While so many dangers, in the future at least, threaten both at home and abroad, English imperialism has failed to link the vast Empire together, either for purposes of commerce or defence, more closely than hitherto.  Mr. Chamberlain’s dream of the British Imperial Customs Union has definitely been abandoned.  No attempt was made at the Imperial Conference in 1911 to go back to it.  “A centrifugal policy predominated. ....  When the question of imperial defence came up, the policy was rejected which wished to assure to Great Britain the help of the oversea dominions in every imaginable eventuality.”  The great self-ruled colonies represent allies, who will stand by England in the hour of need, but “allies with the reservation that they are not to be employed wrongfully for objects which they cannot ascertain or do not approve.” [A] There are clear indications that the policy of the dominions, though not yet planning a separation from England, is contemplating the future prospect of doing so.  Canada, South Africa, and Australia are developing, as mentioned in Chapter IV., into independent nations and States, and will, when their time comes, claim formal independence.

[Footnote A:  Th.  Schiemann in the Kreuzzeitung of July 5, 1911.]

All these circumstances constitute a grave menace to the stability of England’s Empire, and these dangers largely influence England’s attitude towards Germany.

England may have to tolerate the rivalry of North America in her imperial and commercial ambitions, but the competition of Germany must be stopped.  If England is forced to fight America, the German fleet must not be in a position to help the Americans.  Therefore it must be destroyed.

A similar line of thought is suggested by the eventuality of a great English colonial war, which would engage England’s fleets in far distant parts of the world.  England knows the German needs and capabilities of expansion, and may well fear that a German Empire with a strong fleet might use such an opportunity for obtaining that increase of territory which England grudges.  We may thus explain the apparent indifference of England to the French schemes of aggrandizement.  France’s capability of expansion is exhausted from insufficient increase of population.  She can no longer be dangerous to England as a nation, and would soon fall victim to English lust of Empire, if only Germany were conquered.

The wish to get rid of the dangers presumably threatening from the German quarter is all the more real since geographical conditions offer a prospect of crippling the German overseas commerce without any excessive efforts.  The comparative weakness of the German fleet, contrasted with the vast superiority of the English navy, allows a correspondingly easy victory to be anticipated, especially if the French fleet co-operates.  The possibility, therefore, of quickly and completely getting rid of one rival, in order to have a free hand for all other contingencies, looms very near and undoubtedly presents a practicable means of placing the naval power of England on a firm footing for years to come, of annihilating German commerce and of checking the importance of German interests in Africa and Northern Asia.