may be made from more than one well-prepared post of vantage. Unless that time is supposed to have come, occasion invites to another halt, and to looking pleasant again. Avoidance of overprovocation is not likely to be abandoned yet; the only misgiving on that point being that the Russian Government must have known its waiting policy more difficult to maintain after taking partners than it was before. Long games are much less favoured where personal ambitions rule and must be satisfied, than where, as in Russia, State affairs are carried on with the silence, the impersonality, the long outlook and the long patience, of Papal government.

Here, then, is some ground for doubting whether the traditional Russian policy can hold much longer, or endure any great strain. And it happens that, at this very point in our remarks, the interrupting news comes in that just such a test is to be applied immediately.

The terms upon which the British Government offered to raise a loan for China being published, it could not be concealed that they were more than the terms of a loan: they were, besides, a challenge. To Englishmen they seemed perfectly fair, quite unselfish, and good for all concerned; an opinion we have a right to stick to. But of course it was never an affair in which English opinion could have any decisive weight. By the terms of the loan our Government revealed its consciousness of what the Continental brotherhood was about in China, and as plainly declared its desire, if not its determination, to put a stop to it. And if I have interpreted aright the views and aims of the Continental Powers concerned, fierce opposition to the terms of the loan was a mere matter of certainty.

Suppose agreement among the greater European Governments that England must now be content with her share of the world's goods, and talk of the fairness of our proposals and the generosity of our commercial system is vain. It is at once seen that in this affair there may be two quite opposite views of what is fair and just. Let us illustrate the difference. We point to the fact that our share of the foreign trade of China is 80 per cent. of the whole, and call that an argument for its not being interfered with: the Continental Powers feel that it is an argument the other way. We insist that England should be allowed the same trading privileges in their Chinese ports that are open to them in ours: any or all of our unfriends may answer that the commercial principles that suit us do not fall in with their views. We assert that in taking the course which her Government has adopted here, England is not fighting for herself but for all the world: if they reply that they doubt it, and that, for their part, they are mostly concerned with their own special good, no more is to be said. And, lastly, were they to argue, as no doubt they have argued, that free trade ought not to be forced upon one nation by

another at the point of the sword, what is the reply? A difficulty, perhaps. But this is altogether an affair of practical politics, from which the wrongfulness that would injure us is never likely to be removed by argument. It is not thought wrongfulness for that matter; and the design is to injure us, if by injury is meant the utmost possible limitation of our trade in the Far East-even the sweeping of the whole trade out of our hands and into their own, could that be contrived.

Something else must be touched upon. Amidst the talk of war that was started by Sir Micnael Hicks-Beach-whether wisely or not will be better understood by the time this Review is published-we were all easy, and careless, and happy in the thought that our naval forces would be joined by those of Japan! An astonishing public opinion had no doubt of the policy, the righteousness, the success of that alliance on the sea and in the field. Is it past, this folly ?-for surely there was never greater folly in the world. Let us remember. What was the origin of the turmoil of the last three years, and especially of the last three months? It is described in the second page of this article (accurately, as I insist) as the fateful decision of 1895, when our Government determined upon rejecting the Czar's overtures and on shaking hands with the Yellow Spectre. Or, as it is put in milder words, when a stroke was made at Russia on behalf of Japan. At that time I repeated an old opinion of one who had a far finer judgment than I can pretend to, that any European Power which allied itself in arms with the Yellow peoples against another European nation would play traitor to the welfare of the whole human race. Even at the moment of their wonderful uprising the Japanese did far too much to justify that profound opinion: I reiterate it, and pass to some details not unimportant. The stroke at Russia on behalf of Japan had its natural consequence: formation of that hostile partnership at Constantinople and in the Far East. A natural consequence, because active friendship with Japan against Russia is the deadliest form of enmity that the Czar's Government knows anything about. That is decided by Russia's newer ambitions, her enormous expenditure on them, and the sudden appearance of Japan as a daring and ingenious naval Power with high commercial aspirations and aptitudes. For Russia Japan is unendurable as enemy and competitor in those seas. Nothing is more fixed in her policy than that conviction, and we may expect it to be acted on inveterately. As enemy and competitor Japan will not be suffered to live if the Russian arms and Russian alliances can put her in a different position -which different position will be her fate almost certainly, and perhaps soon. Well, then, in this state of the case, it is still while. I write a general belief in England that we should be on velvet' in alliance with Japan; and this although Russia has France at her back, and although the German Emperor has shown by a certain.

famous picture what he thinks of a flourishing and conquering Japan! Considering these things, I take leave to say that this general belief in England is little better than a general madness.

To judge by my latest news, however, it is a madness which is unlikely to be indulged. Report of the sailing of a Japanese fleet as if to force the game, but also report that Japan will force the game at her own peril, if at all. For, after some hesitation, the Germans are disposed to allow us at Kiao-chau liberal commercial privileges (a good thing to do at the beginning, and the privileges can always be revised), and that, of course, if true, is a softener. Over-provocation is much reduced thereby. At the same time a gentle wind of rumour whispers a tale of compromise; of no desire in high quarters to press upon China the conditions of the loan-nor any reason why they should not be modified. Further, that when Sir Michael HicksBeach spoke of war he was strangely though universally misinterpreted. If this means peace I for one shall be glad, albeit with bitterness; for, after all the shouting of the captains, it looks too much like the withdrawal of a challenge. But what then? The long and short of it is that, unless for very life, we cannot fight two or three great Continental Powers at once, and it is evident, and should always have been understood, that such a challenge as our terms of the loan' would be resented by the head of a combination irresistible except by enormous effort and sacrifice. The price of our policy of no alliances must be paid: a policy which would be ridiculous, and even scandalous, if it ended in an anti-European alliance with the Japanese. Does it follow that we are quite done? Not at all. With patience, watchfulness, courage, we may yet be redeemed from isolation-the one thing to look to.

Be it understood, however, that meantime the long game goes on, the syndicate's policy of squeeze continues. No powder is burnt, no guns go off, but we are still in an actual state of war, as I have shown.

FREDERICK GREENWOOD.

THE EXPANSION OF GERMANY

THE debates in the German Reichstag, the discussions in the German press, and, most of all, the speeches of the Emperor William have awakened Europe with something of a start to the policy upon which Germany is embarking. There have, of course, been indications for some time that the Emperor, at all events, was seeking a wider stage for the exhibition of German activity, and in his recent declarations one can clearly see the natural development of ideas and intentions which have been gradually taking shape in his mind. What is novel is not perhaps so much the policy as the extraordinary manner in which it is announced to the world.

German colonial expansion is no new fact. Prince Bismarck, if not its actual initiator, was its benevolent friend. When, at the close of her victorious struggle with France, twenty-five years ago, a united and pacified Germany settled down to industrial pursuits, Bismarck was not slow to perceive the importance of colonial markets as an outlet for German manufactures. He also saw, with the strongest possible distaste, the steady flow of German emigration to the United States and to British colonies, for, once upon foreign soil, the emigrants only too often threw off their German nationality, and remained permanently in the land of their adoption. Emigration, which has done so much to create and still does so much to strengthen the British Empire, seemed to be a running sore for Germany.

But beyond all this, it is at least probable that Prince Bismarck began to foresee what everybody sees to-day, that the future of the world belongs to the great states, and that a Germany without foreign possessions, without great territorial interests as well as great commercial interests, must necessarily dwindle in importance, in comparison with such world-states as Great Britain, Russia, the United States of America, and perhaps even France, are destined to become. Germany might continue to increase in commercial prosperity, her military position in Europe might remain unthreatened,

and yet in the race of the nations she might insensibly fall into the second rank. It is pretty clear that Bismarck did perceive the extraordinarily important and critical character of the time in which we live. No one can doubt that we do live in one of the most critical epochs in the history of the modern world. It is the era of colonial expansion. The scramble among European nations for the remaining unappropriated portions of the earth's surface is at its height. Opportunities neglected now may never come again. The process of filling in, so to speak, the blanks upon the map is rapidly going on, and it is destined to determine, perhaps for centuries, the relative places which the nations of Europe will occupy in the world. Great Britain has already painted red huge patches of the map. France since the war of 1870 has splashed on her colour boldly and with unfaltering hand. Germany, under Bismarck, began to paint in her shade somewhat tentatively at first-in the Cameroons, in SouthWest Africa, in East Africa, and in New Guinea. But it is during the last ten years-one might almost say during the last five years-that the colonial policy of Germany has taken more definite shape.

The fortunes of the colonial party in Germany have suffered many vicissitudes. It was a happy day when their views found favour with the present Emperor. Once a convert, the natural impetuosity of his character made him an apostle. It is a matter of common knowledge that he now dreams of a great colonial empire for Germany, a Greater Germany beyond the seas'; perhaps not precisely upon the same pattern as Greater Britain, but undoubtedly he dreams of an empire outside the geographical limits of Germany in Europe, which shall take away from her the reproach of being merely a European state, and place her par inter pares among the other great world-states-England, Russia, and America.

To this end the whole of his recent policy appears to be directed. It is for this he has passionately and persistently pressed for an increase of his fleet. Whatever may be the views and ambitions of the German people, there can be no manner of doubt as to their Emperor's view of his personal mission. This passage occurs in the Kiel speech:

I am conscious that it is my duty to extend and enlarge what my predecessors have bequeathed to me. The journey which you will undertake and the task which you have to fulfil imply in themselves nothing new; they are the logical consequences of what my grandfather, of blessed memory, and his great Chancellor founded in the political sphere, and of what our illustrious father won by his sword on the battle-field; they are naught but the first manifestation of the newly united and newly arisen German Empire in its transmarine mission. In the stupendous development of its commercial interests, the Empire has gained for itself such a wide sphere that it is my duty to follow the new German Hanseatic League and to bestow upon it the protection it can claim from the Empire and the Emperor.