What, for instance, are the limits of a practicable policy of
colonial expansion? In view of her peculiar economic condition and her
threatened decrease in population have those limits been transgressed by
France? Have they been transgressed by Great Britain? Considering the
enormous increase in British responsibilities imposed by the maritime
expansion of Germany, will not Great Britain be obliged to adopt a
policy of concentration rather than expansion? Is not her partial
retirement from American waters the first step in such a policy? Is not
the Japanese alliance a dubious device for the partial shifting of
burdens too heavy to bear? How long can Great Britain afford to maintain
her existing control of the sea? Is there any way of ending such a
control save either by the absolute exhaustion of Great Britain or by
the establishment of a stable international system under adequate
guarantees? Will the economic development of Asia lead to the awakening
of other Asiatic states like Japan, and the re-arrangement of
international relations for the purpose of giving them their appropriate
places? A multitude of such questions are raised by the transformation
which is taking place from a European international system into a
political system composed chiefly of European nations, but embracing the
whole world; and these questions will prove to be sufficiently difficult
of solution.
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