just beyond it a neighbour numbering
171,000,000 inhabitants, in an earlier stage of civilisation and capable of
being set in motion by causes which no longer operate in the western world.

If the final settlement is to be just and lasting, the demands of the
victors must be adjusted to the minimum, not the maximum, of their own
vital interests. For Britain the central problem must inevitably be: What
is to be the position of the German Navy if we are successful in this war?
Is anything even remotely resembling disarmament to be attained unless that
Navy is rendered innocuous? Is it conceivable that even if Britain accepted
the _status quo_, a victorious Russia could ever tolerate a situation which
secured to Germany the naval supremacy of the Baltic, and the possibility
of bottling Russian sea-trade? Even the opening months of the war have
shown what ought always to have been obvious, that sea-power differs from
land-power in one vital respect: military supremacy can be shared between
several powerful States, but naval supremacy is one and indivisible. In
this war we shall either maintain and reassert our command of the sea, or
we shall lose it: share it with Germany we shall not, because we cannot.

Again, what is to be the fate of German shipping and German colonies? Can
we not curtail Germany's war navy, while respecting her mercantile marine?
Is it either expedient or necessary to exact the uttermost farthing in the
colonial sphere in the event of victory? It is obvious that just as Germany
offered to respect French territory in Europe at the expense of the French
colonial empire, so the Allies, if victorious, might divide the German
colonies between them. By so doing, however, we shall provide, in the eyes
of the German nation, a complete justification of William II.'s naval
policy. One of the most widespread arguments among educated Germans
(including those friendly to this country) has always been that German
colonies and shipping are at the mercy of a stronger sea-power, and that
therefore Germany only holds her sea-trade on sufferance. If, as a result
of the war, we take from her all that we can, we shall ingrain this
point of view in every German. We should thus tend to perpetuate the old
situation, with its intolerable competition of armaments, unless indeed
we could reduce Germany to complete bankruptcy--a thing which is almost
inconceivable to those who know her resources and which would deprive us of
one o