St. Clair and Wayne 25 



Norsemen threatened all coasts, or when the Hanse- 

 atic League was in its prime. But in the actual 

 event the days of Scandinavian supremacy at sea re- 

 sulted in no spread of the Scandinavian tongue or 

 culture; and the temporary maritime prosperity of 

 the North German cities bore no permanent fruit of 

 conquest for the German people. The only nations 

 that profited by the expansion beyond the seas, and 

 that built up in alien continents vast commonwealths 

 with the law, the language, the creed, and the cul- 

 ture, no less than the blood, of the parent stocks, 

 were those that during the centuries of expansion, 

 possessed power on the ocean, Spain, Portugal, 

 France, Holland, and, above all, England. 



Even a strong race, in its prime, and given the 

 task at the right moment, usually fails to perform 

 it ; for at the moment the immense importance of the 

 opportunity is hardly ever understood, while the 

 selfish interests of the individual and the generation 

 are opposed to the interest of the race as a whole. 

 Only the most far-seeing and high-minded states- 

 men can grasp the real weight, from the race-stand- 

 point, of the possibilities which to the men of their 

 day seem so trivial. The conquest and settlement 

 rarely take place save under seldom-occurring con- 

 ditions which happen to bring about identity of in- 

 terest between the individual and the race. Dutch 

 seamen knew the coasts of Australia and New Zea- 

 land generations before they were settled by the 

 English, and had the people of Holland willed to 

 take possession of them, the Dutch would now be 



VOL. VIII. 2 



