In the last war
Great Britain's national weapon was her navy, which she has for
centuries used as a means of maintaining the balance of power in Europe.
The service she thus rendered to Europe had its reward in the monopoly
of sea power which lasted through the nineteenth century. The great
event of that century was the attainment by Germany of the unity that
makes a nation and her consequent remarkable growth in wealth and power,
resulting in a maritime ambition inconsistent with the position which
England held at sea during the nineteenth century and was disposed to
think eternal.
Great Britain, in the security due to her victories at sea, was able to
develop her colonies into nations, and her East India Company into an
Empire. But that same security caused her to forget her nationalism,
with the result that now her security itself is imperilled. During this
period, when the conception of the nation was in abeyance, some of the
conditions of sea power have been modified, with the result that the
British monopoly is at an end, while the possibility of a similar
monopoly has probably disappeared, so that the British navy, even if
successful, could not now be used, as it was a hundred years ago, as a
means of entirely destroying the trade of an adversary.
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