d exempt from the indirect influence of the European
system. The civilisation of the West had completed the domination of
the globe; and the interests of the great world-states were so
intertwined and intermingled in every corner of the earth that the
balance of power among them had become as precarious as was the
European balance in the eighteenth century. The era of the world-states
had very definitely opened. It remained to be seen in what spirit it
was to be used, and whether it was to be of long duration. These two
questions are one; for no system can last which is based upon injustice
and the denial of right.

At this point we may well stop to survey the new world-states which had
been created by this quarter of a century of eager competition.

First among them, in extent and importance, stood the new empire of
France. It covered a total area of five million square miles, and in
size ranked third in order, coming after the older empires of Russia
and Britain. It had been the result of the strenuous labours of
three-quarters of a century, dating from the first invasion of Algiers;
it included also some surviving fragments of the earlier French Empire.
But overwhelmingly the greater part of this vast dominion had been
acquired during the short period which we have surveyed in this
chapter; and its system of organisation and government had not yet had
time to establish itself. It had been built only at the cost of
strenuous labour, and many wars. Yet the French had shown in its
administration that they still retained to the full that imaginative
tact in the handling of alien peoples which had stood them in good
stead in India and America during the eighteenth century. Once their
rule was established the French had on the whole very little trouble
with their subjects; and it is impossible to praise too highly the
labours of civilisation which French administrators were achieving. So
far as their subjects were concerned, they may justly be said to have
regarded themselves as trustees. So far as the rest of the civilised
world was concerned, the same praise cannot be given; for the French
policy in the economic administration of colonies was definitely one of
monopoly and exclusion. The French Empire fell into three main blocks.
First, and most important, was the empire of Northern Africa, extending
from Algiers to the mouth of the Congo, and from the Atlantic to the
valley of the Nile. Next came the rich island of Mad