this theory, has a civilising mission of expansion
towards which it directs the activities of its citizens.

[Footnote 1: _Imperial Germany_, 1st ed., p. 249.]

Under the influence of ideas such as these, Germany, since the accession of
William II., has built a Navy second to that of Great Britain alone.

What was the purpose of the building of the German Navy? The German
official answer is that its purpose was the protection of German trade. "We
are now vulnerable at sea," says Prince Buelow. "We have entrusted millions
to the ocean, and with these millions, the weal and woe of many of our
countrymen. If we had not in good time provided protection for them ...
we should have been exposed to the danger of having one day to look on
defencelessly while we were deprived of them. We should have been placed in
the position of being unable to employ and support a considerable number of
our millions of inhabitants at home. The result would have been an
economic crisis which might easily attain the proportions of a national
catastrophe."

These words may yet prove prophetic. But the catastrophe will not be the
result of Germany's lack of a Navy; it will be the result of challenging
the naval supremacy of Great Britain.

Prince Buelow's argument assumes, as a basis, the hostility of Great
Britain. This assumption, as we know, was unjustified; and its persistence
in the German mind can only be set down to an uneasy conscience. The hard
fact of the matter is that it is impossible for Germany or for any other
Power successfully to defend her foreign trade in case of war with Great
Britain. No other Power thinks it necessary to attempt to do so, for no
other Power has reason to desire or to foresee a naval conflict with Great
Britain.

Ever since 1493, when the Pope divided the monopoly of traffic on the ocean
between Spain and Portugal, and English mariners flouted his edict,
Great Britain has stood for the policy of the Open Sea, and there is no
likelihood of our abandoning it. The German official theory of the purpose
of their Navy, with its suspicious attitude towards British sea-power, was,
in effect, a bid for supremacy, inspired by the same ideas which made
the German army, under Bismarck, supreme in Central Europe. The Kaiser's
speeches on naval matters, notably his famous declaration that "our future
is on the water," provide an official confirmation, if one were needed, of
the real nature of Germany's naval ambitions