a more or less explicit policy of colonial acquisition.  Spain was, indeed, a great colonial power at a time when her policy in Europe continued to be aggressive; but her European aggressions soon undermined her national vitality, and her decadence in Europe brought her colonial expansion to a standstill.  Portugal and Holland were too small to cherish visions of European aggrandizement, and they naturally sought an outlet in Asia and Africa for their energies.  After Great Britain had passed through her revolutionary period, she made rapid advances as a colonial power, because she realized that her insular situation rendered a merely defensive European policy obligatory.  France made a failure of her American and Asiatic colonies as long as she cherished schemes of European aggrandizement.  Her period of colonial expansion, Algeria apart, did not come until after the Franco-Prussian War and the death of her ambition for a Rhine frontier.  Bismarck was opposed to colonial development because he believed that Germany should husband her strength for the preservation and the improvement of her standing in Europe; but Germany’s power of expansion demanded some outlet during a period of European rest.  Throughout the reign of the present Emperor she has been picking up colonies wherever she could in Asia and Africa; and she cherishes certain plans for the extension of German influence in Asia Minor.  It is characteristic of the ambiguous international position of Germany that she alone among the European Powers (except the peculiar case of Russia) is expectant of an increase of power both in Europe and other continents.

In the long run Germany will, like France, discover that under existing conditions an aggressive colonial and aggressive European policy are incompatible.  The more important her colonies become and the larger her oceanic commerce, the more Germany lays herself open to injury from a strong maritime power, and the more hostages she is giving for good behavior in Europe.  Unless a nation controls the sea, colonies are from a military point of view a source of weakness.  The colonizing nation is in the position of a merchant who increases his business by means of a considerable increase of his debts.  His use of the borrowed capital may be profitable, but none the less he makes his standing at the time of an emergency much more precarious.  In the same way colonies add to the responsibilities of a nation and scatter its military resources; and a nation placed in such a situation is much less likely to break the peace.

The economic and political development of Asia and Africa by the European Powers is in its infancy; and no certain predictions can be made as to its final effects upon the political relations among civilized nations.  Many important questions in respect thereto remain ambiguous.  What, for instance, are the limits of a practicable policy of colonial expansion?  In view of her peculiar economic condition and her