The definite appearance of the national spirit, and therefore of nations, may be dated from the 13th century. At that time a whole cluster of young nations appeared on the horizon. Some were powerful, such as France, or insignificant, such as Austria; some monarchial, such as Castile, or republican, such as Florence; some Slavonic, such as Poland, or Romance, such as Aragon; or Teutonic, such as Holland; some dying like the Arelate, or full of the germs of progress, like Brandenburg, or precarious, like Hungary. What a bewildering scene! What an inextricable task to follow the dance of these atoms for seven centuries up to the present day, as they coalesce and disperse and again amalgamate into the nations which we know so well! Enough has been said to make quite plain what the main history of European politics really is. It consists of a conflict between two theories of government embodied in men's pas sions. One theory proclaims the advantage of unity under one authority. The other theory announces the goodliness of nationality of free dom of a Europe split into many independent sovereignties. Since the 11th century Europe has been rent by this question. Wars innumera ble have been fought over it. Such has been the fearful legacy of ambition left by the Caesars to the barbarians.
Having now indicated the nature of the poli tics of Europe, let us turn to England, this minute speck of an islet off the European coast. What has been her policy as regards this con tinent? Japan, an island similarly situated, has enjoyed an easy time, because China, on the coast opposite, has been the most peaceable neighbor in the world. But England has al ways been faced by powerful and ambitious neighbors. Great Britain had imperatively to determine whether she should side with autoc racy, as represented by the Pope, by the Spanish Armada, by Louis XIV, Napoleon, the Tsar Nicholas, Bismarck and William II; or whether she should side with the force of free dom ever ready to resist these powers. It has been somewhat a hard choice. England has often tried to shut her eyes and take no part; has sometimes taken the side of power and authority, as James I did in siding with Spain, or as Charles II did in . siding with France. But, on the whole, since the days of William the Conqueror England has sided with freedom. For the liberties of Europe ever coincide with the interests of England. Hence it was that Great Britain opposed the Papacy, and Spain, and Louis XIV, and Napoleon and the Kaiser.
For this reason Great Britain defended the integrity of Turkey in 1854 and 1878. To hold the balance of power in Europe is a con ception deeply rooted in British foreign policy. It was as familiar to Henry VIII and Wolsey as to the British government in August 1914. It is for this reason in part that Britain has ever been the champion of small states, of Holland and Belgium and Portugal, and Switzerland, each of which is a bar against autocracy and a pledge of European freedom. Hence hnglish °perfidiousness," that is aptitude ever to abandon the company of a too dominant star. Hence the profound and fundamental in difference to European politics, so long as no power is visibly in the ascendant across the Channel. Hence, too, the predominant part which, in all the real crises of European history, England has played. Who but the British thwarted the Pope, and the Hapsburgs, and Louis XIV, and Napoleon? That Great Britain would throw her weight against the strongest belligerent in any general European war was a mathematical certainty; she has consistently followed that policy for centuries, and it is a policy dictated neither by covetousness nor jealousy, but by the first law of nature— self preservation.
For Americans all this has a good deal of significance. What is to be the policy of the United States in Europe? The interests of the United States in Europe are nothing like so vital and immediate as those of England; but subject to that consideration, they run on parallel lines. It can never be the interest of the United States to be faced across the Atlantic by an united and amalgamated Europe. For, first, that would mean the conquest of England; and next, the power thus organized would be a menace to the greatness of the United States. Just as the United States desires the open door and the balance of power in the Far East, so and for the same reason, she needs a Europe in which national freedom prevails, rather than a Europe armed under one authority and dicta tress of the world. That consideration is not yet materialized in the American mind. But the day will come when it will be materialized and then it will be seen that the identity of the European policy of England and of the United States constitutes yet another link between the two nations.