If it be, indeed, a fact that the victory of Chateau Thierry and the
subsequent retreat of the German army together with the collapse of the
German Empire indicate, as there is abundant reason to suppose that they
may, a shift in the world's social equilibrium, equivalent to the shift in
Europe presaged by Valmy, or to that which substituted Constantinople for
Rome and which was marked by the Milvian Bridge, it follows that we must
prepare ourselves for changes possibly greater than our world has seen
since it marched to Jerusalem under Godfrey de Bouillon. And the tendency
of those changes is not so very difficult, perhaps, roughly to estimate,
always premising that they are hardly compatible with undue optimism.
Supposing, for example, we consider, in certain of their simpler aspects,
some of the relations of Great Britain toward ourselves, since Great
Britain is not only our most important friend, assuming that she remain a
friend, but our most formidable competitor, should competition strain our
friendship. Also Great Britain has the social system nearest akin to our
own, and most likely to be influenced by the same so-called democratic
tendencies. For upwards of a hundred years Great Britain has been, and she
still is, absolutely dependent on her maritime supremacy for life. It was
on that issue she fought the Napoleonic wars, and when she prevailed at
Trafalgar and Waterloo she assumed economic supremacy, but only on the
condition that she should always be ready and willing to defend it, for it
is only on that condition that economic supremacy can be maintained.
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