Leading Articles in the Reviews. 



643 



and kept up for m;iny weeks by a (lovernmcnt too little 

 concerned about forms and too sure of itself, by a 

 Chauvinist Pre^s arrogant and tactless, and by unscru- 

 pulous speculators. Since Germany must have capital 

 to carry on her industries and markets for her surplus 

 production, it surely behoves her to practise a prudent 

 Foreign Policy. What she has to do is to inspire abroad 

 legitimate respect and entire confidence. 



1'.\K.\LLEL1S.\1S BETWEEN FR.ANCE .\ND GERMANY. 



The German Empire to-day, continues the writer, 

 displays a tendency the danger of which is certain. 

 The striking parallelism between her historical evolu- 



<(niT DEN KOPFEN 

 ZUSAMrlt N CEW/\CH5ENE ZWJLLiNaE 

 fCAJTAHI PanoPTiMUM ) 



Luiliit Ulailer.l (Bcilin. 



A Question of Funds, with the heads of the twins 

 grown together. 



tlon and that of France is remarkable. France has 

 always been a few steps in advance of her neighbour, 

 but Cicrmanic nations have invariably followed in her 

 path. 'I'hey have achieved their intellectual movement, 

 anfl it remains for them to develop their financial power 

 and their politiial concentration, (lernmny has natur- 

 ally adopted the error of Imperial I'Vance, who wished 

 to exercise an impossible and harmful hegemony over 

 the interests of various States. The wealthier and 

 more centrali--ef| I'Vance gfew, the more was she domi- 

 nated by that vain ambition born of the spirit of high 

 < ivil and military bureaucracy, and spread throughout 

 Oie nation by the university, the school, and the Press. 



Ciermany runs the risk to-day of seeing the new forces 

 of her people exploited for the personal glory of an 

 ambitious Emperor, as was the case with France and 

 Napoleon I., or for a party interest, as was the case 

 with France in 1870. 



LIMITATION OF ARMAMENTS IMPERATIVE. 



But there is in Germany a formidable contradiction 

 to be noted. On the one hand, the interests of her 

 material prosperity in full development counsel 

 moderation and prudence. On the other, her historical 

 tendency is dri\-ing her to political combinations, to 

 armaments, and to inter\entions. It is the promoters 

 of these tendencies who pretend sometimes to relegate 

 with disdain to the second place the care of material 

 interests in order that what they call national security 

 shall prevail, and at other times invoke these same 

 interests as a pretext to justify hazardous enterprises. 



-Assuredly, if the Empire was attacked it could 

 defend itself with energy enough, but a mere war of 

 ambition would lack the two necessary points of 

 support — popular opinion and credit. England was 

 right to try and induce Germany to practise a really 

 peaceful policy by accepting the principle of a limita- 

 tion of armaments. 



OKUMA ON TERRITORIAL 



EXPANSION. 



The Oriental Revieiv for May contains a valuable 

 paper by Count Okuma, one of the foremost statesmen 

 of Japan, on the policy of territorial expansion. The 

 Count says : — 



Tlicrc is no land on this earth that lias not an owner. The 

 world is mapped out ; and even if we Japanese desired to 

 expand territorially there is no territory to be picked iip. The 

 a};e of territorial expansion is past ; and that policy is a dream 

 of a century or more ago. 



Truly lias the time come when the increase of a nation's 

 power is to lie expected from economic development only and 

 not from territorial expansion. .Steam and electricity have 

 been rapidly decreasing the distance between diflerent countries, 

 so that the world can be said to have become ten times smaller 

 - tli.an a century ago. When the Panama Canal is opened three 

 years hence the world will perhaps be in a sense smaller than 

 the Japan of the feudal age. liconomically speaking, the world 

 is now comparable to a single Stale, and to speak of territories 

 is 10 ignore the progress of the times. Territorial expansion is 

 a dream. Its time is gone, .and peace has come upon the earth. 



The progress of peace must ultimately resuU in disarma- 

 ment. The condition of armed peace as at present kept by the 

 I'owcrs compels them to keep up the strength of iheir arma- 

 ments at a cost t)eyond their financial capacity, this condition 

 giving rise to the high cost of living and llie growth of 

 Socialism. Kor these very reasons the nations desire the 

 reduction of armaments, and arc trying to find some way to 

 pcacefidly di.spose of international disputes, the Il.ague Confer- 

 ence Ireing one of the results of such efforts. At the second 

 conference at ihc Hague, Russia proposed dis:irmament, the 

 proposal being defeated thmugh the opposition of other 

 ambitious Powers; but the reduction of armaments will not Ik.- 

 impossible if the miivemeni be started by two or three of the 

 strongest I'owcrs. The second Hague Conference achieved 

 more results than the first, and 1 have great hojics for the 

 tliird. 



