Accordingly it cannot be sound policy for Great Britain to assert for herself a supremacy or ascendency of the kind which is resented, not only by Germany, but by every other continental State, and indeed by every maritime State in the world.  It ought to be made clear to all the world that in fact, whatever may have been the language used in English discussions, Great Britain makes no claim to suzerainty over the sea, or over territories bordering on the sea, not forming parts of the British Empire; that, while she is determined to maintain a navy that can in case of war secure the “command” of the sea against her enemies, she regards the sea, in peace, and in war except for her enemies, as the common property of all nations, the open road forming the great highway of mankind.

We have but to reflect on the past to perceive that the idea of a dominion of the sea must necessarily unite other nations against us.  What in the sixteenth century was the nature of the dispute between England and Spain?  The British popular consciousness to-day remembers two causes, of which one was religious antagonism, and the other the claim set up by Spain and rejected by England to a monopoly of America, carrying with it an exclusive right to navigation in the Western Atlantic and to a monopoly of the trade of the Spanish dominions beyond the sea.  That is a chapter of history which at the present time deserves a place in the meditations of Englishmen.

I may now try to condense into a single view the general survey of the conditions of Europe which I have attempted from the two points of view of strategy and of policy, of force and of right.  Germany has such a preponderance of military force that no continental State can stand up against her.  There is, therefore, on the Continent no nation independent of German influence or pressure.  Great Britain, so long as she maintains the superiority of her navy over that of Germany or over those of Germany and her allies, is not amenable to constraint by Germany, but her military weakness prevents her exerting any appreciable counter pressure upon Germany.

The moment the German navy has become strong enough to confront that of Great Britain without risk of destruction, British influence in Europe will be at an end, and the Continent will have to follow the direction given by German policy.  That is a consummation to be desired neither in the interest of the development of the European nations nor in that of Great Britain.  It means the prevalence of one national ideal instead of the growth side by side of a number of types.  It means also the exclusion of British ideals from European life.