it carefully avoided discussing my reasons.

I started from the conception of world power which is fairly well
established in the present political literature. From a point of view
taken also by conservative writers I demanded as a characteristic of
world power, in addition to the size of territories and the number of
population, above all, the economic independence that makes it possible
for a State, in a case of need, to produce, without export or import,
all foodstuffs, necessities, raw materials, and all the finished or
half-finished products it needs for its consumers in normal times, as
well as to insure the sale of its surplus.

It is patent that this economic independence is influenced by the
geographical position of the fatherland and its colonies. Now, I
defended the theory (and my opponents made no attempt to confute it)
that even after a victorious war the German Empire would not have fully
attained this economic independence; that, accordingly, after the
conclusion of peace, we must exert every effort to insure this economic
independence in one way or another.

As to the course which we must follow to attain this goal, there may be
various opinions. I proposed the establishment of a union of Central
European States. The conservative press characterized that as "utterly
pretentious."...

If the course I have proposed is considered inadvisable, let another be
proposed. But on what colonies, forsooth, do those gentlemen count, that
could furnish us with cotton and ore, petroleum and tobacco, wood and
silk, and whatever else we need, in the quantity and quality we need?
What colonies that could offer us--do not forget that--markets for the
sale of our exporting industries? Even after the war we shall be
dependent upon exports to and imports from abroad.

And so there is no other way of safeguarding our economic independence
against England and Russia than by an economic alliance with the States
that are our allies in this war, or at least that do not make common
cause with our enemies. Aside from the fact, which I shall not discuss
here, that only such an alliance can insure a firm position for us on
the Atlantic Ocean, which in the next decades is bound to be the area of
competition for the world powers.

Politics are not a matter of emotion, but of calm, intelligent
deliberation. Let us leave emotional politics to our enemies. It is the
German method to envisage the goal steadily, and with it the roads