is their meaning of empire. They fail to comprehend the British Empire, and think that Great Britain dominates its dominions. The British realms

1

are free nationalities, and their freedom depends upon the freedom of the seas, which would disappear with a German victory. Nor are the British realms alone concerned; the century which has elapsed since Trafalgar has been marked by the climax of British naval supremacy. It has also been marked by the greatest growth of nationality all the world over: behind British navalism has sheltered the Monroe Doctrine, and the peoples whom that doctrine nursed into independence; and but for British sea-power there might have been no independent Greece or Italy. Sea-power has been a trust on behalf of liberty vested in Great Britain, and the trustees will not permit the Kaiser to pervert it to German purposes.

Germany herself is one of its greatest beneficiaries in time of peace, and her complaint is that she cannot do on sea what she does on land in time of war. But the nation that makes war debars itself by its own act from the freedom which it enjoys in peace. There is no freedom without law, and the freedom of the seas in time of war depends upon the extent of international law and the respect that is paid to its behests. No one has done more than the German, by the mouth of his prophets and the deeds of his warriors on sea and on land, to limit the scope, hamper the operation, and impugn the validity of international law. Germany would almost seem to regard it as valid only so far as it is convenient to herself or inconvenient to her

1 I have omitted here a few sentences which are expanded on

pp. 81-8.

enemies; and she will plead with more chance of success at the bar of public opinion for a legal freedom of the seas when she has put off her shining armour and her belief in her mailed fist and puts her trust in the forces of reason and light. If she believes in the reign of law and the rule of freedom on the seas, let her show her faith by good works in establishing law and liberty over the land she has won by the sword.

V.

THE WAR AND THE BRITISH REALMS.1

TOWARDS the end of June there appeared in the "Kölnische Zeitung" an article by Prof. Schröer, an erudite student of English philology, on the effect of the war upon the relations between Great Britain and her colonies. It was an extended comment, somewhat on the lines of a lament that was published in "Der Tag" in April. "We expected," said "Der Tag," "that British India would rise when the first shot was fired in Europe, but in reality thousands of Indians came to fight with the British against us. We anticipated that the whole British Empire would be torn in pieces, but the colonies appear to be closer than ever united with the Mother Country. We expected a triumphant rebellion in South Africa, yet it turned out nothing but a failure. We expected trouble in Ireland, but instead she sent her best soldiers against us. Those who led us into all these mistakes and miscalculations have laid upon themselves a heavy responsibility."

From the point of view of the genesis of the war, it would be interesting to discover by whom and with what object the German people were thus misled and deceived; but Prof. Schröer's purpose is to

1 Written in July, 1915; reprinted from "The Yale Review," January, 1916.

explain the behaviour of Great Britain's allies and colonies. So irrational and paradoxical does their attitude appear to the German political theorists that Herr Schröer is driven back on a supernatural interpretation, and he discovers the secret in English witchcraft! So bewitching are our beaux yeux, or rather our "evil eye," that our rebels fall on our neck, and our rivals, forgetting the crimes of perfidious Albion, rush to its assistance. In this war it was a case of Great Britain rushing to the assistance of Belgium, France, and Russia rather than the reverse; but we may pass over that trifle in our search for a more rational account of the phenomena than that which commends itself to the professor. We are

not in England quite so convinced of our powers of fascination, whether for good or evil, and we suspect that our allies, and perhaps even our colonies, are fighting by our side, not so much because they love us the more as because they like Germany less.

In this paper I am not so much concerned with Great Britain's allies as with her colonies-their relations to the causes of the war and their probable relation to its settlement. I use the term "colonies without prejudice: it is unpopular in the great dominions of the British Crown because it fails to express their undoubted national status; and a far better term would be "realms". The United States has set the example of a plurality in unity, and the "British Realms" might be singular in number without being singular in the sphere of political terminology. It represents a better tradition and a truer conception of facts than "British Empire". Nor is it without reluctance that I write even of probabilities in con

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In a

nexion with the settlement after the war. British university, which attaches great importance to political science, I recently ventured to propound the question, " Of what value is political science to political prophecy?" The question was regarded as something of a slur upon the scientific character of the study of politics, but the answers were pitched in a modestly minor key. It is clear that anyone, who forms or commits to print a forecast of the effects of this war upon the correlation of British realms, runs risks which angels avoid.

So far as the causes of the war are concerned the problem is more simple, though this simplification does not help to dispel the bewilderment of our German critics. For this war had no colonial causes. Unlike the Seven Years' War of the eighteenth century and the Boer War of 1899, it had no roots in a great rivalry in other continents than Europe; and Canadians, Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, and Indians have not trooped to the colours because they were menaced within their borders. Great Britain has during the last half century had colonial difficulties with France, Russia, and the United States, and some of them have threatened to bring war within measurable distance. But she has had none such with Germany. The partition of Africa in 1890 was effected without any serious friction, and the friction that arose at Algeciras and Agadir had no reference to British colonies. When war broke out in August, 1914, there was hardly a cloud on the horizon of British dominions across the sea. The war broke out over questions that were purely European, and Great Britain intervened because she could not afford to