POLITICAL SITUATION IN EUROPE 397 



have dominated the world — at least, for a period of nearly 3,000 

 years. Civilisation, as we know it, has been the work of these 

 races ; and it was the custom, up till very recently, to look down 

 with undiscriminating contempt on every race of different 

 origin. But now emerges a new factor in Wdtfolitik ; a new 

 civihsation, entirely difierent in some of its ethics to our own, 

 has entered the ranks of the Powers ; and the triumph of Japan 

 over Russia may not impossibly be but the prelude to the more 

 extensive triimiph of the yellow races over the white, of the East 

 over the West. Thus, the area of international conflict has a 

 tendency to become ever wider. We are no longer confronted 

 with the sole question of European hegemony. Behind the 

 question of the internecine conflicts of European Powers stands 

 the larger question of the conflict between the two great civilisa- 

 tions which the white races have founded — between the new 

 and progressive civilisation of the United States and the old and 

 time-honoured civilisation of Europe ; and behind this question 

 of the ultimate hegemony among the white races in general 

 stands the largest question of all — that of the hegemony of the 

 world. 



We have been so accustomed up till now to use the word 

 " domiuation " as synonymous with the words " white race " 

 that it may be some time before we fully realise the possibilities 

 opened out by the awakening of the East. The first of all great 

 civilisations known to us — that of Athens — was a civilisation of 

 the white race ; the hegemony which Rome established was the 

 hegemony of a white race ; and after the tremendous upheavals 

 which marked the decline and fall of the Csesars ; after a new 

 strata of inhabitants, borne in by the stream of invasion from 

 Asia, had estabhshed itself firmly upon the ruins of the ancient 

 peoples, a new civilisation sprang into being, which was essentially 

 the civilisation of the white races. The dogmatic origin of 

 Christianity does not here concern us : it may be Asiatic or 

 Egyptian in its origin ; but the political development of 



