If then England is to enter into a quarrel with Germany or any other
State, let her people take care that it arises from no obscure issue
about which they may disagree among themselves, but from some palpable
wrong done by the other Power, some wrong which calls upon them to
resist it with all their might.
The case alleged against Germany is that she is too strong, so strong in
herself that no Power in Europe can stand up against her, and so sure of
the assistance of her ally, Austria, to say nothing of the other ally,
Italy, that there is at this moment no combination that will venture to
oppose the Triple Alliance. In other words, Germany is thought to have
acquired an ascendency in Europe which she may at any moment attempt to
convert into supremacy. Great Britain is thought of, at any rate by her
own people, as the traditional opponent of any such supremacy on the
Continent, so that if she were strong enough it might be her function to
be the chief antagonist of a German ascendency or supremacy, though the
doubt whether she is strong enough prevents her from fulfilling this
role.
But there is another side to the case. The opinion has long been
expressed by German writers and is very widespread in Germany that it is
Great Britain that claims an ascendency or supremacy, and that Germany
in opposing that supremacy is making herself the champion of the
European cause of the independence of States.
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