And State Papers 391 



greatness and glad that his country should challenge 

 with proud confidence its mighty future, can be any 

 thing but an expansionist. In the century that is 

 opening the commerce and the command of the Pa 

 cific will be factors of incalculable moment in the 

 world's history. 



The seat of power ever shifts from land to land, 

 from sea to sea. The earliest civilizations, those 

 seated beside the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, 

 had little to do with sea traffic. But with the rise 

 of those people who went down to the sea in ships, 

 with the rise of the Phoenicians, the men of Tyre and 

 Sidon, the Mediterranean became the central sea on 

 whose borders lay the great wealthy and cultivated 

 powers of antiquity. The war navies and the mer 

 chant marines of Carthage, Greece, and Rome strove 

 thereon for military and industrial supremacy. Its 

 control was the prerequisite to greatness, and the 

 Roman became lord of the western world only when 

 his fleet rode unchallenged from the ^Egean to the 

 Pillars of Hercules. Then Rome fell. But for cen 

 turies thereafter the wealth and the culture of Eu 

 rope were centred on its southern shores, and the 

 control of the Mediterranean was vital in favoring 

 or checking their growth. It was at this time that 

 Venice and Genoa flourished in their grandeur and 

 their might. 



But gradually the nations of the north grew be 

 yond barbarism and developed fleets and commerce 

 of their own. The North Sea, the Baltic, the Bay 

 of Biscay, saw trading cities rise to become indepen- 

 iS-Voi, XIII. 



