THE SEA IN THE LIFE OF THE NATIONS. 399 



the United States had not won the Pacific in addition to the Atlantic 

 littoral. A state with seagirt territory, like Great Britain, Japan, 

 and now Australia, the new island state, can be assaulted only in spots, 

 with blockading- fleets. By the preponderance of her sea front, France 

 seems better protected than Germany. In the same way friendly 

 intercourse can penetrate only here and there, at given points, to the 

 interior of a state limited by a coast line. Therefore, state boundaries 

 marked by the sea are ethnically more definite than the vaguer lines 

 on land, and in this respect superior to them. They are a better aid 

 in promoting- and maintaining the unification of mixed races into a 

 single nation. History affords a solitary example of the reverse; the 

 Mediterranean^ surrounded by the provinces, instead of itself sur- 

 rounding them, was the power that bound and kept together the ele- 

 ments composing the mighty world -empire of Rome. Incessantly the 

 ocean brings unity and power from without to all states upon whose 

 edges it breaks, ana which understand its admonishing call. Greece 

 and the Apennine Peninsula, with their mountainous interior, transfer 

 the better part of their traffic to the coasting trade, which day by day 

 brings inhabitants and possessions from the north into contact with 

 those of the south, heightening the community of interests, and at the 

 same time leading the mind constantly beyond the home shores of the 

 high seas. 



More than anything else sea trade, together with every sort of 

 activity demanding transmarine effort, whether it be vast industrial 

 enterprises, technical achievements on sea, or colonization, establishes 

 an intimate connection between a nation and the great world. At the 

 same time it welds together, in indissoluble union, the interior of the 

 state with its coast provinces, the only paths along which lively exchange 

 is effected with foreign parts. As with hammer blows, it brings home 

 the realization of kinship and unites the parts into a whole. We Ger- 

 mans feel this more strongly now than ever. No Hohenstaufen will 

 again turn his back indifferently upon the German coasts, to cross the 

 Alps and lead campaigns against Rome. No Hanseatic League of 

 to-day would have to lower its flag in displeasure for lack of imperial 

 protection of its glorious deeds. A fleet of ironclads floating the Ger- 

 man imperial banner, and growing day by day, guards our merchant 

 marine on all the seas, and to the furthermost shores within and beyond 

 the territory under our protection it extends its sheltering arm over 

 every honest enterprise undertaken by German citizens. Thus, 

 defended from hostile injury, the goods of the world acquired by Ger- 

 man industry flow over the threshold of the sea into all the provinces 

 of our land, raising the prosperity of our people to heights never 

 before attained, widening its spiritual horizon, and fostering the power 

 of the state. The glory of the German Empire lies firmly anchored 

 in the ocean. 



