d States, France, and even Italy. Has England felt any
menace from these? Why, then, is the German Navy singled out as a
specially sinister threat to England? Has German diplomacy during the
last generation been particularly menacing to England? Germany has
acquired some colonies in Africa and in the Far East. But what are
Kamerun and Dar-es-Salaam and Kiao-Chau compared with the colonial
possessions of the other great powers? Where has Germany pursued a
colonial aggressiveness that could in any way be compared with the
British subjugation of the South African republics or the Italian
conquest of Tripoli or the French expansion in Algiers, Tunis, and
Morocco, or the American acquisition of the Philippines?

Her Open-Door Policy.

Wherever Germany has made her influence felt on the globe she has stood
for the principle of the open door. Wherever she has engaged in colonial
enterprises, she has been willing to make compromises with other nations
and to accept their co-operation, notably so in the Bagdad railway
undertaking. And yet, the colonial expansion of every other nation is
hailed by England as "beneficial to mankind," as "work for
civilization"; the slightest attempt of Germany to take part in this
expansion is denounced as "intolerable aggression," as evidence of the
"bullying tendencies of the War Lord."

What is the reason for this singular unfairness of England toward
Germany, of this incessant attempt to check her and hem her in? Not so
much the existence of a large German Navy as the encroachment upon
English commerce by the rapidly growing commerce of Germany has made
Germany hateful to England. The navy has simply added to this hate of
Germany the dread of Germany. But if there had been no German Navy, and
consequently no dread of Germany, this hate of Germany might have come
to an explosion before now. For the history of the last 300 years proves
that England has habitually considered as her mortal enemy any nation
which dared to contest her commercial and industrial supremacy--first
Spain, then Holland, then France, and now Germany. As long as German
firms, by the manufacture of artificial indigo, keep on ruining the
English importation of indigo from India, and as long as the German
steamship lines keep on outstripping the prestige of the English boats,
there can be no real friendship between England and Germany. Although
England has repeatedly proposed to Germany naval agreements, these
agreements