Russia had a vast territory in which her people might
develop. France had no surplus population, and had a large colonial
field for such of her children as desired adventure abroad or would
escape the competition at home. England had, in Canada and Australasia
and South Africa, a magnificent estate for her surplus population. None
of these Powers had an economic ground for aggression. Germany was
undoubtedly in a far less fortunate position, and had an overflowing
population. Six hundred thousand men and women (mostly men) had to leave
the fatherland every year, and, as the colonies were small and
unsatisfactory, they were scattered and lost among the nations of the
earth. The proper attitude toward Germany is, not to gratify the cunning
of her leaders by superficially admitting that she was not aggressive,
but to understand clearly the very solid grounds of her desire for
expansion.
Into the whole case against Germany, however, I cannot enter here.
Familiar from their chief historical writers with the supposed law of
the expansion of powerful nations, convinced by their economists that
the country would soon burst with population and be choked by their own
industrial products unless they expanded, knowing well that such
expansion meant war to the death against France and England (who would
suffer by their expansion), the German people consented to the war.
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