298 POLITICS 



South Africa, the Colossus plants one foot near the ice-free water 

 on the Persian Gulf, the other on ice-free water at Port Arthur, the 

 tip of Chinese Manchuria, which 6500 miles of railway connect with 

 St. Petersburg. A Russo-Japanese war ensuing from this move, 

 the Briton counters by pocketing Tibet. 



The chess-game is interesting, but hardly as yet bears out Mr. 

 Tarde's view that one or the other of these powers, or at any rate 

 some nation, is destined to world-empire. Too many checks and 

 balances are in reserve. For instance, suppose Great Britain at 

 this moment in the ascendant; yet, as I once heard Archibald Col- 

 quhoun explain, Russia's methods of colonization in Asia are superior 

 to the British, being less radical. Again, the day that sees Great 

 Britain victorious over Russia may also see Canada, Australia, and 

 South Africa independent nations. But should Russia then swing 

 dangerously to the fore, the entire Anglo-American world would be 

 one flint, fire-striking rock against her, while Germany would be as 

 likely to side with England as France with Russia. 



Mr. Tarde's theory is too a priori, too " previous ; " as is that of 

 Mr. Pearson and others who proclaim the yellow peril, whether from 

 Chinese industrial or from Japanese military efficiency; and also 

 that of those who, gleefully contemplating The Hague Tribunal and 

 the rapid progress of arbitration, expect all war to end the day after 

 to-morrow. 



Having glanced at what may be considered the chief political 

 creations, crystallizations, fails accomplis, of the century past, we 

 go back upstream to sight the main movements whence those new 

 formations causally sprang. 



Notice, first, the centralizing tendency, including (1) the enlarge- 

 ment of the territories ruled from a single center, accompanied or not 

 by the spirit of imperialism, and (2) the strengthening of the central 

 authorities in all nations. Both forms of the tendency are observed 

 in the United States, in Russia, in Germany, and in Italy; also in 

 the foreign takings of England, Germany, France, and Chile, in 

 Austria's reluctance to end in any degree her lordship in Italy, and 

 in the impulse which Austria shares with Russia to appropriate as 

 much as possible of the Balkan Peninsula. 



Modern means of communication by steam and telegraph im- 

 mensely facilitate the unifying of large and widely separated bodies 

 of men. Railways and telegraphy explain why our generation 

 could witness the rise in Germany of the first solid central govern- 

 ment there in all history, giving the lie at last to Niebuhr's saying that 

 anarchy was the God-ordained constitution of the German people. 



But for the agencies named, the United States could not be per- 

 manently or strongly ruled as a single nation, and the victory of 

 central government in the Civil War would have been in vain. But 



