In a word, British interests assume that the future of the world shall be an English-speaking future.  It is clear that sooner or later the British colonies, so called, must develop into separate nationalities, and that the link of a common crown cannot bind them forever.  But, as Sir Wilfred Laurier said at the recent Imperial Conference:  “We bring you British institutions”—­English language, English law, English trade, English supremacy, in a word—­this is the ideal reserved for mankind and summed up in words “British interests.”

Turn where you will these interests are in effective occupation, and whether it be Madeira, Teneriffe, Agadir, Tahiti, Bagdad, the unseen flag is more potent to exclude the non-British intruder than the visible standard of the occupying tenant.  England is the landlord of civilization, mankind her tenantry, and the earth her estate.  If this be not a highly exaggerated definition of British interests, and in truth it is but a strongly coloured chart of the broad outline of the design, then it is clear that Europe has a very serious problem to face if European civilization and ideals, as differing from the British type, are to find a place for their ultimate expansion in any region favoured by the sun.

The actual conflict of European interests in Morocco is a fair illustration of English methods.[1]

[Footnote 1:  This was written in August, 1911.]

In the past France was the great antagonist, but since she is to-day no longer able to seriously dispute the British usufruct of the overseas world she is used (and rewarded) in the struggle now maintained to exclude Germany at all costs from the arena.  Were France still dangerous she would never have been allowed to go to Algeciras, or from Algeciras to Fez.  She has uses, however, in the anti-German prize ring and so Morocco is the price of her hire.  That Germany should presume to inspect the transaction or claim a share in the settlement has filled the British mind with profound indignation, the echoes of which are heard rumbling round the world from the Guildhall to Gaboon and from the Congo to Tahiti.  The mere press rumour that France might barter Tahiti for German goods filled the British newspaper world with supermundane wrath.  That France should presume to offer or Germany should accept a French Pacific island in part discharge of liabilities contracted at Algeciras was a threat to British interests.  Tahiti in the hands of a decadent republic, the greatest if you will, but still one of the dying nations, is a thing to be borne with, but Tahiti possibly in the hands of Germany becomes at once a challenge and a threat.