The empires of the 
 world have not been built up from the mere 
 desire of power. Events have generally 
 evolved themselves so that a conflict has 
 arisen out of comparatively insignificant 
 causes, such as a border line and a com- 
 mercial right of way; and the conqueror 
 by his very victory has been obliged to 
 1 The Contemporary Review, October, 1909. 
 
38 The Interest of America 
 
 enlarge the boundary of his country. Even 
 the Romans were not intentionally the 
 conquerors of the world." In Germany's 
 European progress, the struggle with Aus- 
 tria, in 1866, seems to have been foreseen 
 and deliberately contrived; whereas with 
 France, although foreseen in a general way, 
 the precipitation of hostilities at the partic- 
 ular moment appears to have been simply 
 a sagacious, if somewhat unscrupulous, 
 seizing of opportunity, for doing which the 
 previous preparation of a watchful intellect 
 gave the readiness needed to take the tide 
 upon its turn. 
 
 The prototype of modern Germany is to 
 be found rather in the Roman Empire, to 
 which in a certain sense the present German 
 Empire may be said to be — if not heir — 
 at least, historically affiliated. The Holy 
 Roman Empire merged into that somewhat 
 extenuated figment attached to the Austrian 
 Habsburgs, which finally deceased at the 
 
In International Conditions 39 
 
 opening of the nineteenth century; but the 
 idea itself survived, and was influential 
 in determining the form and name which 
 the existing powerful Germanic unity has 
 assumed. To this unity the national Ger- 
 man character contributes an element not 
 unlike that of antiquity, in the subordina- 
 tion of the individual to the state. As a 
 matter of national characteristic, this differs 
 radically from the more modern conception 
 of the freedom and rights of the individual, 
 exemplified chiefly in England and the 
 United States. It is possible to accept the 
 latter as the superior ideal, as a higher 
 stage of advance, as ultimately more fruit- 
 ful of political progress, yet at the same 
 time to recognize the great immediate 
 advantage of the massed action which 
 subordinates the interests of the individual, 
 sinks the unit in the whole, in order to pro- 
 mote the interests of the community. It 
 may be noted incidentally, without further 
 
40 The Interest of America 
 
 insistence just here, that the Japanese Em- 
 pire, which in a different field from the 
 German is manifesting the same restless 
 need for self-assertion and expansion, comes 
 to its present with the same inheritance 
 from its past, of the submergence of the 
 individual in the mass. It was equally the 
 characteristic of Sparta among the city 
 states of ancient Greece, and gave to her 
 among them the preponderance she for a 
 time possessed. As an exhibition of social 
 development, it is generally anterior and 
 inferior to that in which the rights of the 
 individual are more fully recognized; but 
 as an element of mere force, whether in 
 economics or in international policies, it is 
 superior. 
 
 The two contrasted conceptions, the 
 claims of the individual and the claims of the 
 state, are familiar to all students of history. 
 The two undoubtedly must coexist every- 
 where, and have to be reconciled; but the 
 
In International Conditions 41 
 
 nature of the adjustment, in the clear pre- 
 dominance of the one or the other, con- 
 stitutes a difference which in effect upon 
 the particular community is fundamental. 
 In international relations, between states 
 representing the opposing ideas, it repro- 
 duces the contrast between the simple dis- 
 cipline of an army and the complicated 
 disseminated activities of the people, in- 
 dustrial, agricultural, and commercial. It 
 repeats the struggle of the many minor 
 mercantile firms against a single great com- 
 bination. In either field, whatever the ulti- 
 mate issue, — and in the end the many 
 will prevail, — the immediate result is that 
 preponderant concentrated force has its 
 way for a period which 'may thus be one of 
 great and needless distress; and it not 
 only has its way, but it takes its way, 
 because, whatever progress the world has 
 made, the stage has not been reached when 
 men or states willingly subordinate their 
 
42 The Interest of America 
 
 own interests to even a reasonable regard 
 for that of others. It is not necessary to 
 indulge in pessimistic apprehension, or to 
 deny that there is a real progress of the 
 moral forces lumped under the name of 
 "public opinion." This unquestionably 
 tells for much more than it once did; but 
 still the old predatory instinct, that he 
 should take who has the power, survives, in 
 industry and commerce, as well as in war, 
 and moral force is not sufficient to deter- 
 mine issues unless supported by physical. 
 Governments are corporations, and corpora- 
 tions have not souls. Governments more- 
 over are trustees, not principals; and as 
 such must put first the lawful interests of 
 their wards, their own people. 
 
 It matters little what may be the particu- 
 lar intentions now cherished by the German 
 government. The fact upon which the 
 contemporary world needs to fasten its 
 attention is that it is confronted by the 
 
In International Conditions 43 
 
 simple existence of a power such as is that 
 of the German Empire; reinforced neces- 
 sarily by that of Austria-Hungary, because, 
 whatever her internal troubles and external 
 ambitions, Austria is bound to Germany by 
 nearness, by inferior power, and by interests, 
 partly common to the two states, as surely 
 as the moon is bound to the earth and with 
 it constitutes a single group in the planetary 
 system. Over against this stands for the 
 moment a number of states, Russia, Italy, 
 France, Great Britain. The recent action 
 of Russia has demonstrated her interna- 
 tional weakness, the internal causes of 
 which are evident even to the most careless 
 observer. Italy still belongs to the Triple 
 Alliance, of which Germany and Austria 
 are the other members; but the inclination 
 of Italy towards England, springing from 
 past sympathies, and as a state necessarily 
 naval, because partly insular, partly penin- 
 sular, is known, as is also her recent draw- 
 
44 The Interest of America 
 
 ing towards France as compared with 
 former estrangement. Also, in the Balkan 
 regions and in the Adriatic Sea there is more 
 than divergence between the interest of 
 Italy and the ambitions of Austria, — 
 supported by Germany, — as shown in 
 the late annexations and their antecedents. 
 An Austrian journal, which foreshadowed 
 the annexations with singular acumen, has 
 written recently, 1 "We most urgently need 
 a fleet so strong that it can rule the 
 Northern Adriatic basin," — in which lies 
 the Italian Venice, as well as the Aus- 
 trian Trieste, — "support the operations 
 of our land army, protect our chief com- 
 mercial ports against hostile maritime un- 
 dertakings, and prevent us from being 
 throttled at the Strait of Otranto. To do 
 this, the fleet must at least attain the ap- 
 proximate strength of our probable enemy. 
 If we lag behind in developing our naval 
 1 The Mail, April 20, 19 10. 
 
In International Conditions 45 
 
 programme, Italy will so outrun us that we 
 can never overtake her. Here more than 
 elsewhere to stand still is to recede; but to 
 recede would be to renounce the historical 
 mission of Austria." The Austrian Dread- 
 noughts are proceeding, and the above 
 throws an interesting side light upon the 
 equipoise of the Triple Alliance. In the 
 Algeciras Conference, concerning the affairs 
 of Morocco, Italy did not sustain Ger- 
 many; Austria only did so. 
 
 Analyzing thus the present international 
 relations of Europe, we find on the one 
 side the recently constituted Triple En- 
 tente, France, Great Britain, and Russia; 
 on the other the Triple Alliance, Austria- 
 Hungary, Germany, and Italy, of thirty 
 years' standing. The sympathies of Italy, 
 as distinguished from the pressure of con- 
 ditions upon her, and from her formal 
 association, are doubtful; and the essentials 
 of the situation seem to be summed up 
 
46 The Interest of America 
 
 in the Triple Entente opposed by the 
 two mid-Europe military monarchies. In a 
 comparison of force, except naval force, 
 everything favors the latter. They stand 
 locally shoulder to shoulder; bound, if 
 by nothing else, by that facility for needed 
 mutual support which their contact gives. 
 This support, however, cannot be defensive 
 only; no purely defensive attitude can be 
 successfully maintained. There must be 
 preparation at least for offense, the power 
 to compel respect by ability to strike as 
 well as to shield, an ability markedly 
 shown in the enforcement of the Balkan 
 annexations of 1908; while in the economi- 
 cal conditions of the two states, in the rela- 
 tions of population to the means of exist- 
 ence, is to be seen the evidence that such 
 striking, whatever the immediate nature 
 or scene of the blow, must be directed to- 
 wards at least a reasonable control of access 
 to the markets necessary to their industries 
 
In International Conditions 47 
 
 over the world at large. The Austrian 
 movement towards the Balkans and the 
 iEgean is of this character. More and more, 
 for over thirty years past, Germany has 
 been changing from an agricultural to an 
 industrial community. More and more 
 for this reason she needs the assured im- 
 portation of raw materials and, where pos- 
 sible, control of regions productive of such 
 materials. More and more she requires 
 assured markets, and security as to the 
 importation of food, because less and less 
 comparatively is produced within her bor- 
 ders for her rapidly increasing population. 
 This all means security at sea. 
 
 Under this combination of necessities, 
 and with this accession of power conse- 
 quent upon national unity and national 
 organization of strength, Germany at the 
 opening of her course has found the markets 
 and the productive districts of the world 
 outside her own borders substantially pre- 
 
48 The Interest of America 
 
 empted by possession or control, alien to 
 herself. Upon the splendid achievement 
 of national unity, she has constituted for 
 herself a huge industrial system, and has 
 built a great merchant fleet now in inces- 
 sant active employment, carrying the prod- 
 ucts of her industry, and maintaining the 
 processes of intercourse. She has ships, 
 and she has commerce; but for the third 
 link in the chain of exchange, for markets, 
 outside the inadequate body of consumers 
 constituted by her own population, she 
 has to depend upon the strenuous compe- 
 tition of trade, in countries almost wholly 
 foreign to her control, made more arduous 
 by the arbitrary provisions of other govern- 
 ments at a period when Protection is in- 
 creasingly the note of the internal economy 
 of states. The only valuable market which 
 she can effectually command is that within 
 her own borders; the few colonies she has 
 been able to lay hold of, at the late period 
 
In International Conditions 49 
 
 of her entry into the race for territory, 
 offer no adequate prospect of relief in this 
 respect. 
 
 Thus handicapped at the outset, Germany 
 has found impediment to her career con- 
 centrated in a rival so near at hand as to be 
 constantly in sight; thus by propinquity 
 keeping alive the sense of obstruction. Ill 
 feeling need not arise from such a circum- 
 stance. Unfortunately, however, it does 
 more often than not; and it may very well 
 be that the national characteristics which 
 have found expression in very different 
 governmental conceptions as to the rela- 
 tions between the state and the individual, 
 tend to promote misunderstanding and 
 dislike. In the article before quoted, Pro- 
 fessor Delbriick says: "The system of 
 English government is popular in other 
 countries, whereas the German regime is 
 not favored. In Germany we hold a 
 
 strong independent [executive] government, 
 
 4 
 
5<d The Interest of America 
 
 assisted by a democratic Parliament, to be 
 a better scheme than the continual change 
 of party rule that is customary in England. 
 We believe that the flourishing condition 
 of Germany to-day, with her conscription, 
 her educational system, and her social laws, 
 which have practically succeeded in abolish- 
 ing distress, are due to this form of govern- 
 ment, which combines strict order with 
 liberty. But the other nations prefer the 
 English system, which is less severe and 
 affords greater freedom. A greater exten- 
 sion of English rule and influence would 
 therefore be more favorably regarded than 
 an increase of German power." An offi- 
 cial of long experience on board German 
 steamers has commented to me upon the 
 gentleness of manner in the average 
 American or Englishman, as contrasted 
 with Germans, in addressing attendants; 
 a difference not remotely traceable to the 
 peremptoriness inherent in immediate con- 
 
In International Conditions 51 
 
 trol of personal action by governmental 
 interference, military in cast. Be this as it 
 may, bitter rivalry does exist; and the 
 generally conceded superiority of German 
 methods in industry and commerce, the 
 careful studious adaptation of means to 
 ends, attention at once minute and com- 
 prehensive to the details of business, un- 
 tiring energy, and intelligent governmental 
 support, have had to encounter and to 
 overcome original advantages of position 
 on the part of Great Britain. 
 
 These advantages were — and in measure 
 still are — those proverbially inherent in pos- 
 session; actual occupancy of the industrial 
 and commercial field, of the world's carry- 
 ing trade and productive districts, the pres- 
 tige thus deriving, and yet more unfair — 
 in the estimation of a sufferer — the po- 
 litical tenure of huge tracts of territory, 
 available for settlement and exploitation, 
 only partially occupied, and yet, because 
 
52 The Interest of America 
 
 owned politically, closed to utilization by 
 Germany as a nation. Germans can go to 
 them indeed, and welcome. They make 
 good citizens, the more so that, while 
 loving the motherland still, they love 
 better the more liberal conditions of Ameri- 
 can and British life, or, for the matter of 
 that, any scheme of society less intrusively 
 ordered than that they left; but they are 
 lost to Germany. However advantageous 
 to their own prosperity the change may be, 
 there is in it nothing to reconcile the home 
 country, or those who remain there, to the 
 want of a greater Germany; wherein might 
 be established and fostered those reciprocal 
 relations, based on mutual dependence, 
 which are open to Great Britain and her 
 colonies, and by them actually are being 
 realized and valued in increasing measure. 
 Nothing could be more congenial to the 
 German temperament than the elabora- 
 tion of such a system; whether it would 
 
In International Conditions 53 
 
 work as well as British laxity — be over- 
 done — is another matter. The want of 
 the opportunity, in the apparent natural 
 developments of the future, cannot but 
 rankle with a state whose appetite for 
 colonies stands sufficiently revealed. 
 
 Besides these initial economical and polit- 
 ical disparities, the situation of the British 
 Islands is a military factor of profound 
 significance to Germany. The only shore 
 line of the Empire is that of the North Sea 
 and the Baltic. All the river ways of Ger- 
 many, so extensively developed and utilized, 
 interconnected by canals already existing 
 or planned, constituting a huge internal 
 system of water communications, find their 
 outlet in one or other of those two seas, 
 through which all sea borne trade enters or 
 departs. The whole external commerce of 
 Germany, going or coming, focusses there. 
 The North Sea coast-line, if to be covered 
 by hostile cruisers, is little over sixty miles 
 
54 The Interest of America 
 
 long, from the Ems to the Elbe. The 
 Baltic seaboard is much more extensive; 
 but all access to it from the Atlantic is 
 through the Skager-Rack, the external 
 approach to which is less than a hundred 
 miles wide. It is true that merchant 
 steamers may protect themselves in some 
 measure by skirting the Norwegian and 
 Danish coasts within neutral limits, when 
 once attained; but a large margin of risk 
 will still remain, for directly across all 
 lines of communication thence to the At- 
 lantic, and so to every ocean, lie the British 
 Islands. Most of us carry in our mind's 
 eye the width of the English Channel and 
 of the Straits of Dover, along the full 
 length of which, moreover, is English, land 
 containing two principal naval stations; 
 but the other way round, by the north of 
 Scotland, the North Sea itself is nowhere 
 four hundred miles wide, and in places only 
 three hundred. In case of war between the 
 
In International Conditions 55 
 
 two countries, no German ship, as inter- 
 national law now stands, can use this 
 stretch of water without liability to capture; 
 while a successful blockade of the German 
 harbors on the two seas puts a stop to all 
 commerce, as well by neutrals as by Ger- 
 mans. Such a blockade by Great Britain 
 of the North Sea, including the two chief 
 commercial cities, Hamburg and Bremen, 
 would rest on ports not four hundred miles 
 distant. A Baltic blockade would be a 
 much more serious undertaking. 
 
 We see here the military explanation of 
 the Kiel Canal, connecting the Baltic with 
 the North Sea at the mouth of the Elbe. 
 Ships of war and commerce can thus pass 
 from one sea to the other, without exposure. 
 This permits naval concentration against 
 an enemy venturing to divide his fleet 
 between the two. Also, while it does not 
 help the case of German merchant ships 
 in the North Sea, it does permit neutrals, 
 
56 The Interest of America 
 
 if debarred from Hamburg and Bremen by 
 blockade, to go to Baltic ports, if not 
 blockaded, whence their cargoes can be 
 conveyed by the canal system to many 
 destinations, by continuous water ways, 
 obviating in great part the necessity of 
 rehandling en route — of transshipment. 
 This is a great defensive provision; for, 
 conceding a hostile navy not fully twice the 
 force of the German, it cannot undertake 
 to blockade both seas. If it does, one 
 fraction or the other is inferior to the 
 German whole, upon the coming out of 
 which, assured by the canal, it must retire; 
 and by accepted international law such 
 retirement destroys the blockade for the 
 time being. Until it is reconstituted, in 
 such force as to hold its ground, no capture 
 of a neutral can be made; and, moreover, 
 an additional margin of time is required, 
 for neutrals to receive a notification of the 
 changed conditions which make a voyage 
 
In International Conditions 57 
 
 unlawful. It is to be noted, however, that 
 the substantial advantage arising from 
 securing the ports of the one sea or the 
 other for neutral vessels, by lessening the 
 facility for blockade, is much qualified by 
 the fact that so large a percentage of the 
 mercantile tonnage of the world to-day is 
 either British or German. In case of war 
 between the two countries, the remaining 
 vessels, constituting the neutral tonnage, 
 would be quite inadequate to the necessary 
 transportation to German ports, over and 
 above its previous employment in other 
 trades. 
 
 It may be noted also, as a qualifying 
 factor, that the great German naval base 
 on the North Sea, Wilhelmshaven, the con- 
 tinuous development of which, parallel with 
 the building of the fleet itself, is so char- 
 acteristic an illustration of the systematic 
 prevision and preparation which constitutes 
 much of the greatness and menace of Ger- 
 
58 The Interest of America 
 
 many, is separated from the Elbe by some 
 twenty miles of dangerous coast with off- 
 lying shoals. In some degree this modifies, 
 though it by no means destroys, the advan- 
 tage of the Kiel Canal as an assured inter- 
 mediate link between the two seas. Over 
 this strip of coast, strategically important 
 to a watching fleet, stands guard the island 
 of Heligoland, now a heavily fortified base 
 for torpedo vessels, which in 1890 was ceded 
 to Germany by Great Britain in exchange 
 for the relinquishment of Germany's claim 
 to the island of Zanzibar, off East Africa. 
 Being thirty miles from the coast, Heligoland 
 projects by so much more the torpedo de- 
 fence requisite to such conditions. 
 
 Defensive provision, such as that of the 
 Kiel Canal, is essential and admirable, but 
 the security obtained falls far short of that 
 demanded by national pride as well as 
 national interest. Americans who recall 
 what Cuba once meant to our international 
 
In International Conditions 59 
 
 policy may appreciate what the British 
 Islands by situation mean to German com- 
 merce. The whole Gulf Coast trade, in- 
 cluding that of the Mississippi valley, had 
 — and has — to pass within a hundred 
 miles of Cuba, on one side or the other; 
 a circumstance which made it intolerable 
 to the United States that the island should 
 go into the hands of any powerful naval 
 state. The change of political tenure and 
 the developed power of the Union have 
 put that anxiety into the background. 
 Cuba's position remains; but the probabil- 
 ity of its being otherwise of use as a base 
 for naval operations has disappeared, at 
 least for the time. The position and political 
 tenure of the British Islands are permanent, 
 as things go in this world; their naval 
 strength is now supreme; and it is the 
 pronounced intention of both the principal 
 political parties so to maintain it. 
 
 The reason for this pronouncement is 
 
60 The Interest of America 
 
 sound and imperative. Equally with Ger- 
 many in kind, and to a much greater de- 
 gree, Great Britain depends upon external 
 sources for raw materials, for food, and for 
 access to markets. Her population, only 
 two thirds that of Germany, is in so far 
 inferior as a source of military power; 
 while, being also larger in proportion to the 
 territory, it is less able to live off the land. 
 The population to the square mile is over 
 four hundred; that of Germany only three 
 hundred. Moreover, the dependence of 
 Great Britain upon the sea is absolute; she 
 has not, like Germany, any continental fron- 
 tiers by which to receive supplies. The river 
 Rhine by itself, emptying through a friendly 
 Holland, is a copious highroad to the interior 
 of Germany which in no way can be closed 
 by Great Britain. On another frontier is 
 Russia, one of the granaries of the world. 
 In 1909 Russia produced more wheat than 
 any other country in the world, 213,425,- 
 
In International Conditions 61 
 
 336 quintals. The United States came 
 second, but at a large margin, 193,544,97$ 
 quintals. 1 
 
 As regards the causes for maintaining a 
 navy, the greater necessity of self-preserva- 
 tion lies upon Great Britain. For reasons 
 absolutely vital she cannot afford to sur- 
 render supremacy at sea. Moreover, the 
 relations between herself and her colonies 
 impose the obligation of defense for them; 
 not indeed by local superiorities in their 
 several waters, an object at once unattain- 
 able and needless, but by a concentrated 
 superiority of naval force in Europe, which 
 as yet remains the base, at once of defense 
 and of attack, as far as other quarters of 
 the world are concerned. Yet, at the same 
 time, this supremacy of Great Britain in 
 European seas means a perpetual latent con- 
 trol of German commerce, owing to the 
 position of the British Islands. This has 
 
 1 The Mail, February 21, 1910. A quintal (metric 
 system) contains 220 )& lbs. 
 
62 The Interest of America 
 
 been emphasized in the last few years by a 
 concentration in home waters of the British 
 navy, previously more or less dispersed; 
 a very large fraction having been in the 
 Mediterranean, the comparative abandon- 
 ment of which has an imperial significance. 
 There can be little doubt that this con- 
 centration has been caused by the double 
 consideration of the growth of the German 
 navy and the recognized supremacy of the 
 German army. The possibility of a sudden 
 invasion, during an enticed absence of the 
 British fleet, was for years the dream of 
 Napoleon, and the terror of his British 
 contemporaries. He was foiled, and by 
 no narrow margin. Nevertheless, even 
 before the days of steam, the conception 
 was not wholly fantastic; it had been en- 
 tertained before Napoleon, by Choiseul in 
 the time of Louis XV. At present, the 
 physical difficulties are greatly reduced by 
 steam, which makes the necessary ferriage 
 
In International Conditions 63 
 
 of troops wholly independent of wind and 
 weather, and extremely rapid. This does 
 not indeed entirely remove the obstacles 
 and delays inherent in assembling the ves- 
 sels and embarking the troops, an operation 
 embracing a multiplicity of nice details, 
 scarcely to be effected without timely 
 observation; but the mobilizations against 
 Austria and France are remembered, as 
 well as the astute policy which preceded 
 and precipitated them. There has been a 
 real fear, among men whose opinions de- 
 mand consideration, that by surprise a 
 body of troops might be landed sufficient 
 to overpower organized opposition; an 
 
 army in face of a mob. 
 
 Hence the concentration of the British 
 navy; and correlative to it a German 
 naval programme, involving not merely 
 the numbers of ships, but the evolution of 
 a complete factory and docking system, 
 for the rapid preparation and maintenance 
 
64 The Interest of America 
 
 of naval material of all kinds, in large 
 quantities. This scheme, as revealed in 
 its entirety, is an interesting illustration of 
 the peculiar German capacity for quiet and 
 masterly elaboration. The object is not 
 officially stated, but a particular utterance 
 may be believed not far from the truth: 
 that it is to provide a navy of such force 
 that the largest in the world will hesitate 
 to incur hostilities. " German policy," 
 writes Delbrtick, "can never aim at the 
 subjection of England; but it should and 
 must endeavor to restrict her movements." 
 This may mean no more than to check the 
 control over German trade inherent in 
 British position; but as the programme 
 calls for a navy larger than that which 
 Great Britain now has, she is compelled 
 to a ship-building competition, to main- 
 tain her lead. 
 
 It is clear, therefore, that the British 
 navy stands opposed in the balance to the 
 
In International Conditions 65 
 
 German army; for could control of the 
 sea be wrested, Great Britain neither has 
 nor contemplates an army able to resist 
 that of her rival. Germany, on the contrary, 
 does contemplate such a navy in addition 
 to her army. Though vastly the richer 
 state, Great Britain cannot obtain from 
 her people that which Germany can from 
 the very different antecedents of hers. 
 Individual liberty, possibly intensifying nat- 
 ural characteristics, has made it impossible 
 to organize the community in Great Britain 
 as it is in Germany. Such an aptitude is 
 the work of generations, and a generation 
 of time is not to be expected here. The 
 successes of Great Britain, as a maritime 
 and colonizing community, have been the 
 work of individuals, singly or in free co- 
 operation; the state remaining in the back- 
 ground, and, as it were, only seeing fair 
 play. Initiation has been private; in Ger- 
 many essentially corporate. 
 
66 The Interest of America 
 
 The result is illustrated in the recent 
 British old age pension scheme. Although 
 with that of Germany in view, as a model 
 to imitate or to modify, this attempt 
 at corporate — state — action, betrays the 
 state's lack of experience and of firmness 
 of grasp. Neither the individual employer 
 nor the individual employed is called upon, 
 as such, to bear part of the burden which 
 properly concerns both. The community 
 bears the burden, undoubtedly, as in Ger- 
 many; but in Great Britain it is borne, 
 not by a careful interadjustment among 
 the members, but by a simple dumping of 
 the whole, in a concentrated load, to be met 
 by a taxation which directly discourages 
 both enterprise and thrift; the one, by 
 overcharging its results, the other by plac- 
 ing a premium on its absence. Not by such 
 crude parody of state action can Great 
 Britain meet the calculated progress of 
 Germany. 
 
In International Conditions 67 
 
 All this enforces still more the serious 
 character of German preponderance. Upon 
 the Continent no single state can make 
 head against her in aggregate of power; 
 while cooperation between any two, or all, 
 of them encounters the difficulty of com- 
 bining their action, and the certainty that 
 from the nature of things, in any grouping 
 of the Powers, Austria-Hungary will stand 
 by the side of Germany. Thus the British 
 navy is left the sole military force in the 
 world superior to anything that Germany 
 can as yet bring into action; while with 
 this military circumstance combines an 
 industrial and commercial rivalry, increas- 
 ing yearly in intensity, and affecting the 
 welfare of the two peoples, as expressed in 
 the needs and incomes of the populations. 
 The various diplomatic visits which the 
 press brings recurrently to our knowledge 
 are the reflection of this condition of things. 
 In them Germany sees an attempt to iso- 
 
68 The Interest of America 
 
 late and restrict her action; the other states 
 an understanding by which to check the 
 supposed excess and intrusiveness of her 
 ambitions. Whichever view be adopted, the 
 salient organized factors are in Great Britain 
 and in Germany; in the wealth, the commer- 
 cial and industrial systems of the two, in 
 the British navy and in the German army. 
 The other states make important contribu- 
 tions on either hand to this balance; but 
 as contributory, not as principal. 
 
II 
 
 THE PRESENT PREDOMINANCE OF 
 
 GERMANY IN EUROPE — ITS 
 
 FOUNDATIONS AND 
 
 TENDENCIES 
 
II 
 
 THE PRESENT PREDOMINANCE OF GERMANY 
 
 IN EUROPE — ITS FOUNDATIONS 
 
 AND TENDENCIES 
 
 "PRECOGNITION of the protagonism of 
 Germany and Great Britain and of 
 the causes upon which it depends, does 
 not ignore the existence of other circum- 
 stances, — such as the Austrian annexa- 
 tions of the past year, or the Morocco con- 
 tention of 1905, — which in their perma- 
 nence, or in their transient appearance, have 
 from time to time affected, or still do 
 affect, the course of nations. The fact re- 
 mains that such minor occurrences are 
 rather of the nature of occasions, which 
 elicit action corresponding to their impor- 
 tance, as estimated by the several govern- 
 ments, but controlled ultimately by their 
 
72 The Interest of America 
 
 bearing upon relations, of which the cen- 
 tral factor is the contemporary condition 
 and antagonism of Germany and Great 
 Britain, springing from the historical ante- 
 cedents stated. "It is my opinion," writes 
 Delbriick, "that the rivalry between the 
 two great nations — England and Ger- 
 many — is the natural outcome of the 
 state of affairs, and can never be abolished. 
 This rivalry, however, does not involve the 
 necessity of war; it suffices that by means 
 of strenuous armaments both Powers should 
 maintain an equal balance of power, and 
 keep each other within bounds." To this 
 balance the other European states con- 
 tribute, on the one side or the other. 
 
 Delbriick's line of reasoning applies to 
 every other nation, as well as to Great 
 Britain; and to every other cause of con- 
 tention, as well as to those which consti- 
 tute the rivalry between her and Germany. 
 The scene of a war depends largely upon 
 
In International Conditions 73 
 
 the geographical situations of the parties 
 to it; but its origin may be remote in 
 place, and especially now, when, as he 
 argues, and we all know, the nations of 
 European type, including the United States, 
 are compelled more and more to seek both 
 raw materials and outlets for their indus- 
 tries and their capital in the less highly 
 developed parts of the world, and are there 
 in mutual competition. That is, in Asia, 
 Africa, and South America. At the end of 
 May, 1909, the British Secretary for Foreign 
 Affairs, speaking in the House of Commons, 
 said that there remained then no European 
 question likely to give rise to acute differ- 
 ences between the states of Europe; but 
 he added that the Congo question, an 
 African question, if not rationally handled, 
 might cause European difficulties with 
 which those of the last few months — that 
 is, the Austrian annexations, definitely 
 recognized by all the Powers only in April, 
 
74 The Interest of America 
 
 1909, — would be child's play. "The de- 
 finitive aim, which Germany sets herself, 
 is not to acquire vast colonies, but to en- 
 force such a position that German influ- 
 ence, German capital, German commerce, 
 German engineering, and German intel- 
 ligence can compete on equal terms with 
 other nations, in those countries, and 
 among those populations, which are out- 
 side the pale of European civilization." ! 
 
 No one can complain of such an aim; 
 but none the less, when confronted with 
 the avowal, men have to recognize that 
 they are being confronted with force, and 
 to remember the pregnant remark of the 
 speaker that wars do not usually arise 
 from definite aims but from incidental 
 causes, in which the stronger party will 
 usually prevail. Is "equality in terms" 
 immediately recognized by both parties to 
 such collisions? Has the world generally 
 1 Delbriick. My italics. 
 
In International Conditions 75 
 
 been as satisfied with Germany's ideas of 
 the equality of her rights, in Bismarck's day 
 or in recent events, as it has been con- 
 vinced of her superiority of force, and of 
 her attempt to control in virtue of that 
 superiority? The nations of the world 
 have to regard the two facts: 1, a gen- 
 eral rivalry in the regions named, compli- 
 cated in South America by the Monroe 
 Doctrine, and, 2, a German navy soon to be 
 superior to every other, except the British. 
 Should the latter retain its full present pre- 
 dominance, this, coupled with the situation 
 of the British Islands, constitutes a check 
 upon Germany; but that check removed, 
 none approaching it remains. It follows 
 that the condition and strength of Great 
 Britain is a matter of national interest to 
 every other community. With her far more 
 liberal institutions and consequent weaker 
 organization of force, replete to satiety with 
 colonial possessions, she has no adequate 
 
76 The Interest of America 
 
 stimulus to aggression, least of all against 
 the United States; nor has she in these days 
 of organization the national efficiency, of 
 which Germany is at present the consum- 
 mate and unrivalled example. 
 
 Granting what has been said, it is clear 
 that Great Britain occupies the key of the 
 international position at a moment when 
 international tension is increasing because 
 all the nations eminent in industry and in 
 the possession of capital are seeking out- 
 lets in the same quarters of the world; a 
 moment of emphasized competition. In- 
 dustry, production, capital, are not merely 
 abstract terms; they represent the resources, 
 upon the utilization of which depend the 
 food, clothing, housing, and reasonable 
 comforts of populations. The principals, 
 therefore, to the present struggle, are not 
 the governments but the peoples, of whom 
 the several governments are the agents. 
 If by the superior efficiency of one gov- 
 
In International Conditions 77 
 
 ernmental system there is brought into 
 play military organized force, over and 
 above the industrial and commercial force 
 possessed, other nations have to look to 
 combination among themselves to main- 
 tain the balance of opportunity. Owing 
 to her situation and her navy, Great Brit- 
 ain occupies the key of the general situa- 
 tion, a condition supported by her exten- 
 sive colonial system, especially the self- 
 governing colonies; but in a competition 
 of force she is inferior to Germany in 
 efficient organization, and in concentrated 
 numbers. Hence springs a necessity for 
 all states, or rather for all peoples, who 
 recognize the importance to themselves 
 of equality or opportunity in the world 
 markets, to consider with what attitude of 
 mind, what comprehension of conditions, 
 and what measure of force, they will ap- 
 proach the inevitable developments of the 
 future. If one state be decisively stronger 
 
78 The Interest of America 
 
 than every other, the balance, as in former 
 times, can be maintained only by under- 
 standings and combinations among the 
 weaker. 
 
 Incident to this must be noted that the 
 sea is the decisive factor, as in most indus- 
 trial competitions. Under present condi- 
 tions in Europe, notably in the prostra- 
 tion of Russia, coupled with the diversion 
 of her energies eastward, Germany is en- 
 tirely safe from invasion. Her navy is, or 
 very soon will be, free to act in any part 
 of the world, — except for the British navy. 
 This removed, neutral, or fallen in power, 
 Germany under present anticipations, 
 which accord with reasonable probabilities, 
 becomes the dominant naval state of the 
 world, as well as the predominant country 
 of Europe. Is it to be expected, moreover, 
 that Great Britain will exert her power of 
 constraint upon the movements of the 
 German navy, in cases not involving her 
 
In International Conditions 79 
 
 own immediate interests, narrowly con- 
 strued, when she has no guarantee of re- 
 ciprocal support were conditions reversed? 
 In the immaturity of American national 
 power, at the time the Monroe Doctrine 
 was enounced, the British fleet was a 
 greater power, relatively, than it is now. 
 Yet the American pronouncement, trivial 
 as was then our naval force, was welcomed 
 as a substantial support; and the two 
 states, by their action, prevented the pro- 
 posed transference across the sea of armies 
 from combined Europe to interfere in an 
 American quarrel. This reciprocal support 
 was induced by the coincidence of interests. 
 Again, at the time of the War with Spain, 
 in 1898, the writer has been assured, by 
 an authority which he believes competent, 
 that to a proposition made to Great Brit- 
 ain to enter into a combination to con- 
 strain the use of the United States power, 
 — as Japan, also an extra-European nation, 
 
80 The Interest of America 
 
 in 1895 was constrained to give up her hold 
 of Port Arthur and the surrounding terri- 
 tory by the joint action of France, Ger- 
 many, and Russia, — the reply was not 
 only a refusal to enter into such combina- 
 tion, but an assurance of active resistance 
 to it, if attempted. I do not wish to attri- 
 bute such an attitude to other than mo- 
 tives of interest, sagaciously interpreted. 
 Nor would I appeal for acknowledgment 
 of such a service to any sentiment; for 
 sentiment, though powerful in nations, 
 is excessively undependable, — liable to 
 change. The question to be posed is, 
 where, under existing conditions, broadly 
 considered, is mutual support most likely 
 to be found, because of common interest? 
 and because of common political traditions, 
 — no slight factor in international sympa- 
 thies. It is as true now as when Washing- 
 ton penned the words, and will always be 
 true, that it is vain to expect nations to 
 
In International Conditions 81 
 
 act consistently from any motive other 
 than that of interest. This, under the 
 name of " realism," is the frankly avowed 
 motive of German statecraft. It follows 
 from this, directly, that the study of in- 
 terests, international interests, is the one 
 basis of sound and provident policy for 
 statesmen. This involves a wide knowl- 
 edge of contemporary facts as well as power 
 to appreciate them; but for a nation to 
 exert its full weight in the world such 
 knowledge and appreciation must be wide- 
 spread among its plain people also. So 
 only can the short vision common to most 
 men expand to the prevision of national 
 needs, and the timely provision of the 
 necessary means for national self-assertion. 
 The United States now is compelled to 
 see, not for the first time, that European 
 politics affect American interests, directly 
 and inevitably. In the determination of 
 Germany to assert for herself a leading 
 
82 The Interest of America 
 
 position in world politics, and in her 
 avowed plan to build a navy which, when 
 completed, will exceed in strength that 
 which Great Britain now possesses, and 
 be superior to any as yet contemplated by 
 any other nation, including the United 
 States, she is exercising her indisputable 
 right as an independent state, answerable 
 to no other for her actions; but in so do- 
 ing she places herself in a position of pre- 
 ponderant force over every other state 
 singly, and that not only with reference to 
 local defense, but in respect to her con- 
 tentions wherever they may arise through- 
 out the whole world. There is thus form- 
 ing, not slowly but rapidly, a condition 
 parallel in main features to one which .con- 
 fronted the United States throughout the 
 first half of the last century, especially be- 
 tween the enunciation of the Monroe Doc- 
 trine and the end of the War of Secession. 
 When fully developed, the situation will 
 
In International Conditions 83 
 
 not be unprecedented, but it may be dis- 
 tinctly more ominous, because the com- 
 petition among nations is vastly sharper 
 than before i860; a condition which itself 
 arises largely from the change of Germany 
 from an agricultural to an industrial com- 
 munity since 1870. Now, as before, antag- 
 onism will arise from the sea, the frontier 
 common to ourselves and other maritime 
 states. The world has long been accus- 
 tomed to the idea of a preponderant naval 
 power, coupling it accurately with the name 
 of Great Britain; and it has been noted 
 that such power, when achieved, is com- 
 monly found associated with commercial 
 and industrial preeminence, the struggle for 
 which is now in progress between Great 
 Britain and Germany. Such preeminence 
 forces a nation to seek markets, and, 
 where possible, to control them to its own 
 advantage by preponderant force, the ulti- 
 mate expression of which is possession. 
 
84 The Interest of America 
 
 The Protective System, now almost uni- 
 versal, is an instance of force, of national 
 power, used to constitute artificial advan- 
 tages for national industry and commerce; 
 and the vaunted free trade policy of Great 
 Britain has rested upon a simple calcula- 
 tion of advantage, which being brought 
 now into dispute, the fabric is shaken. 
 Both are instances of national possession 
 of territory, utilized or recommended as a 
 means to obtain or to retain advantages 
 otherwise than by free and open competi- 
 tion. Great Britain in 1878 acceded to the 
 occupation by Austria of Bosnia and Herze- 
 govina, though they continued in form prov- 
 inces of Turkey; upon this followed tariff 
 regulations which excluded British trade 
 from a market before possessed. The now 
 familiar phrase, "The open door," simply 
 voices a protest against further trade exclu- 
 sions in particular regions by territorial ac- 
 quisitions; or by territorial control, however 
 exerted or disguised. 
 
In International Conditions 85 
 
 Doubtless there is such a thing as purely 
 commercial rivalry, resting solely upon in- 
 dustrial and economical efficiency; but, 
 however effective in these respects a peo- 
 ple may be, they are content with this only 
 when they have not the power otherwise 
 to control matters. When they have the 
 power they will use it; and no ability to 
 use compares with that of possessing the 
 land. From this flow two results: the 
 attempt to possess, and the organization 
 of force by which to maintain possession 
 already acquired. Very lately, when these 
 lines had scarcely left the writer's pen, a 
 German voice of no small authority has 
 proclaimed the acquiescence of Germany 
 in her exclusion, by preemption, from fur- 
 ther colonial acquisitions. No one is at 
 liberty to doubt the perfect sincerity of 
 such utterance; yet it remains that nations 
 are constrained by opportunity when it 
 arises, or willingly use it. Who in the open- 
 
86 The Interest of America 
 
 ing months of 1898 expected the United 
 States to occupy the Philippines? Those 
 islands certainly were not the cause, nor 
 the object, of the war; and the present 
 writer was personal witness of the extreme 
 repugnance to the step on the part of 
 the then Government. No one can fore- 
 tell what a nation will do, or feel com- 
 pelled to do. One thing only is certain: 
 that where both parties think themselves 
 right, force will prevail; moreover, it will 
 be exercised when occasion offers. Not 
 the present purpose of Germany, but the 
 fact of the proposed preponderant Ger- 
 man navy, coinciding with the condition 
 that access to necessary markets is de- 
 pendent upon alien legislation, will dictate 
 Germany's future, as unforeseeable circum- 
 stances may determine. 
 
 In transmarine application of force, one 
 element is indispensable; that is, a navy. 
 Without naval strength, the exertion over- 
 
In International Conditions 87 
 
 sea of every other form of force is paralyzed. 
 Further, a navy needs the ability to re- 
 main at will in any part of the globe where 
 its services are required. This means naval 
 bases, which themselves furnish an addi- 
 tional instance of the advantage of terri- 
 torial possession. The cession of Kiao 
 Chau by China to Germany was the re- 
 sult of a German armed demonstration, 
 consequent upon injuries done to German 
 citizens; but the Chancellor of the Empire 
 told the legislature that the step was not 
 sudden, unforeseen, nor disconnected. It 
 was "the result of ripe reflection. We had 
 long been convinced that we needed a ter- 
 ritorial base in the extreme East." This 
 statement is simply a specific formulation 
 of the general necessity stated; itself an 
 inevitable link in a chain of logical sequence: 
 Industry, markets, control, navy, bases. 
 
 This series sums up the progress of the 
 sea power of Great Britain, and because of 
 
88 The Interest of America 
 
 the impetus and traditions of that progress 
 the United States was in continued diplo- 
 matic conflict with her, concerning disputed 
 territorial possessions, from the time of 
 Monroe's pronouncement until the end of 
 the sectional war. This, too, despite the 
 fact that Great Britain was already begin- 
 ning to feel the load of territorial responsi- 
 bility phrased in the words "the weary 
 Titan." She had enough; some of her 
 statesmen of that day thought far too 
 much; but she had not yet got over the 
 habit of wanting more, her industries were 
 importunate, her navy supreme, her power 
 on the sea uncontested. Fortunately for 
 the American diplomatic contentions, the 
 recollection of the harassment and ' un- 
 profitableness of the War of 1812 was still 
 vivid, the markets of the United States 
 were valuable, the points, the occupation of 
 which were successively at issue, not very 
 consequential. Peace was not broken, and 
 
In International Conditions 89 
 
 the American claims for the most part were 
 conceded. 
 
 Throughout all the agitations and govern- 
 mental movements accompanying the con- 
 ditions so far summarized, there is to be 
 discerned ultimately a simple contest of 
 forces, determined by considerations of 
 conflicting national interests. Whether reg- 
 ulated by diplomacy, or brought to the 
 arbitrament of war, whether between two 
 communities, or between groups of states, 
 it is power arrayed against power; power 
 not in the sense of physical force only, but 
 in a wide estimate of the advantages and 
 disadvantages attendant upon the course 
 of action. In place of such balance of 
 power, which suggests necessarily two op- 
 posite scales, that is, an equilibrium de- 
 pendent on essential antagonism, and there- 
 fore liable to frequent fluctuations, the last 
 century witnessed the growth of the idea 
 of concert, whereby all or some of the great 
 
90 The Interest of America 
 
 states, with other communities immedi- 
 ately affected, act together, in accord, for 
 the solution of questions upon a basis of 
 right, or of compromise, which when reached 
 has the binding force of a contract. All 
 general treaties, in a congress of nations, 
 partake of this character; but the present 
 conception of "concert" applies the method 
 of general consultation and arrangement, 
 whether by correspondence or by congress, 
 to particular settlements, of matters minor 
 but important. Thus a partial concert of 
 the great Powers, to which Germany re- 
 fused her participation, apparently because 
 of particular relations with the now deposed 
 Sultan, Abdul Hamid, resulted in a joint 
 garrisoning of Crete by France, Great 
 Britain, Italy, and Russia, as a measure 
 tending to maintain quiet between Chris- 
 tian and Mahomedan inhabitants, who 
 looked for political union and for support to 
 Greece and Turkey respectively; a circum- 
 
In International Conditions 91 
 
 stance which embittered the relations be- 
 tween these two countries and threatened 
 an outbreak dangerous to the peace of 
 Europe. Again, the Conference at Alge- 
 ciras, five years ago, was a concert of the 
 Powers, which produced a mandate to 
 France and Spain, as the states most 
 directly interested, to take certain measures 
 in Morocco. In such cases the result 
 reached represents, in form at least, agree- 
 ment, not a balance of antagonisms. 
 
 In endeavoring to put aside force, sub- 
 stituting for it reason and mutual conces- 
 sion, this resort is in idea cognate to 
 arbitration, as balance of power is to forcible 
 settlement. Unhappily, such agreements 
 in form represent also, too often, a mere 
 resultant of forces, and are liable to disturb- 
 ance as the forces vary. A very recent 
 instance is the disregard of the Berlin 
 Treaty of 1878, by Austria, in changing the 
 occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
 
92 The Interest of America 
 
 authorized by the treaty, into political in- 
 corporation. The concert of the treaty 
 thus disappears into an antagonism of 
 Powers. Germany backs Austria; while 
 Russia, under German pressure, the precise 
 character of which it is not necessary to 
 know, throws over her understanding with 
 Great Britain and France, whereby the 
 three stood together, opposed to a step 
 which, without the concert of Europe, de- 
 prived Turkey of her formal suzerainty over 
 the two provinces, and which was regarded 
 by the minor kingdom of Servia as distinctly 
 injurious to her reasonable ambitions. The 
 sullen resentment of Russia under this 
 thinly veiled coercion was manifested dip- 
 lomatically by the Czar's labored avoid- 
 ance of Austrian territory in his diplomatic 
 journey from Russia to Italy, in October, 
 1909. Not till the following February was 
 a formal end put to a condition of estrange- 
 ment which menaced the peace of Europe, 
 
In International Conditions 03 
 
 in case of any difficult question arising in 
 the Balkans. In the outcome, the action 
 of Austria stands an accomplished fact; 
 accomplished, not with, but despite, the 
 concert of Europe, and modified only by 
 certain pecuniary compensations acceptable 
 to the financial needs of Turkey, pressed by 
 an internal revolution which had afforded 
 the occasion for the Austrian aggression. 
 When such an outcome is reached, the last 
 state is worse than the first. The antago- 
 nism of forces revives, intensified by the evi- 
 dence that a formal concert is liable to be 
 cast aside, at the arbitrary decision of one 
 of the parties, whenever convenience or 
 imagined necessity occurs. Mutual con- 
 fidence has been shaken, if not destroyed. 
 Whether inevitable or not, such a result 
 illustrates that the states of the world are 
 not yet in a condition to dispense with the 
 institution of organized force. There are 
 contentions which a state will not submit 
 
94 The Interest of America 
 
 to either the deliberation of a concert or 
 the adjudication of a tribunal; in which 
 its action is maintained, or is checked, as 
 the case may be, only by force. It may be 
 interesting to note in this connection that 
 the Balance of Power is analogous to com- 
 petition in industrial and commercial life, 
 while the Concert of Europe has much in 
 common with the operation of a Trust. 
 Although it has not attained the feature 
 of absorption of all into one which is the 
 characteristic of the Trust, it does concen- 
 trate the political adjudication of Europe 
 in the hands of a combination before which 
 the weaker companies — I mean Powers — 
 have to bend. 
 
 Without undertaking to measure circum- 
 stances which may extenuate such an ac- 
 tion as the annexation of the two Balkan 
 provinces or increase condemnation of it, 
 it is evident that, in a clear instance of 
 contract disregarded, there is a moral 
 
In International Conditions 95 
 
 element that affects the whole world. At 
 the bottom of all satisfactory relations, 
 social, financial, or international, lies con- 
 fidence. Without confidence there is no 
 security; the extreme of confidence shaken 
 is panic. No business man needs a more 
 vivid illustration of what a breach of 
 treaty, sustained by force, means to that 
 business of nations which we call interna- 
 tional politics. This has been more or less 
 the condition of Europe since the Franco- 
 Prussian War; for that not only revealed 
 a supreme military power, but also finally 
 constituted, as an organic whole, a state in 
 which the faculty of organization in all 
 departments of life transcends that of 
 every other member of the European family; 
 including therein the United States, as at 
 least very near of kin to that family. 
 
 The military organization, the army, is 
 only a particular instance of German organi- 
 zation of energy; of which the distinguish- 
 
96 The Interest of America 
 
 ing characteristic is that the entire social 
 order, formally concentrated in the national 
 government, originates, supervises, fosters, 
 and develops the directive agencies of 
 national activity, to an extent and with a 
 success not approached elsewhere. Thus 
 is accomplished a massing of forces, which 
 tells in industrial and commercial life just 
 as it does in military combinations. A 
 Trust is an organized massing of forces; 
 and the power of trusts we know. In 
 Germany such massing by the government 
 is peculiarly easy and effectual; for the 
 German man of to-day is the product of 
 centuries of political and social conditions, 
 in which government, good or bad, has over- 
 shadowed the individual. This has been 
 partly from the traditions of absolute gov- 
 ernment; still more because the smallness 
 of most of the German states permitted 
 such government to seek out, reach, and 
 come home to the personal life of each 
 
In International Conditions 97 
 
 subject, to a degree not elsewhere attained. 
 Thus the individual German of to-day is 
 particularly adapted by past environment, 
 and very possibly by hereditary character- 
 istics, to fall in with the scheme of govern- 
 mental control, which seems to be the 
 tendency now in all civilized communities. 
 The liberty of the individual, undirected 
 and unrestrained by the community, except 
 where trespassing on the common right, 
 or on the rights of others, has been the ideal 
 of Great Britain and the United States. 
 It is yielding now everywhere to the need 
 of restraint, just because it is being discov- 
 ered that otherwise the combinations of 
 individuals do threaten common rights. 
 In sheer self-defense, communities are forced 
 to measures which, while socialistic in form, 
 are not so in spirit, when their aim is not 
 to substitute governmental action for that 
 of the individual, but only to regulate the 
 latter; just as in every age, this, that, or 
 
98 The Interest of America 
 
 the other element of a political society 
 has required control, because developing 
 overweening strength. It may be noted 
 that governmental regulation introduces a 
 competitive factor into the social order, by 
 setting up the interest of the community at 
 large against that of individuals or corpora- 
 tions when the power of these becomes 
 excessive; whereas the Socialist ideal, that 
 the state should assume directive control 
 and possession of all social activities, con- 
 stitutes a monopoly to which no natural 
 efficient corrective exists, — a gigantic mo- 
 nopoly and Trust. 
 
 In this contemporary tendency to a 
 higher exhibition of organization, Germany 
 is found with a lead which in so far:, in 
 methods and in aptitudes, gives her a start 
 over all other states, and constitutes for 
 her an opportunity to retrieve those dis- 
 advantages under which a century ago she 
 began her course; divided then politically, 
 
In International Conditions 99 
 
 and, as far as regarded the mass of the com- 
 munity, backward, — socially, economi- 
 cally, and commercially. The customs 
 union, which freed commerce and industry 
 from being trammeled by tariffs every few 
 miles, dates only from 1835. The forward- 
 ness of Prussia in promoting this change 
 was a decisive step towards the primacy 
 over Austria which was afterwards achieved; 
 but a quarter of a century later, from 1862 
 to 1866, the stage of political development 
 in Prussia received curious illustration. 
 The lower house of the legislature was 
 defied by Bismarck, in support of whose 
 measures the upper house laid taxes con- 
 tinuously refused by the other chamber. 
 
 The notable political feature in this was 
 that the people continued to pay, appar- 
 ently without serious demur; a marked 
 contrast to the English people under the 
 levy of ship money, and to the American 
 under the Stamp Act. True, the Prussian 
 
ioo The Interest of America 
 
 tax was for the reorganization and develop- 
 ment of the army which placed her at the 
 head of Germany, and in the victories of 
 which the modern German Empire found 
 birth; but equally the ship money was for 
 the development of a navy to which Great 
 Britain has owed her ascendency, and the 
 need of which was recognized, while the 
 Stamp Act alleged, not without reason, the 
 requirements of defense for the community 
 upon which it bore. The submission of 
 the Prussians under similar conditions is 
 significant as indicative of a popular char- 
 acteristic which lends itself plastically to 
 the moulding force of a strong government, 
 without at the same time losing the initia- 
 tive of the individual within his own sphere 
 of activity. There seems in this a sympathy 
 between the nature of the government and 
 of the governed which carries an assurance 
 of strength not always to be found. Be 
 this as it may, it appears certain that in 
 
In International Conditions igi 
 
 an age of organization of force Germany 
 stands at the head of all nations, in the 
 acquired power of framing and accepting 
 systematic organization. 
 
 With the strength conferred by this 
 inherent and developed talent for syste- 
 matically organizing civil activities, — the 
 economical element of power, — through 
 the concerted force of the community, 
 cooperates the military element, in an army 
 of unrivalled efficiency, drawing upon a 
 population now greater than that of any 
 one European state west of Russia, and with 
 a rate of increase superior to that of any 
 other. Since the war with France, in 1870, 
 the growth of population in Germany has 
 been fifty per cent, from forty millions 
 to sixty; and it advances at the rate of 
 eight hundred thousand annually. As re- 
 gards numbers and quality, therefore, the 
 army can hold the lead it has, while as 
 against a possible combination of other 
 
102 The Interest of America 
 
 states it has the recognized military advan- 
 tage of central position. Disregarding for 
 the moment other elements of military 
 strength, the other great Powers of Europe, 
 — Russia, Italy, France, Great Britain, — 
 are distributed around the massed ter- 
 ritory of Germany and Austria-Hungary. 
 Imagining a coalition, such as those against 
 Louis XIV and Napoleon, this entails of 
 course liability to attack upon more sides 
 than one; but military experience affirms 
 that, other factors remaining the same, the 
 central position gains much more from the 
 ability to strike successive blows at several 
 foes than it loses from the risk of simul- 
 taneous offensive action by them. Con- 
 centration of impact, whereby superior 
 force is brought against inferior, is greatly 
 facilitated by an original concentration of 
 position, enabling movement to be by lines 
 which in military terms are called interior; 
 that is, briefly, shorter lines. These in turn 
 
In International Conditions 103 
 
 are equivalent to more rapid action, and so 
 to time saved; the famous five minutes 
 which the proverb affirms may make the 
 difference between victory and defeat. 
 
 Combined action is for these reasons more 
 easy to him who occupies the central parts 
 of a circle than for those whose territory 
 distributes them disconnectedly around 
 the circumference. This factor of military 
 strength rests with the alliance between 
 Germany and Austria-Hungary; and the 
 natural advantage of position is confirmed 
 and developed by a railroad system, most 
 of it under the immediate control of the 
 government, and constituted with a view 
 to strategic as well as commercial trans- 
 portation, thus utilizing to the utmost the 
 military opportunities conferred by interior 
 lines. These considerations cannot but 
 weld the two governments in mutual sup- 
 port, now that their reciprocal position in 
 the modern Europe is accepted by them- 
 
104 The Interest of America 
 
 selves; nor does there appear in the par- 
 ticular ambitions of either, or in general 
 international relations, any inducement to 
 division between them commensurate to the 
 advantages obtained by combination. The 
 united mass of their territories stretches 
 across Europe from water to water, from 
 the North Sea and Baltic to the Adriatic, 
 with well denned commercial and military 
 interests, which, in the problematical 
 future of Turkey, make striking the Medi- 
 terranean in the ^Egean also, at Salonica, 
 a natural ambition. 
 
 Of such views the annexations of a year 
 ago are symptoms; as is the proposition 
 to build four Austrian Dreadnoughts, — the 
 military correlative of the commercial, ad- 
 vance. Granting the position on the ^Egean 
 achieved, or command of the Adriatic 
 by naval supremacy there, adequate naval 
 strength will assure the control of the region 
 intervening between the ^Egean and the 
 
In International Conditions 105 
 
 Adriatic, west of a north and south line 
 drawn through Widdin. Here the interest 
 of Austria clashes with that of Italy, as 
 well as with the general sensitiveness of 
 Europe concerning conditions in the nearer 
 East. It must be remembered that only 
 a half-century has elapsed since Austria 
 held large parts of Italian territory, includ- 
 ing Venice and Milan, with a tradition also 
 of expansion along the Italian peninsula. 
 For a brief moment, 1718-1733, she held 
 also Naples and Sicily. Forced from this 
 line of advance, the same tradition and 
 expectation of commercial advantage have 
 been transferred to the other side of the 
 Adriatic, in the Balkan peninsula. The 
 former opposition of Italy naturally follows 
 this movement also, regarding command 
 of the Adriatic as essential to Italian secur- 
 ity; for this sea is nowhere more than 
 one hundred and fifty miles wide, narrow- 
 ing at its outlet to less than forty. Italy 
 
106 The Interest of America 
 
 cannot view with quietude such an in- 
 land water, coterminous with her whole 
 eastern frontier, controlled by a superior 
 foreign navy based along one coast. With 
 this strong inherited and present preposses- 
 sion can scarcely fail to cooperate sym- 
 pathy with the romantic country of the 
 present queen of Italy, who is Montenegrin. 
 There lingers, moreover, in Italy resent- 
 ment that Italian populations, notably at 
 Trieste and Trent, remain "unredeemed" 
 subjects of Austria. Amid these conflict- 
 ing desires it is by no means necessary to 
 strike a balance of probabilities as to the 
 issue. It is only requisite to recognize the 
 unstable conditions, and their proximity to 
 the meeting place of the East and West, 
 the great center of old world politics, 
 ancient and modern. Of this the exponents 
 are Constantinople and Alexandria, which 
 get their names from two of the world's 
 greatest statesmen and conquerors. 
 
In International Conditions 107 
 
 In this powerful alliance of the two 
 mid-Europe states, the several ambitions 
 of which have been illustrated by recent 
 events, — by the German naval programme 
 and by the Balkan annexations of Austria, 
 — the predominant partner is Germany. 
 Her assistance has been decisive in the 
 recent action, in which Austria, besides 
 motives of immediate expediency, has been 
 actuated also avowedly by an intention to 
 make herself felt in the world. In the 
 particular instance, said the prime minister, 
 it was necessary to take matters in hand, 
 because otherwise they might have de- 
 veloped against Austria. That is, the 
 young Turks, who had just achieved their 
 revolution at Constantinople, might have 
 objected, as they gained strength, to an in- 
 corporation of the provinces with Austria; 
 just as they have refused, under threat of 
 war, to allow Greece to acquire Crete. 
 The intention was avowed also to continue 
 
108 The Interest of America 
 
 an active foreign policy, based upon the 
 idea that Austria-Hungary should occupy 
 to the full her place in the world; accessory 
 to which is extension for trade towards 
 the iEgean and Mediterranean. Should 
 the nation as a whole support this purpose, 
 Austria would stand no longer in a doubt- 
 ful background, a spectacle of dissension 
 and disunion, because of the intestine 
 struggles of the diverse races which com- 
 pose her empire, but by a determined ex- 
 ternal policy would create a center of 
 national interest which should compact a 
 national unity. Hampered though she is 
 financially, this object, and the commercial 
 advantage which access to the sea gives, 
 must continue to impel her in the same 
 direction, despite oppositions which have 
 shown latterly their impotence, when con- 
 fronted with the dangers of a European war 
 under existing conditions. These condi- 
 tions are the present disability of Russia, 
 
In International Conditions 109 
 
 and the military power of the two central 
 European Empires. With this demon- 
 stration of the influence inherent in their 
 united action, a certain solidarity between 
 the two may safely be assumed, as one of 
 the most settled factors in present inter- 
 national relations. 
 
 In acknowledgment of her timely ex- 
 ertion in behalf of her ally, Germany will 
 certainly expect, and, in lively expecta- 
 tion of a similar attitude in future contin- 
 gencies, will doubtless receive, throughout 
 a future to which no limit is apparent, the 
 support of Austria-Hungary in the various 
 measures of her policy, whenever these 
 bring her into conflict with other govern- 
 ments. This means that in so far as world 
 politics depend upon European conditions, 
 
 — still one of its most important elements, 
 
 — a state that has a controversy with Ger- 
 many, concerning any part of the world, 
 has to reckon with Austria also. This was 
 
no The Interest of America 
 
 conspicuously the case in Morocco; 'and 
 the two stood together, apart from the 
 European concert, in the Cretan business, 
 and still continue so to stand. In the 
 present entente between France, Great Brit- 
 ain, and Russia, should serious difficulty 
 arise between any one of the three and 
 Germany — a circumstance by no means 
 unprecedented — the other two, if contem- 
 plating intervention, would have to take 
 account of Austria as well. Should France 
 in such case decide to bring her navy to 
 reinforce the British, she must look to see 
 her land frontier threatened not by Ger- 
 many only but by Austria, in the con- 
 flagration which might ensue. Evidently 
 also, should the United States in any part 
 of the world come into collision with Ger- 
 man purposes or policy, any effect that 
 momentary European conditions might 
 exert upon Germany's action would be 
 modified by the certainty of Austria's at- 
 
In International Conditions in 
 
 titude. These are concrete instances of 
 the balance of powers; the distinguishing 
 feature at present being that in the one 
 scale is power concentrated in mass, by 
 situation, and by necessary mutual de- 
 pendence; in the other, power dissemi- 
 nated, and with no necessary element of 
 cohesion except that of counter-balancing 
 a preponderance otherwise irresistible. 
 Experience does not warrant dependence 
 upon this motive to overcome the influence 
 of momentary advantages and dangers, 
 and to weld action into sustained coopera- 
 tion against more remote contingencies, 
 however probable. The recent scattering 
 of the Triple Entente before the Triple 
 Alliance is simply a demonstration of 
 where the power lay. 
 
 In these unstable conditions there is 
 only one force capable of exerting an 
 effectual check. That is the British navy. 
 If maintained in due preponderance, this 
 
ii2 The Interest of America 
 
 is capable of perpetuating the role played 
 by Great Britain for two centuries: that 
 of a determinative factor. It possesses 
 this power for two reasons: that it is not 
 the creation of an alliance, but of a single 
 state, power concentrated in one hand; 
 and that that state, in addition to insular 
 security, still possesses a wealth adequate 
 to the maintenance of what has come in 
 our day to be called the "Two Power 
 Standard." This Two Power Standard is 
 simply a new definition of an old idea. 
 Throughout the eighteenth century, es- 
 pecially about the time of the American 
 War of Independence, it was an accepted 
 maxim of British statesmen that the navy 
 must be greater than that of the combined 
 fleets of the two Bourbon monarchies, 
 France and Spain. The alliance between 
 these two — the Family Compact — was 
 in form perpetual, and in substance as- 
 sured, under the conditions of those times; 
 
In International Conditions 113 
 
 in this resembling the present conjunction 
 of Austria and Germany. That is, France 
 and Spain then were bound together, not 
 merely by dynastic sympathies, but by 
 clear, evident, pressing need of mutual 
 support. 
 
 To-day the Two Power Standard is 
 less specific in application, a circumstance 
 which testifies to the ill defined state of 
 international relations which followed the 
 Franco-German War, and continued to 
 within a very few years. The phrase 
 affirms, in general terms, that national 
 security requires that the British navy 
 should exceed in force the united fleets of 
 any two other Powers; because the nation 
 is dependent, not only for military defense 
 but for mere existence, for food, for com- 
 merce, and for raw materials of industry, 
 upon control of the sea. There is a division 
 of opinion as to whether the United States 
 should be accounted a possible factor in a 
 
H4 The Interest of America 
 
 hostile combination; the argument of those 
 who would thus include her resting ap- 
 parently upon the expediency of taking 
 account of all possibilities, rather than 
 upon the belief that there now exist any 
 probable causes of difference, particularly 
 of such a nature as to induce the United 
 States into an alliance for war, contrary 
 to its traditions. Against this it can be 
 urged that, in the closeness of commercial 
 relations, in community of speech and of 
 political traditions, and in the interests of 
 Canada, necessarily involved in a war be- 
 tween Great Britain and the United States, 
 there exist deterrent motives of a force far 
 exceeding those of any probable dispute. 
 
 It has been said that a dominating prin- 
 ciple with the late Lord Salisbury was that 
 no controversy with the United States 
 should be permitted to approach a rup- 
 ture. Whether truly attributed or not, 
 this illustrates the general fact that in the 
 
In International Conditions 115 
 
 horoscope of every nation there usually 
 is one other Power, accordant relations 
 with which are of primary importance. 
 To Prussia, in the days of Russia's un- 
 shaken power, it was Russia; to the Ger- 
 man Empire now, it is Austria-Hungary. 
 The change was formulated by Bismarck 
 in 1879, against the strong prepossessions of 
 the old Emperor. Having in view, not the 
 British Islands only, but the other con- 
 stituent parts of the Empire, Australia, 
 Canada, New Zealand, — all with Pacific 
 frontiers and cherishing political incentives 
 common with our Pacific states, — and 
 especially in view of the British navy, 
 there is strong reason to believe that in- 
 ternational considerations should assign to 
 the British Empire this prominent place in 
 the understanding of Americans. 
 
 This is not a matter of sympathies, ex- 
 cept so far as such may be inferred from 
 the spirit of a common political tradition; 
 
n6 The Interest of America 
 
 which, however differing in manifestation, 
 in local external institutions, has had its 
 own particular and isolated development, 
 through England and her colonies, during 
 the fifteen centuries since its first fathers 
 brought its seeds with them from the Ger- 
 man shores of the North Sea. The con- 
 clusion depends upon a cool calculation of 
 possibilities, an estimate of balances, a 
 recognition that the United States can no 
 longer stand apart, nor proceed safely with- 
 out a somewhat formulated conception of 
 particular, as well as of general, relations 
 among states. It is a matter of public 
 knowledge, that in certain lines of American 
 policy great care has been taken to act, 
 if not in concert, at least in consultation 
 and agreement with the European com- 
 munity of states; and this in matters not 
 between us and them, but in which they 
 and we have interests, like, yet indepen- 
 dent. This is an implicit admission of 
 
In International Conditions 117 
 
 entanglement in that net known as " world 
 politics;" a confession that the United 
 States can no longer accept America and 
 the Monroe Doctrine as the final limita- 
 tion of her relations to the community of 
 States. 
 
 We always have had, of course, par- 
 ticular relations with particular states; 
 the change is, that, whereas formerly these 
 stood apart one from the other, in water- 
 tight compartments as far as concerned 
 American negotiations, now the unrest of 
 the East, its need of development, and 
 the opportunity for Western industry and 
 capital to find remuneration in filling 
 that need, have constituted a common 
 object, in which European and American 
 interests meet. This remark is no less true 
 of Central and South America, and of the 
 Monroe Doctrine as involved in them. In 
 these contacts there arise occasions in 
 which the interests are the same; others 
 
n8 The Interest of America 
 
 in which they collide. Both compel group- 
 ings of the Powers concerned. At times 
 solidarity of diplomatic action is found 
 incumbent; at others there is divergence; 
 in all is an interplay of forces, which makes 
 isolated national action injudicious and 
 self-frustrative. The question follows: Are 
 such various incidents to be treated merely 
 independently, as they arise, on the plan 
 of opportunism? or can there be recog- 
 nized underlying communities of political 
 ideals, or considerations of forces, by steady 
 regard to which national policy can be 
 equally consistent and yet probably de- 
 cisively stronger? 
 
 It must not be thought that such a point 
 of view looks to formal alliances. It is 
 one thing to act habitually in cooperation 
 with a man because of reliance upon him, 
 based on knowledge and experience; quite 
 another to bind yourself so to act for 
 a prolonged future, whether denned or 
 
In International Conditions 119 
 
 undefined. Even if the United States did 
 not have a traditional policy, wisely based 
 upon an avoidance of lasting alliances con- 
 tracted at the dictation of a transient 
 opportunism, it would still be useless to 
 persuade its people to such engagements; 
 and quite ineffective to contract them, 
 unless supported by a strongly accordant 
 and instructed popular sentiment. But, if 
 there be such popular sentiment, resting 
 upon a comprehensive understanding of 
 international conditions and relations, the 
 advantages of alliance are secured without 
 its drawbacks, and would appear in the 
 general policy of the country. The Mon- 
 roe Doctrine itself is an illustration of the 
 power of popular sentiment. It derives 
 from statesmen its formulation, its de- 
 velopments, and such precision as it has 
 attained; but its strength as a national 
 motive depends upon the continuous pre- 
 possession of the people, not always per- 
 
120 The Interest of America 
 
 fectly clear in apprehension, but sufficiently 
 so to sustain action. It has no other bind- 
 ing force, no artificial force of compact. 
 
 At an early stage of this discussion I 
 took occasion to quote the comment of 
 Bishop Stubbs, that the Balance of Power 
 is the key to the History of Modern Europe; 
 of the period from 1500 to 1800. This pro- 
 found historical student, whose methods 
 affected above all others his contempora- 
 ries of his own nation, remarks also that in 
 the preceding era, which we call mediaeval 
 history, the several peoples had developed 
 interiorly, without organized external 
 action, one upon another, as states. Na- 
 tions then had not attained that indi- 
 viduality of life which is the necessary 
 antecedent to strictly national action. They 
 were in a formative period; and because of 
 the large number of independent subdi- 
 visions within a territory, the multitude of 
 the actors prevented any approach to a 
 
In International Conditions 121 
 
 definiteness of action that can be realized 
 or formulated. As he expresses it, there 
 was no drama; only confused agitation. 
 
 For instance, there is a great advance to 
 simplicity, and so to comprehensibleness, 
 when England, Ireland, and Scotland form 
 a single state; when France is no longer 
 an assemblage of feudal tenures, but a con- 
 solidated kingdom; and, in our own day, 
 when the German Diet of independent 
 sovereignties has become a united Empire, 
 with its central executive and common leg- 
 islature. So, too, the United States, as 
 a unified group, presents a tangible object 
 for observation and consideration, as com- 
 pared with the formless mass of thirteen, 
 which issued in chaotic intestine struggle 
 from their common War of Independence. 
 
 The Balance of Power is the expression 
 of the stage in European history which 
 followed the successful efforts, by which 
 many members thus constituted them- 
 
122 The Interest of America 
 
 selves into several organic bodies, called 
 states. This also evidently is still the 
 stage in which Western civilization is. The 
 consequence has been to constitute the 
 separate states into a community, by im- 
 parting to each and all a common idea, — 
 that of balance of power as essential to 
 national independence. However discord- 
 ant the interests of the several members, 
 however diverse the national characters 
 which have resulted from the original 
 differences of raw material — heredity — 
 and from the centuries of varying political 
 environment, the common instinct of self- 
 preservation has drawn out and sustained 
 this common conception of statehood, in 
 the holding of which they find relationship. 
 The Monroe Doctrine itself is an enun- 
 ciation of a balance of powers, by the 
 formulation of which the United States has 
 established relationship and inclusion in 
 the European community — not the Eu- 
 
In International Conditions 123 
 
 ropean system — so far as membership is 
 concerned. The objection to Oriental im- 
 migration on a large scale is another un- 
 noted admission of the same condition of 
 relationship, to nations other than our 
 own. 
 
 Thus, as in the Middle Ages many prov- 
 inces, many lords, at divers times and by 
 divers roads, found their way to unity, in 
 one country, or under one sovereign, thus 
 forming a state; so the community of 
 states, of this tradition, is feeling its way 
 towards a unity of its own. This, so far 
 as attained, shall be the expression of its 
 common antecedents, when the West was 
 growing up, apart from the East, prepar- 
 ing for that stage in the course of history 
 when the personages of the drama will be 
 the two groups, of the West and the East, 
 which hitherto have grown up apart, as 
 once did the countries of Europe. The 
 whole development of international law, 
 
124 The Interest of America 
 
 which is the standard code of international 
 relations, is an outcome of the struggles 
 of the community of European states, in- 
 cluding the United States, dominated by 
 the idea of independence; of the sovereignty 
 of the state, no matter where the attribute 
 of sovereignty was lodged in any particular 
 form of government. As has been well 
 said by a German writer, "In the sover- 
 eignty of states the individuality and in- 
 dependence of nations come to expression. 
 Only because states are sovereign can the 
 individuality and unity of the peoples they 
 comprise develop and flourish." This con- 
 ception of independence, underlying the 
 development of the European community, 
 has been common to all; and to the re- 
 sults all have contributed a share, as they 
 also have in them a common inheritance. 
 
Ill 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN THE 
 EAST AND THE WEST 
 
Ill 
 
 RELATIONS BETWEEN THE EAST AND THE 
 WEST 
 
 TT is scarcely surprising, at this par- 
 ticular stage of progress, which repre- 
 sents the development of the European 
 family after four hundred years, to find 
 growing up a fresh conception of Balance 
 of Power; that between the East and the 
 West. The late war between Russia and 
 Japan has signalized the inception of this 
 idea, for the evident reason that in it one 
 of the European family has been over- 
 thrown by an Eastern nation. Such a 
 conspicuous fact necessarily arouses pop- 
 ular attention, which is incapable of look- 
 ing underneath the surface to qualifying 
 circumstances, or even of seeing modify- 
 ing facts. Besides, whatever deductions 
 
128 The Interest of America 
 
 be made, the excellence of the Japanese 
 performance remains confessed. 
 
 The issue has been hailed throughout the 
 East with a sympathy which is less that of 
 brotherhood among themselves than that 
 of a community of opposition to Western 
 preponderance. Since the West and the 
 East — neglecting the Turkish Empire — 
 first came into close and effective contact, 
 some two hundred years ago, the relative 
 conditions, broadly speaking, have been 
 those of highly developed concentrated 
 force, political and military, on the part of 
 the West, confronting and dominating com- 
 munities individually inferior in organized 
 power, and wholly incapable of coalescing 
 in mutual support. The hundreds of mil- 
 lions of East Indians have been for the 
 most part more loosely knit than were the 
 fiefs of a country in the height of feudalism. 
 The yet vaster numbers of China have 
 been in no sense a nation; and, besides, the 
 
In International Conditions 129 
 
 profession of arms has been held in a dis- 
 repute which leaves any people at the mercy 
 of one more warlike. Japan up to fifty 
 years ago had secluded herself from all 
 possibility of sharing the benefits of Euro- 
 pean advance, which since that time she 
 has so ably appropriated. The backward 
 political organization and development of 
 other Eastern countries needs no insistence. 
 Under these circumstances, the Western 
 nations, while all the time quarreling among 
 themselves, observed towards those of the 
 Farther East substantially the same line 
 of conduct; the result being that in this 
 respect the West has been towards the East 
 a homogeneous preponderating power, such 
 as in Europe was successively Spain, France, 
 Great Britain, and now, on the Continent, 
 Germany. The Turkish Empire, which 
 once itself played the part of a great con- 
 centrated nationality towards a divided 
 Christendom, and the Mahomedan peo- 
 
130 The Interest of America 
 
 pies in general, while retaining their na- 
 tional form and recognized independence, 
 have been continually compelled to loss of 
 territory, or to concessions inconsistent with 
 independence; because unable to compete 
 with the West in either political or military 
 efficiency, or among themselves to combine 
 resistance. 
 
 Such conditions, the outcome of centuries, 
 are not to be overturned in a day. Japan, 
 indeed, has shown what may be effected in 
 a generation; but Japan, relatively to 
 other eastern populations, is a small com- 
 pact mass, welded into unity by the nar- 
 rowness of its territory and by the long ex- 
 clusion of alien influences. Besides the 
 particular moral characteristics bred in this 
 seclusion, and exhibited magnificently in 
 the recent war, the transmission of energy 
 throughout the body of the nation has been 
 made comparatively easy by the relative 
 fewness and the concentration of the people, 
 
In International Conditions 131 
 
 together with the military tradition, and 
 the local effectiveness of command, inherited 
 from the daimio system. Japan was also 
 most fortunate in that the hour brought 
 forth the men. The conjunction is neces- 
 sary: the man and the hour. History 
 abounds in opportunities lost for want of 
 the leader. Japan found more than one. 
 
 Nevertheless, although time, probably 
 much time, will be needed, there can be no 
 doubt that we are now in presence of an 
 idea which with growing force is moving 
 that bigger half of mankind that we call 
 the East. Its manifestations are often 
 crude, and it is easy to exaggerate their 
 significance as well as to undervalue it. It 
 appears as yet to find its impulse — out- 
 side of Japan — in impatience of Western 
 control, or interposition, rather than in the 
 sober spirit of internal regeneration which 
 makes a community fit for self-government. 
 The example of Japan in this does not seem 
 
132 The Interest of America 
 
 to impress. Mere discontent is not a 
 constructive force; nor does there seem to 
 appear the man, or class, in India or China, 
 conspicuously fitted for the difficult task 
 of leadership. They have been affected 
 greatly by the achievements of Japan; but 
 it may be doubted whether they would be 
 willing to submit to her guidance, or, if 
 they did, find it more to their liking than 
 that of the Westerner. The Koreans ap- 
 parently think the Japanese fully as hard to 
 endure as the East Indian does the Briton; 
 or, as our anti-imperialist friends tell us, 
 the Filipino does the American rule. 
 
 In India, as in the Philippines, change, 
 the transmutation of idea into accomplish- 
 ment, can scarcely fail to be slow, because 
 of the presence in both of the superior West- 
 ern organizing power, political and social, 
 in effective operation; dealing with com- 
 munities which are not homogeneous in 
 race or faith. Internal oppositions sap the 
 
In International Conditions 133 
 
 strength of such discontent as may exist. 
 There is also among the inhabitants suf- 
 ficient appreciation of the substantial 
 material advantages of the foreign rule, 
 and of the probable consequences of its 
 withdrawal, to make the mass of the peo- 
 ple acquiescent; tolerant of that which 
 they may dislike, of the lesser evil. The 
 propaganda of discontent, and of independ- 
 ence, is chiefly among those sufficiently 
 instructed to know about Western methods, 
 but not so historically enlightened as to 
 appreciate the toil of the centuries which 
 have fitted Western people to develop and 
 use them. It is improbable that the political 
 institutions of either India or the Philip- 
 pines will undergo great alteration in the 
 near future, except as conceded by the con- 
 trolling country. Both the United States 
 and Great Britain are making such con- 
 cessions. 
 
 With China the outlook is different. 
 
134 The Interest of America 
 
 Like other Eastern people she has been 
 stirred by the Japanese victories over a 
 Western state; and she has long known, 
 often through severe experience, the ma- 
 terial superiority of Western development. 
 For a short time after the Peace of Ports- 
 mouth it seemed as though the eyes of the 
 more progressive element in the country 
 had turned towards Japan, as to an inter- 
 mediary, a cognate people; through whose 
 demonstrated aptness to learn, and to 
 appropriate, the Chinese might more easily 
 and sympathetically acquire that which 
 the West had to give. The mere matter of 
 nearness, of shorter, less expensive journey, 
 was also of account. Chinese students 
 swarmed to Japan; but the tide soon slack- 
 ened and turned. However drawn together 
 by repugnance to Western influence, the 
 two countries are too close, and the charac- 
 teristics of the people too different, for 
 political approximation; much less alii- 
 
In International Conditions 135 
 
 ance. Geographical proximity is a recog- 
 nized source of international difficulty; 
 and with the three countries, China, Japan, 
 and Russia, finding in Manchuria not only 
 a common point of contact, but intersecting 
 and clashing interests, there is a reasonable 
 assurance that, even if peace be maintained, 
 there will be continual political antagonism 
 and watchfulness. For some time to come 
 Manchuria will be to the Farther East 
 what Belgium in the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries was to Western Europe. 
 Despite various buffets of the past, and 
 the unmilitary disposition of the people, 
 China retains, partly in virtue of her im- 
 mense mass, alike of territory and of inhabit- 
 ants, the undisturbed essentials of national 
 solidarity. To constitute her a potent 
 world force, there remains only to bring 
 these attributes into effective operation; 
 an attainment which will doubtless be pro- 
 tracted by her very bigness, the inertia of 
 
136 The Interest of America 
 
 which has constituted for her a defense. 
 Although her territory has undergone fre- 
 quent encroachment, the native govern- 
 ment retains its control. Contemplated 
 division, the institution or recognition of 
 divers spheres of influence, has been in most 
 part averted. Her population is racially 
 homogeneous, though marked by provincial 
 distinctions, and by dialects mutually 
 unintelligible; circumstances inseparable 
 from great expanse of territory with poor 
 intercommunications. Those who know 
 them best find in the individual] Chinese a 
 solidity of character which gives promise 
 of great achievement. 
 
 This solidity has indeed in the past 
 assumed the form of stolidity in conser- 
 vatism; of an almost impregnable satis- 
 faction with everything native, leading to 
 that confidence of superiority which is the 
 worst foe of progress. But latterly light 
 has penetrated, the process of self-knowl- 
 
In International Conditions . 137 
 
 edge by comparison with other standards 
 is begun, and is bearing fruit. The fact 
 is significant, as well as interesting, that a 
 railroad one hundred and twenty-two miles 
 long, from Peking northwest to Kalgan, 
 has just been constructed by Chinese 
 management alone, and without foreign 
 financial assistance. All the engineers are 
 Chinese, the chief being a graduate of 
 Yale. An extension of one hundred and 
 fifty miles is planned, to be executed in 
 similar independence of outside aid; but 
 the rejection of foreign capital will entail 
 inadequate means for rapid building, and 
 protract completion. The two circum- 
 stances illustrate China's past, present, and 
 probable future. They evidence determina- 
 tion to break the bonds of past dependence, 
 yet at the same time show dependence 
 inevitable for a long time to come, until 
 resources accumulate; until development 
 overtake aspiration. It is with this inter- 
 
138 The Interest of America 
 
 vening period that "The Open Door" is 
 concerned. Close observers tell us that 
 national feeling also, as distinguished from 
 racial, the conception, however elementary, 
 of the community as a state, is making 
 distinct advance. This is the necessary 
 first step towards realizing the national 
 unity which will enable China to take her 
 place among the nations, relieving her 
 from the attitude of pure and usually in- 
 effective defense to which she has been 
 hitherto limited. 
 
 Whatever may prove to be the character 
 and duration of the process, the Eastern 
 countries will have to undergo the same 
 formative period as those of Europe, and 
 of North America. From a bundle of 'com- 
 munities, too loosely associated even to be 
 called a fagot, they have yet to make their 
 way to nationality. The expanse and 
 population of India and China render it 
 unlikely that this stage can be passed as 
 
In International Conditions 139 
 
 rapidly as in Japan; nor will their inherited 
 political aptitudes enable them to parallel 
 the power and ease with which the thirteen 
 States of the American Union encountered 
 and successfully passed the crisis of their 
 constitutional history, between 1783 and 
 1789. On the other hand, the facilities for 
 intercommunication which they will adopt 
 from Western civilization — which Western 
 rule has already bestowed in large measure 
 upon India — will enable movements to- 
 wards consolidation of national power, 
 when once fairly under way, to progress 
 with a quickness and sureness not possible 
 to mediaeval Europe during its correspond- 
 ing period. 
 
 Meantime, while the Eastern community 
 of nations is constituting itself, political 
 relations with Europe and America will 
 continue and develop; just as, throughout 
 the mediaeval period, such relations existed 
 between the European communities of those 
 
140 The Interest of America 
 
 days and that which we now know as the 
 nearer East. The advance of the Saracens 
 to southern France, the Crusades, the 
 progress of the Turkish Empire in Europe, 
 the wave of which touched Vienna in one 
 direction and Malta in another, are familiar 
 instances of political relations, under the 
 religious and social traditions and national 
 aspirations of that age. A Christendom 
 of imperfect nationalities permitted a vigor- 
 ous united Islam to threaten its heart; the 
 consolidation of nationalities arrested the 
 danger. Yet at the very moment of arrest, 
 the external power was courted by some 
 Christian states, and became a make-weight 
 in the long struggle between the House of 
 Bourbon and that of Austria. Not infre- 
 quently, when France and the Empire were 
 at war, the energies of the latter were weak- 
 ened, and its efforts distracted, by the 
 attacks of the Turks on the other side; in 
 its rear. Later, and now, the condition 
 
In International Conditions 141 
 
 of the Turkish Empire fastens the attention 
 of Europe, and is an increasing source of 
 menace, because of the conflict of interests 
 centering in the Levant. Over a half cen- 
 tury ago, in the Crimean War, two Chris- 
 tian Powers combined against a third, and 
 in alliance with Turkey, on account of 
 clashing interests in the Turkish dominions; 
 and only two years have passed since a 
 like danger of war from divergent interests 
 has been encountered. 
 
 These particular matters have touched 
 the United States, if at all, too remotely 
 for demonstration; even, perhaps, for de- 
 tection. Yet, inasmuch as they affect the 
 equilibrium of Europe, they may affect 
 her by their influence in other parts of the 
 world, where the United States comes into 
 immediate touch with the Powers which 
 maintain that equilibrium. It cannot be 
 to her a matter of indifference should events 
 weaken a nation upon whose general accord 
 
142 The Interest of America 
 
 she can count, and strengthen one less 
 likely to act with her. Occurrences in the 
 East within the last ten years have gravely 
 affected the balance of power in Europe 
 itself. It is said, and plausibly, that Ger- 
 many recognizes a new European era since 
 the defeat of Russia by Japan. She is re- 
 lieved on one side, to such an extent as to 
 remove serious anxiety on any side from the 
 Franco-Russian alliance; a situation still 
 further confirmed by the assured fidelity to 
 her of Austria-Hungary. It can readily be 
 seen that such relief on land can take the 
 form of larger expenditure diverted to 
 the navy. This reduces, or will reduce, the 
 relative power of the British navy; or else 
 cause Great Britain a largely increased ex- 
 penditure, which in itself is weakening to a 
 nation. 
 
 It seems possible, even probable, that 
 Great Britain made a mistake of policy, in 
 more ways than one, in crippling Russia 
 
In International Conditions 143 
 
 by her alliance with Japan. It was to her 
 interest that Russia should be deeply en- 
 gaged in the Far East, because that diverted 
 her by so far from Constantinople, Suez, 
 the Persian Gulf, and India. Russia had not 
 power to carry on in all these directions. It 
 was also to the interest of Great Britain that 
 Russia should weigh upon the shoulders of 
 the present German Empire, as once the 
 Turks did upon that of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries. By the disastrous 
 events in Manchuria, and their conse- 
 quences, that weight has been removed, 
 probably for a generation. Thus one event 
 in the Far East, the issue of the Russo- 
 Japanese War, has been assured by the act 
 of one European government; and that 
 event has materially affected the equipoise 
 of Europe itself, to the disadvantage of the 
 intervener, who now is compelled to enor- 
 mous efforts to retrieve the loss. 
 
 We are here of course in the region of 
 
144 The Interest of America 
 
 estimation, rather than that of demonstra- 
 tion; but that Japan, even as things were, 
 had well nigh reached the limit of her finan- 
 cial strength at the end of the war, is so 
 far sure as to make it reasonably certain 
 that the British alliance, in its first form 
 only, was a determinative factor; the pre- 
 cise effect that the British navy for two 
 centuries has exercised in world politics. 
 Had the result been other, been more nearly 
 a drawn battle between the two contestants, 
 more entirely exhaustive financially to both, 
 but less injurious to Russian prestige, the 
 influence upon that diplomatic contention, 
 "The Open Door," would have been dis- 
 tinctly modified. The Open Door is but 
 another way of expressing Balance of 
 Power; for, while conspicuously just, and 
 making for peace, — as the balance of 
 power has, — it means simply equal oppor- 
 tunity, just as balance of power means 
 equal independence. But, like the balance 
 
In International Conditions 145 
 
 of power, the maintenance of the open door 
 is the result of a balancing of forces; the 
 forces of the various states interested in the 
 commerce and development of China, to 
 which the phrase applies. 
 
 What the origin of this phrase I do not 
 know; but it is certain that the United 
 States has been very active and prominent, 
 if not indeed foremost, in the exposition 
 and maintenance of the principle. The 
 words before quoted, of the German writer 
 Delbruck, sum up the attitude of all states, 
 including the United States, towards this 
 question; determined "to enforce that Ger- 
 man influence, German capital, German 
 commerce, German engineering, and Ger- 
 man intelligence can compete on equal 
 terms with other nations." It is of course 
 desired by all that this reasonable aim 
 should be reached peaceably; and it is all 
 the more likely so to be reached, if it 
 is clearly understood from the beginning 
 
146 The Interest of America 
 
 that the rights claimed will be sustained 
 by force, if necessary. There being no 
 misunderstanding, there is less likely to 
 be a falling out because of measures taken 
 in ignorance of another's attitude. 
 
 But it must be clearly borne in mind all 
 the time that the nations, speaking gen- 
 erally, are intent each upon its own ad- 
 vantage, according to its own lights, which 
 are not likely always, or even usually, to 
 coincide with the views of others. Rail- 
 roads, for instance, are a very common 
 form of investment of capital, and of em- 
 ployment of labor, with which goes a well 
 ascertained influence. Consequently, the 
 building of railroads is an opportunity 
 which comes under the head of Open Door, 
 and latterly there has seemed to be an in- 
 stance of leaving the United States in the 
 cold; to deny her that which a German 
 Chancellor has called "a place in the sun." 
 The attempt was met, and successfully 
 
In International Conditions 147 
 
 met, by the firm self-assertion of the United 
 States Government. Very many railroads 
 will have to be built in China, within the 
 next generation. So also the integrity of 
 the Chinese Empire is essential to the open 
 door. When territory is occupied and ad- 
 ministered by a foreign state, under the 
 terms of a lease, as has been done often in 
 the past, not only is there danger of such 
 occupation passing into annexation, as hap- 
 pened to Bosnia and Herzegovina a year 
 ago, and seems now close at hand in Korea, 
 but even such modified possession tends to 
 bring the territory under the national cus- 
 toms, closing the open door in part or 
 wholly. 
 
 Questions of this nature, and they are 
 multifold in kind and origin, fall under 
 the head of the Open Door. In meeting 
 them the United States necessarily becomes 
 involved in understandings with other na- 
 tions — European nations. To undertake 
 
148 The Interest of America 
 
 alone the maintenance of the Open Door 
 would be to establish a protectorate, and 
 essentially to abandon that equality which 
 is the spirit of the policy. As an example 
 of such questions, there is constantly re- 
 current uncertainty and discussion as to 
 transactions in Manchuria, where Japanese 
 or Russian occupation, coincident with that 
 of China, raises doubts as to whether this 
 or that measure, taken by one or another, 
 observes the just rights of China herself, 
 or of other nations as interested in equality 
 of opportunity. It is vain, too, to deny 
 that, while there may be accord in the 
 principle of the open door, its very ob- 
 servance entails competition; and com- 
 petition, in trade, has a strong tendency 
 to utilize any opportunity to obtain ad- 
 vantage. Protection, to which almost the 
 whole world is now committed, is the 
 utilization of the opportunity, which pos- 
 session or occupation gives, to obtain com- 
 
In International Conditions 149 
 
 mercial advantages by other means than 
 simple competition of skill and energy. 
 The industrial, financial, and commercial 
 worlds abound in expedients of similar 
 character. The American Trusts have 
 illustrated the tendency. 
 
 Having then to deal in this matter with 
 other nations, almost all European, and 
 recognizing that the accord rests ultimately 
 upon national power, force, upon which all 
 order, social and political, also rests, not 
 indeed for its sanctions, but for its main- 
 tenance, it cannot be indifferent to the 
 United States when the relative power of 
 the European countries interested varies. 
 On the contrary, every such fluctuation in 
 Europe will concern her. It may concern 
 her in many parts of the world; but it 
 cannot fail to do so in the Pacific and 
 China. It is not a matter of indifference 
 to the United States that now Russia is 
 weak, that Germany is building a huge 
 
150 The Interest of America 
 
 navy, that the British navy is declining, 
 relatively, owing to the debility of a govern- 
 ment which in the way of expenditure has 
 assumed obligations in seeming excess of its 
 power to meet by sound financial methods. 
 In the past, even, the relative force of 
 other states has mattered to America 
 more than most Americans realize. It 
 might have been a very serious concern to 
 us if, in 1823, the navy of Great Britain 
 had so far declined below those of the 
 Continent as to be unable to forbid the 
 transport of the allied troops to South 
 America, to reduce the Spanish colonies to 
 submission. In 1814, it was the difficulty 
 of the European situation that led Great 
 Britain to abandon so readily her demands 
 for territorial concessions after the War of 
 181 2. We owed our independence, at the 
 period it was achieved, to the fact that 
 the British navy then had declined, rela- 
 tively to those of allied France and Spain. 
 
In International Conditions 151 
 
 This at least was the opinion of Washing- 
 ton, whose observation at the time led him 
 to the conclusion that "we have reached 
 the end of our tether." Had France and 
 Great Britain been able to arrange a basis 
 of agreement, 1861-1863, success in the 
 War of Secession would have been very 
 problematical. 
 
 It seems indeed not impossible, nor even 
 very improbable, that the exigencies of the 
 balance of power, which to-day as formerly 
 is the key to international European politics, 
 may have the result of neutralizing, or at 
 least of reducing, European influence in 
 world politics as regards the Farther East, 
 unless the present struggle for naval 
 supremacy is either arrested or decided. 
 Concentration, such as that of the British 
 navy now in its home waters, is effected by 
 drawing back distant detachments from their 
 advanced positions. In principle and prac- 
 tice it is absolutely correct; but it in- 
 
152 The Interest of America 
 
 volves necessarily a certain temporary loss 
 of control over the positions abandoned. 
 So long as Germany and Great Britain 
 stand over against one another, as they 
 now do, concentration in the North Sea 
 is militarily right, and imposed; but, 
 while the conditions render this necessary, 
 they cannot be represented in force else- 
 where, until the one or the other has 
 a surplusage of ships, permitting big 
 detachments. 
 
 How far groupings of the Powers, by 
 alliance or entente, may modify this con- 
 dition, may release some part of the aggre- 
 gate European naval force to represent in 
 other fields Europe's real power, is a very 
 difficult question. It is supposable, for 
 instance, that while Great Britain and 
 Germany dispute the North Sea, France 
 might assure to the Entente the control of 
 the Mediterranean, to the no great sorrow 
 of Italy. It has been said that the existing 
 
In International Conditions 153 
 
 agreements between France, Great Britain, 
 and Spain, constitute a kind of Monroe 
 Doctrine for the Western Mediterranean. 
 Such a doctrine may grow, as the Monroe 
 Doctrine has; may undertake, for exam- 
 ple, to decide whether in the Mediterra- 
 nean coast line there shall be any change 
 which will affect conditions of naval power. 
 A fleet competent to dictate in the Med- 
 iterranean, while the greatest navies stand 
 on guard in the North Sea, would be sub- 
 stantially a flying squadron; occupying a 
 great central position, available for mo- 
 mentary action elsewhere for a measurable 
 time. Such combinations of navies have 
 many historical precedents. They labor 
 under the weakness always incident to 
 coalitions, to the combined action of two or 
 more nations; but they are not impossible. 
 The entertainment of such considera- 
 tions is necessarily speculative and con- 
 jectural; but in the competition of nations 
 
154 The Interest of America 
 
 they constitute food for reflection to states- 
 men. Meantime, it is evident that, while 
 conditions remain as they are, Japan and 
 the United States, the only two outlying 
 great naval nations, are, each in her special 
 sphere of interests, less affected, directly, 
 than if there were as of old an unchal- 
 lenged naval supremacy in Europe. When 
 Japan first entered into alliance with Great 
 Britain, in 1902, the latter had such su- 
 premacy. She could then have spared sub- 
 stantial assistance in the Far East, if needed, 
 and yet have maintained her superiority 
 elsewhere. The Two Power Standard was 
 then attained. Japan had already, in 
 1895, experienced European intervention 
 to her injury, by a combination which 
 Great Britain might have resisted; though 
 with doubtful issue in the then lack of a 
 Japanese battleship force. At the later 
 date she did exercise such intervention, 
 and it was decisive for Japan's next war. It 
 
In International Conditions 155 
 
 may well be questioned whether such inter- 
 ventions can be possible again, while the 
 present competition of navies continues. 
 
 The two instances illustrate moreover 
 the potent moral, as well as material, 
 effect of a decided step, when taken. It is 
 like offensive action confronting an un- 
 ready enemy. In 1895, France, Germany, 
 and Russia compelled Japan to retrocede 
 the Liao-tung peninsula with Port Arthur. 
 Great Britain was averse to this action, 
 which was followed by the leasing of the 
 retroceded positions by China to Russia; 
 but she was unready, her mind not made 
 up, the thing was done, and Japan had no 
 battleship force. In 1904, the Anglo- 
 Japanese alliance was an existent known 
 fact, a positive measure; and Japan had 
 a battle fleet. Great Britain was still the 
 supreme naval power, and neither Ger- 
 many nor France moved to support Russia. 
 It was not indeed the policy of Germany 
 
156 The Interest of America 
 
 so to do; but it was that of France, were 
 she able. In the case, and as things turned 
 out, Japan fought her fight in her own 
 North Sea, and Great Britain saw to the 
 European end of the line. The circum- 
 stance illustrates division of labor between 
 national fleets; for, although the British 
 fleet had no fighting to do, its action was 
 distinctly military — that of a "contain- 
 ing" force. It was equally a containing 
 force in 1898, if the statement, already 
 quoted, be true, viz.: that Great Britain, 
 to the proposal of intervention between 
 the United States and Spain, replied that 
 she not only would not assist, but would 
 resist. 
 
 These are illustrations also of the fact 
 that the possession and exertion of or- 
 ganized force do not necessarily mean war. 
 Such force may exert, and often does exert, 
 its full proportional effect without strik- 
 ing a blow; and the more indisputably 
 
In International Conditions 157 
 
 effective it is, the surer and more peaceful 
 the result. It may be righteously used, or 
 it may not be; but the organization and 
 possession of it do not necessarily mean 
 even an inclination to war, nor does its 
 absence constitute a guarantee of peace. 
 The War of Secession in the United States 
 is an instance in point. No belligerents 
 in modern times have been more utterly 
 unprepared for war, in any ordinary sense 
 of preparation, than were the two parties 
 to that conflict. Yet they fought, the most 
 prolonged war since Waterloo; prolonged 
 just because the absence of preparation on 
 either side constituted for the moment an 
 equality, which, however destined ulti- 
 mately to disappear before the greater re- 
 sources of the North, permitted the South 
 
 — justly from a military point of view 
 
 — to hope that she could achieve separa- 
 tion through the failure of perseverance, of 
 staying power, in her adversary. 
 
158 The Interest of America 
 
 Naval support of Great Britain by a 
 continental European Power, as suggested 
 a few lines before, labors under the draw- 
 back that, if exerted, it is an act of war, 
 and entails a land war as well; to which 
 against Germany no single continental 
 nation is at present equal. This is not to 
 say that the French army is not a matter 
 of very serious consideration, especially 
 when taken in connection with the frontier 
 defenses elaborated by France since 1870. 
 Together, these offensive and defensive 
 measures constitute just that security which 
 organized force gives, even when ultimately 
 inferior. It not only imposes respectful 
 consideration beforehand, disinclining the 
 adversary to a rupture for less than im- 
 perative reasons; it also, in case of hostili- 
 ties, obtains delay, allowing time for skill, 
 or for the chapter of accidents, to reverse 
 conditions. 
 
 It is held by French writers that the 
 
In International Conditions 159 
 
 attitude of Germany in 1905 compelled 
 the dismissal by the French Government 
 of its foreign minister; and that the humil- 
 iation, with all the modification of policy 
 it implied, was due to the fact that French 
 military preparations had been permitted 
 to fall into neglect, owing to causes not 
 necessary here to name. On the con- 
 trary, a year later, demands similarly 
 overbearing, in French estimation, were 
 withstood, because the first lesson had 
 led to preparations too obvious to be dis- 
 regarded, except for causes more serious 
 than existed. France then held her 
 ground, and Germany, so it is said, 
 lowered her tone. It is impossible to affirm 
 absolutely concerning nearly contemporary 
 transactions, the records of which are still 
 covered by the secrecy of archives; but 
 the general impression in Europe is that 
 matters were as stated, and certainly there 
 is the belief that such peremptoriness does 
 
160 The Interest of America 
 
 and will characterize the diplomacy of 
 Germany, so long as her present military 
 preponderance lasts. By this, as well as 
 by other political necessities, Austria is 
 chained to her; and the alliance on land 
 is for the time irresistible. As in the 
 alliance of Great Britain with Japan, it 
 is not necessary that Austria act; it is 
 enough to know that she must act, if need 
 require. 
 
 This consideration of exposure on the 
 land side vitiates the power of the Entente, 
 except so far as counting the cost of a war 
 will act as a deterrent to Germany, and so 
 modify her political action, as in the case 
 just cited. So much attainment is valu- 
 able; but it falls very far short of the 
 power to take up an aggressive naval 
 action by a continental state, thereby 
 bringing on land war as well. It is one 
 thing to be strong enough to make an ad- 
 versary wary of attacking; it is quite 
 
In International Conditions 161 
 
 another to be able to beat him if a contest 
 arises. The consideration disposes of the 
 supposition that any European naval state 
 would support the British position in the 
 Mediterranean, unless already at war, or 
 with war unavoidable. Otherwise, Great 
 Britain alone must find the ships; and 
 should Austria prove financially able to 
 put afloat there the heavy squadron she 
 has contemplated, it will have to be ac- 
 cepted as an addition to the British burden. 
 These conclusions, if reasonable, not 
 only emphasize the paramount importance 
 in world politics of the British navy, but 
 they show also that there are only two 
 naval states which can afford to help 
 Great Britain with naval force, because 
 they alone have no land frontiers which 
 march with those of Germany. These 
 states are Japan and the United States. 
 In looking to the future, it becomes for 
 them a question whether it will be to their 
 
1 62 The Interest of America 
 
 interest, whether they can afford, to ex- 
 change the naval supremacy of Great 
 Britain for that of Germany; for this 
 alternative may arise. Those two states 
 and Germany cannot, as matters now 
 stand, touch one another, except on the 
 open sea; whereas the character of the 
 British Empire is such that it has every- 
 where sea frontiers, is everywhere assail- 
 able where local naval superiority does 
 not exist, as for instance in Australia, 
 and other Eastern possessions. The United 
 States has upon Great Britain the further 
 check of Canada, open to land attack. 
 
 A German navy, supreme by the fall of 
 Great Britain, with a supreme German 
 army able to spare readily a large expedi- 
 tionary force for over-sea operations, is one 
 of the possibilities of the future. Great 
 Britain for long periods, in the Seven Years 
 War and Napoleonic struggle, 17 56-1 8 15, 
 has been able to do, and has done, just this; 
 
In International Conditions 163 
 
 not because she has had a supreme army, 
 but because, thanks to her insular situa- 
 tion, her naval supremacy covered effec- 
 tually both the home positions and the 
 expedition. The future ability of Germany 
 thus to act is emphasized to the point of 
 probability by the budgetary difficulties of 
 Great Britain, by the general disorganiza- 
 tion of Russia, and by the arrest of popula- 
 tion in France. Though vastly the richer 
 nation, the people of Great Britain, for the 
 very reason of greater wealth long enjoyed, 
 are not habituated to the economical 
 endurance of the German; nor can the 
 habits of individual liberty in England or 
 America accept, unless under duress, the 
 heavy yoke of organization, of regulation 
 of individual action, which constitutes the 
 power of Germany among modern states. 
 
 The rivalry between Germany and Great 
 Britain to-day is the danger point, not only 
 of European politics, but of world politics 
 
164 The Interest of America 
 
 as well. It is not that other delicate ques- 
 tions do not exist continuously, and still 
 others arise from time to time. These in- 
 deed are the occasions, the kindling wood, 
 from which great fires often start; but for 
 a fire there must be material. Behind this 
 particular rivalry are popular interests and 
 jealousies, dependent upon industry and 
 commerce, in which the welfare and live- 
 lihood of the peoples are involved. No 
 such emphasized industrial and maritime 
 competition between two communities has 
 arisen since the time of Cromwell and the 
 later Stewart kings, when England wrested 
 from Holland her long possessed commer- 
 cial supremacy, supported by a navy until 
 then unconquered. Although the contem- 
 porary facts of to-day are matter of 
 common knowledge, easily accessible, few 
 outsiders clearly realize the degree of Ger- 
 many's advance, or the conditions which 
 invest it with peculiar significance; past 
 
In International Conditions 165 
 
 and future, as well as present. Nor do 
 many so regard the remoter past as to 
 comprehend, and enter into, the intensity 
 of German feeling which accompanies 
 her career of industrial and commercial 
 achievement. 
 
 It is possible to sympathize with this 
 feeling without ignoring that the menace 
 of the progress is sensibly felt in world 
 politics. To this has been due the gradual 
 formation of the Entente, Great Britain 
 with France and Russia, two nations tradi- 
 tionally antagonistic to her until very 
 lately. This, with similar understandings, 
 a German Chancellor denounced as an at- 
 tempt to encircle Germany, — to isolate 
 her; the motive for them being probably 
 found in the necessities of the balance of 
 power, not only in Europe, but over the 
 world, constituting a reply to Germany's 
 apparent disposition to push in many di- 
 rections for maritime and commercial posi- 
 
1 66 The Interest of America 
 
 tions. It cannot be too often repeated 
 that such ambitions give no just cause of 
 offense; but it is quite a different thing 
 to say that they call for no watchfulness, 
 nor for counteraction. History has shown 
 that in all such advance there is an inevi- 
 table element of aggressiveness, which can 
 be kept within bounds only by an oppo- 
 sition of force. Thus is insured a balance, 
 an equilibrium, the maintenance of which 
 has been, and continues to be, the anxious 
 preoccupation of European statesmen. 
 
 Since the War of Secession, the United 
 States has been entering more and more, 
 insensibly yet inevitably, into the European 
 family, so that events there should pre- 
 occupy her citizens also. In the War with 
 Spain, the Monroe pronouncement itself 
 received European support as well as aroused 
 European antagonism; and general report 
 identified Germany with the latter, an 
 impression doubtless strengthened by the 
 
In International Conditions 167 
 
 unpleasantness in the Philippines. Unques- 
 tionably, had Germany possessed then the 
 navy which her programme now calls for, 
 her attitude would have been stiffer and 
 her position stronger. Our supporter at 
 that time would have confronted a very 
 different situation. The Spanish contention 
 is settled, a thing of the past; but to the 
 most superficial observer it must be obvious 
 that the future bristles with questions in 
 which we, in common with the entire Euro- 
 pean group of nations, have interests specific 
 as well as general. 
 
 Let Germany's present, however, be con- 
 sidered in the light of her past; for, unless 
 this be done with some approach to ade- 
 quacy, it is impossible duly to allow for her 
 as a contemporary factor. To understand 
 in the best sense, it is necessary not only to 
 recognize the interests of a nation, but to 
 enter as well into its feelings; tracing them 
 where possible to the historic origin which 
 
1 68 The Interest of America 
 
 once occasioned, and may still account 
 for them. Such understanding is essential 
 to just appreciation. The sentiment of a 
 people is the most energetic element in 
 national action. Even when material in- 
 terests are the original exciting cause, it is 
 the sentiment to which they give rise, the 
 moral tone which emotion takes, that con- 
 stitutes the greater force. Whatever indi- 
 vidual rulers may do, masses of men are 
 aroused to effective action — other than 
 spasmodic — only by the sense of wrong 
 done, or of right to be vindicated. For 
 this reason governments are careful to ob- 
 tain for their contentions an aspect of right 
 which will keep their people at their backs. 
 The past of Germany has developed for 
 her just such a sentiment, with which 
 present interests cooperate to constitute 
 a motive force of very great power; bringing 
 the people of the Empire heartily in sup- 
 port of the general international attitude 
 
In International Conditions 169 
 
 of their rulers. As in all countries, there 
 are within her borders internal contentions 
 and conflicting interests, which divide men 
 into parties, the effects of which color their 
 view of particular international disputes 
 as these arise; but underlying all there is 
 the sense of what political unity has meant 
 and has done for the German race. A 
 recent French writer, in the Revue des 
 Deux Mondes, discussing German diplomacy 
 in a critical spirit, nevertheless says well, 
 "The spirit of faction exists in Germany 
 as elsewhere. But, to hold it in check, the 
 sense of nationality is stronger there than 
 elsewhere, and the patriotic cohesion, which 
 at the call of the government unites that 
 people of sixty millions, remains the pro- 
 found truth which France more than any 
 other country should beware of forgetting." 
 The lesson may be for France in particular, 
 but it likewise is for the world in general. 
 There is also wide spread in the German 
 
170 The Interest of America 
 
 people the recognition that the maintenance 
 of this gain depends largely upon the sea. 
 German union gave the needed impetus to 
 German industrial enterprise, which dates 
 since 1870; and industry has called for 
 markets, for commerce, and for shipping. 
 It begot also Protection, which draws its 
 strongest line at the sea frontier. Protection 
 was adopted in 1879, partly to foster home 
 industries, commonly so called; partly to 
 sustain agriculture, with its gift of food, 
 against the drain of rural population to the 
 factories. To this development of the in- 
 dustrial system, multiplying employment, 
 has been due the decrease of emigration, 
 from 220,000 in 1881, to 20,000 at present; 
 a number more than made good by immi- 
 gration, so that a recent German writer 
 claims that Germany has become an immi- 
 grant nation. 
 
 The military correlative of all this is a 
 navy. The numerical strength of the Ger- 
 
In International Conditions 171 
 
 man Navy League, which drew its impulse 
 from a similar association in Great Britain, 
 now exceeds greatly that of the island state 
 which beyond all others depends upon con- 
 trol of the sea; not for prosperity only, but 
 for bare existence. This remarkable growth 
 very probably is due in large measure to 
 the singular capacity for systematic develop- 
 ment of energy, for sagacious planning, 
 adapting means to ends, which in Germany 
 characterizes all movement, — military, ed- 
 ucational, industrial, commercial; but, how- 
 ever excellent the propaganda of the League, 
 it would not have accomplished its results 
 had there not been in the popular sentiment 
 something which corresponded to the ap- 
 peal. Granting the sentiment, unquestion- 
 ably the League has done much to give 
 it form and vigor, and so to make it pro- 
 ductive, in face of the great expenditure — 
 that is, of the increase of debt and of the 
 great additional taxation — involved; but 
 
172 The Interest of America 
 
 the sentiment was a condition necessary 
 to success. "It is not our rules that have 
 made our success," said recently the head 
 of the League; " rather has the spirit that 
 lives in the League. The spirit upon which 
 we are founded is that of a German ideal- 
 ism. In our flag is incorporated the idealism 
 of the German navy." 
 
 German naval expenditure has risen from 
 less than ten million dollars in 1875, five 
 years after the war with France, to over 
 a hundred annual millions; and it is planned 
 that the same rate shall continue for ten 
 years to come. It will be remembered, too, 
 that such a sum brings a larger return there 
 than in the United States. This is no freak 
 of a government, however little parliamen- 
 tary to our notions that of Germany is. 
 It is the expression of the will of a people. 
 Also, it may be added, it is an additional 
 illustration of the fact that a navy, and 
 shipping generally, appeal to a national 
 
In International Conditions 173 
 
 sense of unity more powerfully than does 
 any other one form of national activity; for 
 the reason that, being external to the na- 
 tional bounds, they are less sectional and 
 more universal in the impression produced. 
 It is significant that, of the million and more 
 members of the German League, one fourth 
 are found in the single inland kingdom of 
 Saxony. A great fleet, whether merchant 
 or military, is a more conspicuous emblem 
 of national power than are the other 
 processes or results of national industrial 
 achievement. 
 
 This is especially applicable to Germany, 
 where the navy is a very new institution, 
 and where the realization of unity, its con- 
 version from a worshipped ideal to a con- 
 crete reality, is also new. As regards union, 
 Germany to-day is very much where the 
 United States was between 1789 and 1812. 
 Union, embraced in a moment of racial ex- 
 altation, as it was by the American colonies 
 
174 The Interest of America 
 
 during the War of Independence, has been 
 expressed and consecrated in Germany in 
 a formal Constitution, the endurance of 
 which throughout the lifetime of a gener- 
 ation has gained for it the grip which con- 
 tinuance always gives. But there remain, 
 not yet outgrown, those "particularist" 
 sentiments, to borrow the German phrase 
 corresponding to our " states' rights," to- 
 gether with that divergence of local or 
 sectional interests, which reproduce the 
 conditions of the United States during the 
 corresponding period of national existence; 
 an inheritance from the jealousies of sep- 
 arate colonies. It required the War of 1812, 
 and the consequent concentration of thought 
 upon a single and common external motive, 
 to develop a national sentiment, the devo- 
 tion to an ideal, — of Union, — as distin- 
 guished from the motive of material 
 interest, which had occasioned the framing 
 of the Constitution and facilitated its adop- 
 
In International Conditions 175 
 
 tion. How powerful that sentiment was, 
 voiced in the simple words "The Union," 
 can be testified by those who remember the 
 stormy days which preceded the War of 
 Secession. No hatred of slavery, nor im- 
 pulse of interest, competed in power with 
 the idea of national integrity to be asserted 
 and preserved. 
 
 So in the German confederacy, a customs 
 union, prompted by evident advantage, 
 had preceded political union and led to it; 
 but the consummation of that achievement 
 into a true national oneness requires a 
 motive force transcending that of material 
 interests. It is found in the pride of inter- 
 national position achieved by a united 
 Germany, contrasted with the weakness of 
 centuries of disunion, and with the humili- 
 ation of foreign intervention and oppression 
 which that disunion had permitted. It 
 seeks and finds expression in a national 
 self-assertion, the occasions of which some- 
 
176 The Interest of America 
 
 times to an onlooker suggest — if Germans 
 will pardon the remark — the sensitiveness 
 of a newcomer, of one too recently in the 
 position of attainment to take for granted 
 the due recognition of the fact by others. 
 Americans must be aware that there was 
 a time when a like trait was noted in us; 
 and it proceeded from the same cause, an 
 uneasy impression that others were dis- 
 posed to take us at less than our own valu- 
 ation, and consequently to show us less than 
 due consideration. 
 
 In both cases, also, it is true that in the 
 policies of each state there was that which 
 appeared to others self-assertion carried 
 to the pitch of aggressiveness. "We will 
 not permit equality with other Powers to 
 be taken from us," said the late Chan- 
 cellor, Biilow, some years ago. "We will 
 not allow the right to speak like them in the 
 world to be contested. We have become 
 a great Power, and with God's help we hope 
 
In International Conditions 177 
 
 so to remain." The Monroe Doctrine, the 
 symbol of American external policy, in its 
 beginnings was as little liked as now is the 
 purpose of external action of which the 
 contemporary great German naval expan- 
 sion is the visible token. That which by 
 the state supporting each was characterized 
 as defensive only, has appeared to other 
 nations clearly aggressive in tendency. To 
 forbid European possession upon these con- 
 tinents seems to an American simple rea- 
 sonable precaution, for self-protection; but 
 to others such prohibition may very well 
 appear to pass beyond the bounds of defense 
 into those of " offense," in the political and 
 military sense of the word. It certainly so 
 seemed in the early history of the Doctrine, 
 but nations now have grown accustomed to 
 its assertions, are tolerant of them; and, 
 it must be added there is in the United 
 States a latent power which commands 
 consideration. 
 
178 The Interest of America 
 
 That latent power, however, must re- 
 ceive organization if it is to be fully ef- 
 fective. The concrete expression of the 
 resources of a nation is its wealth, but it is 
 trite to say that a nation, like a man, may 
 abuse its wealth; may waste it by neglect, 
 or neutralize it by misapplication. The 
 United States at present has two leading 
 principles of external policy — the Monroe 
 Doctrine and the Open Door in the Far 
 East. As towards Europe, our Nearer 
 East, the immemorial policy is one of non- 
 interference; negative, not positive; yet 
 the correlative of the Monroe Doctrine. 
 But non-interference with European inter- 
 relations does not imply absence of concern 
 in them, nor should it involve heedlessness 
 of the fact that the shifting of the balance 
 in Europe may affect our interests and our 
 power throughout the world. This truth 
 also has its momentary concrete expression 
 in the rivalry between Germany and Great 
 
In International Conditions 179 
 
 Britain, in which the existing economical 
 and naval disparity is decreasing, though 
 it is still considerable. 
 
 The United States may have many differ- 
 ent diplomatic discussions with the several 
 European nations; but with the European 
 system, as now represented in the balance 
 of power between the Triple Alliance and 
 the Triple Entente, our concern is only in 
 the effect which changes in that unstable 
 equilibrium may have upon our two external 
 policies. In the present state of that equi- 
 librium, for the passing moment, but not so 
 surely for an indefinite future, the Monroe 
 Doctrine is less obviously liable to adverse 
 influence than is the Open Door; because 
 every foot of American soil is now the pos- 
 session of some sovereign state, whose rights 
 as such are ascertained by international 
 law and cannot readily be infringed. The 
 Chinese Empire is of course equally a sov- 
 ereign state; but the feebleness of its organ- 
 
180 The Interest of America 
 
 ization, resulting in misgovernment and 
 lack of military strength, has not only per- 
 mitted but provoked the frequent inter- 
 ference of other nations, with constant 
 assaults upon its rights of sovereignty, de- 
 spite the greatness of its undeveloped wealth, 
 in population and resources. The result 
 of this has been to obscure and actually to 
 lessen the effective value of those rights. 
 They are freely disregarded in spirit, if 
 not in letter. So far as the status of China 
 is concerned, conditions are maintained 
 not by her own power sustaining her rights, 
 but by the opposition of interests, in relation 
 to her, of other states; those of Europe, the 
 United States, and Japan. The position 
 in so far is identical with that of the Turkish 
 Empire up to the revolution of a year ago, 
 the outcome of which in this respect re- 
 mains to be seen; the immediate results, 
 we know, were Bulgaria's declaration of 
 independence, and the annexations by Aus- 
 
In International Conditions 181 
 
 tria-Hungary. The uncertainties of such 
 situations arise from local instability of 
 government. They are continuously preg- 
 nant of surprises, such as that of Bulgaria, 
 Bosnia, and Herzegovina; of difficult ques- 
 tions like that of Crete now, where the 
 natural aspirations of the population are 
 crushed by the policy of the protecting 
 Powers, induced by the stubbornness of 
 Turkey, which has drawn her line of ac- 
 quiescence at Bulgaria and the Austrian 
 annexations; in other words, at the point 
 where force compels her to accept. Such 
 transactions breed in the international 
 relations of states a sense of insecu- 
 rity which is liable to become acute 
 suddenly. 
 
 Further, the Open Door, like the Monroe 
 Doctrine, is a declaration of national policy, 
 not an assertion of international law; ex- 
 cept so far as it may be consecrated by 
 agreements between particular nations. In 
 
1 82 The Interest of America 
 
 so far, and for the period of agreement, it 
 binds the nations concerned; but for mainte- 
 nance beyond this it depends upon power. 
 No nation not consenting is bound to it by 
 established principles, but is at liberty to 
 disregard it; except as constrained by force 
 which it feels compelled to respect. The 
 Open Door also, like other policies, notably 
 the Monroe Doctrine, is the outcome of 
 conditions which have at last reached a 
 turning point, a crisis; a moment of birth 
 following a period of conception. Both are 
 proclamations to the effect that processes 
 long unimpeded have reached a stage when 
 policy demands that it be said: Thus far 
 shalt thou go, and no farther. The Monroe 
 Doctrine said this to European coloniz- 
 ation in America, till then unchallenged. 
 The Open Door says the like to the 
 further extension, by political or military 
 intervention, of external control over 
 Eastern markets, broadly understood to 
 
In International Conditions 183 
 
 cover all financial and commercial op- 
 portunity; control by annexation, or 
 by influence resting upon force; in 
 short, by substantial possession, however 
 disguised. 
 
 Possession by such means, followed in- 
 evitably by subordinating the native mar- 
 kets to the policy of foreigners, has gone on 
 for three centuries; and is seen now in Brit- 
 ish India, in the extensive Dutch and French 
 holdings in the Far East, in Korea, in Man- 
 churia, in the Philippines. These parallel 
 former European control in the American 
 continents. To arrest this progress at the 
 doors of the four hundred million consumers 
 which inhabit the Chinese Empire is the 
 proximate aim of the Open Door. To this 
 the integrity of the Chinese Empire is a 
 corollary. That integrity is the concern 
 of the United States, or of any country 
 asserting the Open Door, not as a matter 
 of benevolence, but because it is essential to 
 
184 The Interest of America 
 
 free access to Chinese markets; limited 
 only by the general policy of the Chinese 
 themselves, dealing equally with all out- 
 siders. Inasmuch as China is not able to 
 maintain her rights of sovereignty in this 
 matter, unless assisted, the principle of in- 
 tegrity for the Empire follows upon the dec- 
 laration of equal rights in her markets. Just 
 how far the maintenance of the Open Door 
 may carry the interested nations to decisive 
 action, in support of the integrity of the 
 Chinese Empire, remains to be seen. Overt 
 action, as distinct from latent power to act, 
 will be necessary only in case some among 
 the countries concerned obtain, by positions, 
 by predominant force, by intrigue, or by 
 the negligence of rivals, a preponderance, 
 destroying that balance which the Open 
 Door requires. Equilibrium will ensure 
 quiet. Thus the Open Door, which in 
 principle has received the adhesion of the 
 Western community of nations, does not 
 
In International Conditions 185 
 
 stand isolated, as an unrelated doctrine, 
 but is a positive and formulated attitude 
 affecting, however unconsciously of its range, 
 the general policy of contact beween the 
 East and the West. 
 
IV 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
IV 
 
 THE OPEN DOOR 
 
 P I ^HIS newcomer by name into the poli- 
 -*- cies of nations, the Open Door, this 
 artificially sustained balance of commercial 
 opportunity, or free competition, proposes 
 to exclude, within the regions affected, 
 the advantage which most peoples to-day 
 secure for their own industries within the 
 limits of their territorial control. It is 
 to-day the most conspicuous feature in the 
 general policy of the Pacific Ocean, into 
 which it enters as a factor. Its aim is 
 essentially commercial, for the age is above 
 all commercial in spirit; but, in the inter- 
 action of those forces which determine the 
 character and degree of progress, material 
 strength, physical power, underlies the un- 
 disturbed peaceful developments of indus- 
 
190 The Interest of America 
 
 try and exchange. Finance supports war; 
 but readiness for war shields from exter- 
 nal molestation the processes upon which 
 finance is sustained. It was this assurance 
 of quiet under the wings of her navy that 
 enabled the financial eminence of Great 
 Britain to be built up. A like immunity 
 has been conferred upon the United States 
 by remoteness from the scenes of European 
 contentions, and still more by the exigen- 
 cies of the Balance of Power fettering the 
 action of European states. The result in 
 the two instances is that the two English 
 speaking states are now the richest in the 
 world. So the Open Door, to be benefi- 
 cially effective, demands evident security 
 of maintenance, freedom from disturbance, 
 under the balance of forces applicable in 
 the Pacific in general, and in the Western 
 Pacific in particular. 
 
 It seems then of interest to consider the 
 question of balance of power in the Pacific, 
 
In International Conditions iqi 
 
 as bearing upon the question of the main- 
 tenance of the Open Door; the more so 
 that the United States obviously, by her 
 geographical situation as a Pacific Power, 
 and by her advocacy of the Open Door, 
 has a peculiar interest in the matter. She 
 has also peculiar opportunity, advantage, 
 for the application of such material organ- 
 ized power as she may see fit to develop 
 for the maintenance of her contentions. 
 In the matter of particular advanced posi- 
 tions in that ocean she stands on a level 
 with European Powers; but their positions, 
 while useful in a military and commer- 
 cial sense, are very remote from the base 
 of the national power, with a long line of 
 communications, exposed in the case of 
 each to molestation by possible enemies at 
 many places. As before pointed out, there 
 is now a tendency towards such an equi- 
 librium of naval force in Europe as will 
 render increasingly difficult for any one 
 
192 The Interest of America 
 
 Power to divert a large detachment of its 
 navy so far from the home shores. In this 
 is seen again the effect of European rela- 
 tions upon American interests. 
 
 It is not to the interest of the United 
 States to propose to herself the object of 
 supremacy in the Pacific; a regrettable 
 phrase, too often used, provocative of an- 
 tagonism by its very sound. An assured 
 supremacy over her own possessions, and 
 over the approaches to them, is in her case 
 a legitimate aim, menacing none; for there 
 is no country so situated, relatively to her, 
 as to have access to its own ports en- 
 dangered by her superior navy, which is 
 the unfortunate relation of the British 
 navy to Germany. The dilemma of Great 
 Britain is that she cannot help command- 
 ing the approaches to Germany, by the 
 mere possession of the very means essen- 
 tial to her own existence as a state of the 
 first order. No such invidious character- 
 
In International Conditions 103 
 
 istic attaches to the position of the United 
 States; but from t her geographical situa- 
 tion, in virtue of nearness, whatever mili- 
 tary numbers she may possess have in- 
 creased effectiveness towards either the 
 Panama Canal, when finished, or towards 
 the Far East. This is true even now, 
 before the completion of the canal; be- 
 cause, granting proper permanent prepara- 
 tions on the Pacific coast, the fleet can 
 be assembled there, not as soon as desir- 
 able, but soon enough to retrieve injuries 
 that may have been received on account 
 of its absence. This assumes that the 
 battle-ships will be kept together, concen- 
 trated in force, whether in the Atlantic or 
 in the Pacific; the only proper disposition 
 for them. Whatever its numbers, the fleet 
 gains in proportionate force, when nearness 
 to the scene not only facilitates action 
 but reduces the necessity of detachments 
 and of long lines of communication. 
 
194 The Interest of America 
 
 The recent development of the German 
 navy, present and programmed, if the 
 word may be allowed, has most singularly 
 modified, in a favorable sense for the im- 
 mediate present, the effective power of 
 the United States in the Pacific. In an 
 article on the Disposition of Navies, written 
 eight years ago, shortly after the promul- 
 gation of the first treaty of conditional 
 alliance between Great Britain and Japan, 
 and two years before the war between 
 Japan and Russia, I had occasion to com- 
 ment upon the then existing difficulties, 
 and the necessary provision to meet them, 
 on the part of the confronting allies, Japan 
 and Great Britain, France and Russia. 
 The importance of the Mediterranean to 
 the communications, and their exposure 
 within it, were naturally prominent fea- 
 tures in such a discussion. Russia then 
 already had assembled in the Far East the 
 fine squadron of which such pitiful use was 
 
In International Conditions 195 
 
 afterwards made. But while the possible 
 attitude, or action, of Germany, in case 
 of an Eastern war involving others than the 
 immediate participants, was considered, it 
 was not felt that her fleet then would 
 powerfully affect the balance, as other- 
 wise constituted. Great Britain then held 
 achieved the Two Power Standard; and 
 there seemed no cause for doubt that she 
 could both control the communications 
 and seriously help her ally, should it be- 
 come necessary to do more than hold the 
 French navy in check in the waters of 
 Europe. 
 
 This was eight years ago. Now the Ger- 
 man navy is developing a power which will 
 soon make it second to that of Great Brit- 
 ain, with a large margin of superiority 
 over every other one, including that of 
 the United States. The result of this is 
 to fasten the British navy to British waters. 
 In occupying this situation, as Great 
 
196 The Interest of America 
 
 Britain now has done, an advanced front 
 of operations is maintained in concentrated 
 force, relying upon such disposition to pro- 
 tect all the region behind; that is, practi- 
 cally, all her colonies, and every essential 
 sea communication of the British Islands 
 with the outside world. As a military 
 measure this is perfectly correct; and so 
 long as it holds, so long as no disaster or 
 neglect weakens the British fleet, it will be 
 effective both for defense, and for the 
 offensive work of cutting Germany's sea 
 communications. But it is a disposition 
 that must be sustained in peace as well as 
 in war. No chance of a surprise, by divid- 
 ing the battleships between home waters 
 and others can be permitted; the fact of 
 Austria in 1866, and of France in 1870, 
 stand as warnings against surprise by 
 superior force and superior preparation. 
 
 Obviously, while this European tension 
 lasts, neither Germany nor Great Britain 
 
In International Conditions 197 
 
 can divert much force to the Pacific. In 
 March, 1910, according to the reply made 
 by the head of the Admiralty to a question 
 in Parliament, there are on the China 
 Station no British battleships, only four 
 first-class cruisers; and also no such cruisers 
 nor battleships in the British East Indies. 
 The navies of the two states, and other 
 circumstances of national strength, remain 
 indeed factors for consideration elsewhere. 
 They forbid, for instance, the adoption 
 by another country of measures which 
 might cause the two to unite even momen- 
 tarily against it; but the Open Door, if 
 adhered to as a policy, offers to commercial 
 states no temptation to resistance. At- 
 tempts to obtain undue national privileges, 
 especially if by force, or by an unfair use 
 of present occupation, may make the Open 
 Door a cause of war by inducing measures 
 to resist its violation; but the maintenance 
 of equal trade opportunity will not provoke 
 
198 The Interest of America 
 
 opposition. The same general conditions 
 that find expression in the protagonism of 
 Germany and Great Britain will control 
 also the action of the smaller European 
 navies; for each one of them is a factor 
 in the balance of power, which is essential 
 to the independent movement of all the 
 states. 
 
 The result is to leave the two chief 
 Pacific nations, the United States and 
 Japan, whose are the only two great navies 
 that have coastlines on that ocean, to 
 represent there the balance of power. 
 This is the best security for international 
 peace; because it represents, not a bargain, 
 but a fact, readily ascertainable. Those 
 two navies are more easily able than any 
 other to maintain there a concentration 
 of force; and it may even be questioned 
 whether sound military policy may not 
 make the Pacific rather than the At- 
 lantic the station for the United States 
 
In International Conditions 199 
 
 battle fleet. For the balance of naval 
 power in Europe, which compels the re- 
 tention of the British and German fleets 
 in the North Sea, protects the Atlantic 
 coast of the United States, — and the 
 Monroe Doctrine, — to a degree to which 
 nothing in Pacific conditions corresponds. 
 Under existing circumstances, neither Ger- 
 many nor Great Britain can afford, even 
 did they desire, to infringe the external 
 policy of the United States represented in 
 the Monroe Doctrine. 
 
 With Japan in the Pacific, and in her 
 attitude towards the Open Door, the case 
 is very different from that of European or 
 American Powers. Her nearness to China, 
 Manchuria, Korea, gives the natural com- 
 mercial advantages that short and rapid 
 transportation always confers. Labor with 
 her is still cheap, another advantage in 
 open competition; but the very fact of 
 these near natural markets, and her in- 
 
200 The Interest of America 
 
 terest in them, cannot but breed that 
 sense of proprietorship which, in dealing 
 with ill-organized states, easily glides into 
 the attempt at political control that ulti- 
 mately means control by force. Hence the 
 frequent reports, true or untrue, that such 
 advantage is sought and accomplished. 
 Whether true or not, these illustrate what 
 nations continually seek, when opportunity 
 offers or can be made. This is in strict 
 line with that which we call Protection; 
 but with the difference that Protection is 
 exercised within the sphere commonly 
 recognized as legitimate, either by Inter- 
 national Law or by the policy of compet- 
 ing states. The mingled weakness and 
 perverseness of Chinese negotiators invite 
 such attempt, and endanger the Open 
 Door; give rise to continual suspicion that 
 undue influence resting upon force is affect- 
 ing equality of treatment, or is establish- 
 ing a basis for inequality in the future. 
 
In International Conditions 201 
 
 There can be no question that the gen- 
 eral recent attitude of Russia and Japan, 
 however laudably meant, does arouse such 
 suspicions. 1 
 
 Then again, the American possession, 
 the Hawaiian Islands, are predominantly- 
 Japanese in labor population; a condition 
 which, as the outcome of little more than 
 a generation, warrants the jealousy of 
 Japanese immigration on the part of the 
 Pacific coast. Finally, the population of 
 that coast is relatively scanty, and its com- 
 munications with the East, though rapid 
 for express trains, are slow for the immense 
 traffic of men and stores which war im- 
 plies and requires. That is, the power of 
 the country east of the Rocky Mountains 
 
 1 See a very significant editorial, " The Question of 
 Manchuria," in the London Times of August 6, 19 10. 
 The Times has been throughout a consistent and strong 
 advocate of the Anglo- Japanese alliance. 
 
 See also " The Mystery of the Status Quo " in the 
 Nineteenth Century for September. 
 
202 The Interest of America 
 
 has far to go, and with poor conveyance, 
 in order to reinforce the Western Coast; the 
 exact opposite of our advantage of rapid 
 maritime access to the Panama Canal. 
 In the absence of the fleet, invasion may 
 be easy. Harm may be retrieved in meas- 
 ure by the arrival of the fleet later; but 
 under present world conditions the Pacific 
 coast seems incomparably the more ex- 
 posed of the three great divisions of the 
 American shore line — the Atlantic, the 
 Gulf, and the Pacific. 
 
 Such a conclusion traverses the practice 
 of the nation since it became a nation; but 
 the navies of Germany and of Japan are 
 newcomers, not a generation of mankind 
 old. The international effect of each, as 
 viewed by the writer, has been indicated; 
 that of Japan briefly, that of Germany 
 much more at large because the European 
 system is excessively complicated, one of 
 checks and balances, the growth and de- 
 
In International Conditions 203 
 
 velopment of centuries. It is not indeed 
 very difficult to understand in main out- 
 lines, but it involves and is conditioned 
 by a multiplicity of details, requiring much 
 minute information and much historical 
 knowledge of antecedents, without which 
 appreciation and a reasonably accurate es- 
 timate of probabilities are impossible. 
 
 Such knowledge and appreciation are 
 the growth of a lifetime; the business of 
 an expert, a specialist; confined probably 
 to a very few men in Europe, and for 
 which perhaps no American has exhaustive 
 need. But while the helm of state must 
 be committed to experts, as that of an 
 army to generals, national movement, like 
 that of an army, is compact and power- 
 ful in proportion as those who follow 
 comprehend and share, in their subordi- 
 nate measure, the plans and spirit of the 
 leader, and thus are prepared to give 
 support which, to be really dependable, 
 
204 The Interest of America 
 
 must be intelligent. Comprehension of 
 the great issues to which, in our day 
 beyond any previous, the whole world is 
 a party, needs to be spread among our 
 people, because as never before these 
 matters concern us as members of a great 
 family. Thus national policy will become 
 the policy, not of the government only, 
 but of the people; giving a momentum of 
 unanimity without which no national 
 movement can be effective, least of all in 
 external policy beyond its own borders. 
 
 During the year 1910 the occurrence 
 which has modified most noticeably the 
 inter-relations of states has been the Russo- 
 Japanese Convention of July 4. The full 
 scope of this is not yet clearly understood, 
 but evidently there is contemplated not 
 only an accord between the two Powers 
 as regards their mutual relations at their 
 very delicate point of contact in the Far 
 
In International Conditions 205 
 
 East, but further also mutual support 
 against the intrusion of a policy foreign 
 to both. In such possible opposition are 
 included, not merely European or Ameri- 
 can states, but likewise the wishes of 
 China, whose proper national territory is 
 the subject of the Convention. 
 
 The date of this Convention follows 
 quickly — as diplomatic movements count 
 quickness — upon the proposal of the 
 United States to insure the neutraliza- 
 tion of the railroads in Chinese territory, 
 now under the control of Japan and Russia, 
 as well as of others contemplated in Man- 
 churia. Therefore, although public assur- 
 ance has been made that the substance of 
 the Convention was determined before the 
 American proposition was communicated, 
 the framing of the agreement may seem 
 to indicate a direct purpose of cooperation 
 to resist any possible interference having 
 similar ends in view. Such intervention, 
 
206 The Interest of America 
 
 however, is not at all likely to take place, 
 except in the shape of diplomatic repre- 
 sentation, unless hindrance to the free 
 working of the Open Door should seem 
 likely to result. Such hindrance would 
 affect similarly all maritime nations, whose 
 combined navies still hold in their hands 
 the ultimate effectual control of such a 
 situation, as actually as they did ten 
 years ago. Otherwise, the prescriptions 
 of the Open Door being observed, con- 
 ditions in Europe are too delicate to 
 permit interference; and Germany at least 
 will not fall into the mistake made by 
 Great Britain of undertaking any measure 
 liable to relieve, or to withdraw, Russia 
 from entanglements in the Far Ea9t, for 
 this would by so far add to her power to 
 bring pressure to bear upon Germany in 
 Europe. 
 
 This aspect of the recent Convention, 
 indeed, has been jealously noted at once. 
 
In International Conditions 207 
 
 It may contribute eventually to retard the 
 progress of the German navy, which 
 hitherto has been directly facilitated by 
 the weakening of Russia through her dis- 
 astrous war with Japan, and by the in- 
 ternal troubles ensuant. The success of 
 Japan owed much to the treaty of alliance 
 with Great Britain, which effectually de- 
 terred France from such cooperation with 
 her ally Russia as she had extended in 
 1895. Great Britain thus contributed, 
 scarcely indirectly, to that removal of 
 Russian incidence upon Germany which 
 has facilitated financially the upbuilding 
 of the German navy, but which may be 
 counteracted in part by the recent agree- 
 ments between Japan and Russia. 
 
 The argument against the Anglo- Japanese 
 alliance, as a measure of policy on the part 
 of Great Britain, suggested before the war 
 between Japan and Russia, was that the 
 more heavily Russia became engaged in 
 
208 The Interest of America 
 
 the Far East, in her endeavor to reach an 
 ice-free sea, the less could she bear upon 
 British interests in the Levant and in the 
 Middle East; notably in Persia and Af- 
 ghanistan. There is a limit, usually finan- 
 cial, to national aggressiveness. In the 
 Far East Russia was then confronted by 
 Japan; and not by Japan alone, but by 
 every nation interested in that freedom of 
 trade with China which has given origin 
 to the expression, the Open Door. There 
 could be no question that should Russia 
 there attempt exclusion, or undue control, 
 she would be face to face with all naval 
 Powers, whose common interest in calling 
 her to order would insure cooperation so 
 far; and farther would not be certainly 
 desirable. Meanwhile, Russia's preoccu- 
 pations there would limit necessarily her 
 action elsewhere; in the Balkans, in Persia, 
 and on the German frontier. It is believed 
 that German statesmanship encouraged 
 
In International Conditions 209 
 
 Russia to undertake national enterprise in 
 the distant East, after the time when the 
 policy of Bismarck sought alliance with 
 Austria-Hungary preferably to that with 
 the Czar. The joint intervention of 1895, 
 to which Germany was a party, by depriv- 
 ing Japan of Port Arthur helped markedly 
 to determine towards the Farther East 
 Russia's main effort of expansion, until she 
 was checked by Japan. As has been shown 
 by recent occurrences, the profound humili- 
 ation and weakening of Russia contributes 
 to enhance this limitation upon her in- 
 fluence in Europe; while at the same time 
 the commercial and naval nations, Great 
 Britain included, find themselves confronted 
 in Manchuria with two particular national 
 interests established in possession, instead 
 of one. 
 
 The late conventions between Japan and 
 Russia as to their position in Manchuria, 
 and that between Great Britain and Rus- 
 
210 The Interest of America 
 
 sia as to their mutual relations and accord- 
 ant action in Persia, are direct outcomes 
 of the late war in the Far East, and are 
 incidents in the general combination which 
 half unconsciously has been forming among 
 the European states, as the result of the 
 German predominance. Of this the most 
 threatening exponent has been the growth 
 of the German navy. The various conven- 
 tions have their one unifying motive in the 
 relief of mutual pressure between the states 
 contracting them, in order to increase their 
 ability to balance the two mid-Europe mili- 
 tary monarchies. 
 
 The general movement of which these 
 are specific incidents encounters neces- 
 sarily the difficulty which attends all arti- 
 ficial combinations. Conflict of aims is 
 the gnawing defect of most alliances not 
 founded upon immediate dominant inter- 
 ests, as that between Germany and Austria- 
 Hungary has been estimated to be. So far 
 
In International Conditions 211 
 
 and so long as paper conventions can com- 
 pose clashing interests, to the mutual re- 
 lief of the parties concerned, so good; but 
 the motive of the two conventions speci- 
 fied is not local, but remote. They have 
 been contracted, not chiefly to reconcile 
 immediate difficulties on the spot, which 
 have not ceased to exist, and are merely 
 postponed, but in order to affect distant 
 contingencies. The contrary interests of 
 Japan and Russia in the Far East are no 
 less than they were, nor have they ceased 
 to haunt the background of the national 
 consciousness. Like a quarreling couple, 
 they have for the moment joined hands 
 against outsiders, but their own causes of 
 variance remain, and will receive a so- 
 lution of force; not necessarily of war. 
 The timely exhibition of force may pre- 
 vent open war; but it is scarcely for 
 merely commercial reasons that the Rus- 
 sian Duma, in the face of notorious 
 
212 The Interest of America 
 
 money embarrassments, has been induced 
 to authorize the double tracking and gen- 
 eral improvement of the Siberian railroad, 
 the imperfect construction of which so 
 vitally affected the exertion of Russian 
 strength, despite the eminent adminis- 
 trative supervision displayed during the 
 war. Nor is the annexation of Korea, 
 formally effected since these pages were 
 written, calculated wholly to soothe Rus- 
 sian susceptibilities. It is perfectly un- 
 derstandable, all the same, that Russia for 
 the moment may prefer to join hands with 
 Japan in resisting tendencies which would 
 complicate the situation by bringing upon 
 the scene other Powers; and the case is 
 much the same in Persia as regards Great 
 Britain and Russia, as has been shown 
 from time to time by slight straws im- 
 pelled by puffs of wind. 
 
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