RETROSPECT AND FORECAST 209 



in her Siberian dominion, will be driven from Asia to 

 the western shores of the Caspian Sea. Germany, too, 

 is striving to render the European Powers apprehensive 

 of the advent of the Yellow Terror. She perceives 

 in the development of China the frustration of her 

 ambition to acquire an Asiatic dominion, and her 

 ultimate dismissal from the waters of the Far East. 



But in the alarm of Europe one great factor of the 

 future has not received its due consideration. It 

 requires no gift of prophecy to foretell that in the 

 near future all the English-speaking peoples will be 

 federated so as to act as one body corporate in relation 

 to the rest of the world. Their different political 

 constitutions and forms of government will prove no 

 bar to their mutual harmony and mutual action. 

 This federation will stretch out the hand of friendship 

 to the ruling Powers of the Far East, and form with 

 them an alliance to curb senseless ambitions of con- 

 quest and territorial aggrandisement on the part of 

 any Power whatsoever. 



The English-speaking communities number at 

 present one hundred and thirty millions of souls, and 

 at the end of the century will amount to three 

 hundred millions, with still large powers of increase. 



It would make this chapter too long were I to 

 endeavour to enumerate the signs that are from day 

 to day becoming more pronounced, that the moral 

 sense of civilised mankind is revolting at the horrid 

 spectacle of war, conducted, as any war between great 

 Powers must be nowadays, on an enormous scale with 



