n the most vital and influential political, commercial, and
intellectual force in the world. The present nations are for the
most part only the modern expression of the vigorous races which
Caesar found and conquered. They have been in continual competition
and in frequent wars.

The Russians have had only a little hold on the sea--in the Black
Sea and in the Baltic; the Germanic peoples have had the Baltic and
the North Sea; France faces the Mediterranean and the Atlantic; and
only twenty-two miles from France is the island of Britain and
Ireland, and other little islands, or what are known as the British
Isles, whose superficial area is less than that of France or
Germany.

Look again at the map, at the location of the British Isles and
Germany. Mark them in black, if you will, and those two little
points represent the two great antagonists in the war. Then turn the
globe around slowly, and you come to Canada, stretching from the
frontier of the United States to the Arctic, and across the Pacific
to Australia and Hongkong, the Straits Settlements and Ceylon,
India, and then in Africa, the most valuable of all its area--and
you have the dominions and the colonies of the British Empire!

Between Germany and the rest of the world is the British navy. Every
German ship which sails the trade routes of the earth must go past
the British threshold. Germany, with a rapidly increasing
population, with an imperial patriotism which discouraged emigration
to foreign countries, wished to extend her domain; she wanted room
in which German national ambition could expand.

Through all her history, Britain has had one eye on the continent
and one on the seas. Continental affairs concerned her only so far
as they meant the rise of any power which might threaten her
dominion of the seas. The silver-pewter streak of channel kept her
safe from invasion by any continental power, yet she could land
troops across the Channel and throw the weight of her forces in the
balance when her dominion was threatened. It is her boast that she
has always won the "last battle," which is sufficient. She had only
30,000 troops in the allied army under Wellington, which delivered
the finishing blow to Napoleon.

Twenty years ago, when the German navy was in its infancy, her
policy was one of splendid isolation. France then was the second
naval power, and Russia the third. The British naval program was
superior to any two continental powers. The incre