Evening star., 1907-10-27

he had made to accomplish his mission, but found
even in this stern self criticism no flaw of endeavor
But his hour of bitterness he thought that God
might have been more kind.
CHAPTER X
SUCH was the effect of the strange happenings
~ of May and June that the poise of all Europe
seemed trembling and unstable. Men who in all
their lives had respected law and society began
to question the value of communal authority when
even the most carefully reared power proved
able to protect itself against what appeared
be only one invention. Taxation had created
government, which in turn had devised armies
and navles and expended more and money
in their equipment 1t had been demon
strated that the discovery of some one new force
some engine of destruction powerful than
any other known, could destroy the values of
navles and armies in day. And yet in this frame
of mind, where anarchy seemed less terrible and
Governments at best but weak organizations the
greed for aggrandlzement and conquest reasserted
itself
In Russia the revolutionists took heart and hoped
to possess the land. In the Balkans, reeking with
the blood of past strife, forces forming for
independence. Rulers of neighborng Powers studied
the map of Turkey, dreaming of what portion might
be seized. China, rehabllltated for aggression by
Japan herself, regretted compact with the smaller
country which prevented its seizure, that it
was so terribly weakened.
But the most threatening attitude of all that
of Germany toward Great Britain The Hohen-
zollerns, a line of warriors, still held the ancient
throne and the ka1ser was ambitious tor his coun,
trys advancement. An astute ruler of exceptional
capacity, he already had advanced Gernanys flag
of trade beyond all seas, and by this means alone
practically dominated all of South America. In all
earlier days of this trade conquest the United States
had been busted in her home enterprises saving to
herself that when she chose she could find way to
take the traffic of the southern continent with
With her eyes Swaddled in silly egOtism, she had
waited till too late. and then, when her bandages
were removed suddenly learned that commercial
brains were not confined to America alone The
sleeping giant had lost commercial supremacy in a
continent which hers by right of location and
needs, of industrious workers across the
Nor had Germany neglected her fight for trade
at home. There too she found egotists, swollen
with self suiciency that by disastrous tariff methods
it's producers, had driven her farmers and car
riers from the field, until, dsgruntled farmer
said, You cant pick up cabbage in a stall
which don't bear the words made in Germany;
and if a needed for the King Ger
many would have stood fair chance of booking the
order In a natural revulsion which had reached
fever heat before the Japanese American broke
out, England trying to Obstruct this encroach-
ment. The feeling thus engendered between the
two nations eliminated in of envy the part
of Great Britain and one of hatred on the part of
Germany. The Kaiser, calmly reviewing times and
conditions, decided that the time had to
strike.
England with power sadly diminished through
the loss of her great fleet and the mercy of the
United States in her richest colony, stood open to
Germany took exception to the tariff laws in very
carefully worded message 1t was that under
normal circumstances would have provoked de-
mands for apologies in a refusal of such, almost
instant war. But the lion driven to tenn
porze That the Kaiser hoped for open rupture
an outcome, was demonstrated by his sending
curtly wOrded notes.
The English press retailed these to the public,
Continued page I8