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THE FUTURE HOME AND FOREIGN POLICY OF GERMANY I I VIE present paper proposes to consider the direction which the external and internal policy of Germany will take as a result of the present War. In Germany, right up to the present war, two ideals of government were struggling for the mastery. On the one hand, a military and an intellectual aristocracy have sought to force upon the people an ideal of imperial destiny as great, if not greater, than that of England and Russia. This ideal was being taken up by large portions of the people as the expression of the nation s will. On the other hand, the social democrats would not concern themselves with this imperial ideal of the Hohenzollerns. They rather looked to the development of their own industry, through the medium of a redistribution of internal and economic forces, although at the same time they had no definite policy as to how this re- distribution was to be carried out. It would be a grave mistake to regard the social democrats as representing theories of socialism; they represent rather, the spirit of dissatisfaction with the existing order of things. Social Democracy and official Germany would never be at peace moreover, social democracy was growing at such a pace that in a few years it would have rendered official Germany help- less in realising its ideal. The present war has forced Germany to fight for an imperial ideal representing the will, not altogether of the nation, but of powerful rulers. The important question is as:to whether, having fought for this ideal of a large imperial destiny, she is at all likely to renounce it. It may be stated categorically that the German people will not in the future place themselves under the external will of their sovereign rulers. The war sacrifices of the people as a whole the dependent character of a highly industrial state upon the develop- ment of keen intelligence, initiative, rapidity of adaptation to quickly changing circumstances, independence of genius, and so on, must of necessity tend to place the motive power of legislation in the hands of the industrial population. No ideal of international policy involving sacrifice in internal development, money, and life, will be undertaken by a complex and powerful democracy unless the people themselves feel that the wealth of population, accumulation of resources, and greatness of economic power render their own borders far too small to allow of further progress, or unless the development of surrounding nations presses upon the people to such an extent that they themselves experience a cramping of industrial and agricultural activity. The stage of development at which England and Russia have arrived has been, in this respect, a matter of grave concern to Germany. There has been a feeling that these two mighty empires are cramping her further progress. II Russia possesses an enormous amount of land, an extremely large peasant population, and very great national resources. But the point at which she can use this land and these resources in order to bring to her people a spiritual unity resting in themselves has not yet arrived. In order to turn her vast resources into means towards political development she requires a centre for which a growing industrial activity can proceed. Until such a centre is found, and until it is connected with a network of communica- tions to the outer world along which commerce can run, Russia must remain a country of mere possi- bilities a country whose powers, and the nature of whose people, cannot come to realization. Political needs and aspirations, if they are to come from a people as a whole, if they are to form the soul of a nation, must spring from a network of industrial, commercial, and agricultural interests forming the life of the whole people. Of late years it has become more and more evident that a centre of Russian industry is beginning to form itself in the west. All that is great, progressive, and energetic in Russia is gradually gravitating towards the German and Austrian frontiers. The Germans have made very serious attempts to colonise these portions of Russia. German peasants had penetrated well into the coun- try, and German scholars, and German ideals had held sway in the Russian universities. But Russia awoke to the danger of the situation, and the influence of Germany has been very largely banished from the universities. Furthermore, the awakening of Russia in the west was beginning to make itself felt in Germany. German universities were finding them- selves educating an increasingly large number of Russian students; so much so, that German students were complaining of being deprived by Russians of benches in the scientific laboratories. Germany saw Russia awakening on her borders, and it lu.d