the law of self-preservation should
be considered paramount; no fresh extension of Prussian militarism to
other continents and seas should be tolerated; and the conquered German
colonies can be regarded only as guaranties for the security of the
future peace of the world. This opinion will be shared, I feel sure, by
the vast bulk of the young nations who form the Dominions of the
British Empire. They have no military aims or ambitions; their tasks are
solely the tasks of peace; their greatest interest and aim is peace.
Voluntarily they joined in this war, and to their efforts is largely due
the destruction of the German Colonial Empire, and the consequent
prevention of the German military system being spread to the ends of the
earth. They should not be asked to consent to the restoration to a
militant Germany of fresh footholds for militarism in the Southern
Hemisphere, and thus to endanger the future of their young and rising
communities who are developing the waste places of the earth. They want
a new Monroe Doctrine for the South as there has been a Monroe Doctrine
for the West, to protect it against European militarism. Behind the
sheltering wall of such a doctrine they promise to build up a great,
new, peaceful world not only for themselves, but for the many millions
of black folk intrusted to their care.

[Sidenote: Germany's stubborn defense of her African colonies.]

The enemy's stubborn defence of his last colony has not only been a
great feat in itself, but is also a proof of the supreme importance
attached by the German Government to this African colony both as an
economic asset and as a strategic point of departure for the
establishment of the future Central African Empire to which I have
referred. At the conclusion of peace our statesmen will be bound to bear
in mind these wider and obscurer issues, fraught with such consequences
to the world and to the British Empire in particular. Perhaps I may be
allowed to express the fervent hope that a land where so many of our
heroes lost their lives or their health; where, under the most terrible
and exacting conditions, human loyalty and human service were poured out
lavishly in a great cause, may never be allowed to become a menace to
the future peaceful development of the world. I am sure my gallant boys,
dead or living, would wish for no other or greater reward.

* * * * *

Greece, as a result of the intrigues of the pro-German