probably specially due to the fact that the Government at Washington has until lately had very few international dealings on its hands. Provided the honorable traditions of such Secretaries of State, as, for example, John Hay, are kept up, the increasing contact with the outer world, which is unavoidable and in fact already apparent, cannot fail to have a most beneficial influence on the internal affairs of the American Commonwealth.

Few indeed will dispute that nowhere and never was a high ethical purpose more needed. Through the divorce of ethics and politics the true interests of the majority have long been sacrificed to the momentary benefit of some thousands of unscrupulous individuals. The reaction which at last has set in is equally dangerous to self-government and individual liberty. The people cannot always hope to have a Woodrow Wilson at the White House. It would be but natural that the trend of reaction would follow the lines which it has taken on the other side of the Atlantic. But the immense growth of Stateism which nowhere has been so patent as in Great Britain, notwithstanding its name of the home of liberty, is in itself contrary to the principles of the American Constitution. In reality there is very little difference between the tyranny of a comparatively small number of private individuals and the yoke imposed by a host of so-called servants of the State. Through both agencies the free citizen is turned into a fettered subject. It may be that his position is less enviable under an all-powerful State whose manifold machinations are often hidden under misnomers. Every one imagines himself to have something to say in controlling the public servants. The greater their number, the more difficult it becomes to exercise this control. The votes of the servants of the State are ever at the bidding of those who voice the tyranny of habit. And the untold ramifications of State authority do not allow the down trodden to focus their revolt against a personality.

If liberty is not to become merely a dim constitutional phrase, it behooves the American people to take instantaneous action. The urgency and the gigantic complexity of the task demands, however, a complete unity of purpose between every kind of internal and external policy. There is not the slightest hope for success unless the polity is moved by one of those ethical revivals which lays the foundation for a

new epoch in human history. Most of us admire and envy the men and women of the past who were privileged to live through similar renaissances. To-day the chance is with the people of the United States! And the privilege is unique and greater than it has ever been. They can act, not only for a town, a country, or a continent. What they do will affect the whole planet.

The glorious work that is before the people of the United States demands the adherence to but one single principle, the principle of personal responsibility. But it is a responsibility which is no longer restricted to the family, the tribe, the nation, or the race. Each personality has at last become responsible to humanity as a whole. For the first time in the wonderful romance of our evolution distance has been eliminated. In one sense we have reached a final stage in our development. For the first time we know the ultimate sphere of our activities. All parts of the earth are explored and put into communication with each other. There are no longer unclaimed territories to conquer. Every bit of land belongs to some organized community which forms a more or less influential part of the international Aeropagus.

Consequently the action of each separate organization is bound to influence the whole of mankind as never before. Therein lies the greatness and beauty of national efforts of to-day, therein the excuse for our pleading for energetic participation in international affairs by the United States. If they are really concerned with the liberty of their citizens, they must to-day work for the liberty of mankind. In this respect inaction is just as full of consequences as action. In our planetary epoch, everything which they fail to do for the benefit of mankind will ultimately be to the detriment of their own citizens.

But however influential the voice of the United States may be in international affairs, it is not powerful enough alone to lead mankind out of the morass of the confining conceptions of nationhood. Fortunately, however, its citizens form a part of a greater whole, the AngloSaxon world. Whatever may have been their failings in the past, all Anglo-Saxon peoples to-day stand out and in unison as the upholders of the fundamental doctrine of self-government, which is the only true foundation for peaceful intercourse between the different nations of the earth. The depth to which this principle has taken hold of them is

borne out by the fact that neither the United States nor the British Empire nor the British Dominions could to-day be found willing to assume the government of new conquests. On the contrary, both the United States and the British Empire are unceasingly endeavoring to educate toward self-government the less developed races whom the relentless onward march of civilization has happened to place under their temporary control. That is the avowed colonial policy of both the United States and the British Empire, and of them alone among the colonizing nations of the earth.

The unique position of the Anglo-Saxon peoples is apparent in another and equally important aspect. They form through the ethics, which are the keystone of their theories of government, the only possible tribunal before which to-day any disturber of the international peace, that is to say any transgressor of the principle of self-government, can in justice be arraigned. They also, and they alone, possess the means of letting any number of offenders feel the force of the Law of Nations. Though they cannot, even if they so desired, prevent all wars, they are to-day in a position to hinder any disturbance of peace on the two great oceans which form the highways of international commerce. It is a position of great responsibility, but also full of marvelous possibilities. If recognized and duly accepted it is a position which ultimately will lead not only to naval, but to military disarmament. Thus mankind will at last be freed from those huge forces on sea and land which, with all the untold interests centering round them, far from preparing for peace, still nurture and foster the primitive war spirit of civilization's infancy.

But the opportunity which is now open to the Anglo-Saxon peoples may be of very short duration. Who can tell what strides aviation may make in the next twenty years? Perhaps flying-machines will eventually make it impossible for the Anglo-Saxon peoples to control the high seas. Then the unique chance for a graphical and unobjectionable demonstration of the futility of interfering with the peace of the oceans which the present offers will forever be gone. The ruinous waste of the wealth created by the labor of the humble will be transferred from the water and the land to the air. The fraudulent fraternity of the warlike professions and industries will be continued by the mutual bestowal of the dignity of High Flyer among the sovereigns of Europe! The wings of

the eagles will batter the wings of the doves, while our miserable descendants will curse the memory of fathers who failed to make use of the hour which once gone never recurs again.

By limiting their interference with war to the keeping of the peace of the Atlantic and the Pacific, the Anglo-Saxon peoples insure the success which is the unfailing due of a practical policy. They, hereby, in no sense whatever transgress the principles of self-government. The high seas belong to nobody. Peaceful intercourse on their waters is a necessity for the steady development of those relations which put the so wonderfully diversified resources of our beautiful globe within the grasp of each one of us. When the Anglo-Saxon world combines to protect the fastnesses and the shores of the two great oceans, it works, therefore, not only for that third part of mankind, which in one way or another owes it allegiance, but for the whole of humanity.

Herein lies the moral strength of the proposition. To make it equally unassailable from a naval point of view, the simplicity of its conception must be followed by a corresponding simplicity in the execution of the policy. The simpler the lines on which the policy of keeping the peace of the great seas is carried out, the more efficacious it will be. The lighter the burdens it throws on the Anglo-Saxon communities, the more readily its aims and necessities will be understood by those who have to bear those burdens. Fortunately the geographical position of the two oceans is such that a clear division of the naval responsibilities of each group, which together form the Anglo-Saxon world, is possible. Thus the unity of action, the unity of command, which is so essential to true economy in the employment of naval forces, can easily be secured. Just as the underlying idea for the co-operation between the United States and the British peoples, on account of its simplicity and of its stability, requires no central authority, nor even a formal treaty of alliance to make it clear and acceptable to all concerned-the carrying out of its naval consequences needs no formal consecration. And last but not least, the co-operation between the United States and the British peoples entails for each partner a considerable lightening of the burden of armaments.

The common work demands, of course, that each partner should absolutely trust the other. If the pacifists, and particularly those who are

British or American citizens, have any misgivings concerning the possibility of the enduring establishment of absolute confidence within the Anglo-Saxon combine, they might as well openly acknowledge that the whole peace movement is a farce. If common ideals, common traditions, common interests and common language cannot bridge national distrust, an agreement between all the nations of the earth for the abolition of war or the curtailment of armaments is clearly an impossible absurdity and the pacifists ought at once to cease a propaganda which is as wasteful as it has been proven to work against its own ends.

But in case the Anglo-Saxon peoples are able to trust each other, the division of labor between the partners of the combine is extremely simple. After the completion of the Panama Canal it will be easy for the United States to concentrate her whole fleet in the Pacific, even though the bulk of it must continue to be constructed in the already existing yards of the Atlantic. Without any increase in her naval armaments she will then be able to guarantee the peace of the Pacific, which forms the natural field for the exertion of the civilizing power of her enterprising industry. More than any other nation, the United States has an interest in keeping the open door in China. The American fleet can, singlehanded, prevent any oversea attack on the Chinese Republic. It may by so doing perform immense services to China herself. Safe from aggression over the water, the government of Peking will be enabled to concentrate its military expenditure on its land forces and thus be in a better position to withstand possible attacks from powerful neighbors than if it also had to squander money on naval defenses.

With the whole American fleet in the Pacific, the Canadian west, Australia and New Zealand, and all the possessions of the British Empire in those waters would be absolutely secure from oversea attack, as any such aggression could only come from nations whose expansion would be equally fatal to the United States themselves. Consequently neither the British Empire nor the British Dominions need to expend any money in providing against attacks coming over the waters of the Pacific. The naval efforts of the British Empire in the Pacific could, in fact, be limited to the policing of the Persian Gulf and other purely local necessities.

While the stars and stripes would thus secure the peace of the Pacific,