Moreover, Britain has re-acted upon the dual Europe with the power due to her posi tion. If the adjoining Continent, with its greater population and greater aggregate wealth, had been united politically, the inde pendence of Britain would have been impos sible. As Mr. Peel has shown in his article (see GREAT BRITAIN - FOREIGN POLICY IN RE LATION TO EUROPE), we have at most times used our power to defeat every bid for general European dominion. Rome conquered a large part of Europe and she also subdued Britain. Napoleon's aim was 'to invade England, and England only defeated him by overthrowing his European empire. The task of holding Europe disunited has been facilitated in every age by the fundamental antagonism of Roman and Teuton. Britain's immediate neighbors across the Channel, to-day, as in the time of Napoleon, of Louis XV, of Louis XIV, and of Charles V, are on the Rhine and also on the Seine. In the same connection let us note that in the year 1066, at Stamford Bridge and at Hastings, England exchanged, as Dr. Hodgkin points out (THE CONQUESTS) in this volume, a period of Teutonic for a period of Romance influence.
5. Climate Determined by Oceanic Winds. — Britain lies further north than any other country of equally old civilization. Great Britain occupies almost precisely the same lati tudes as Labrador. The prevalent westerly wind from the Atlantic, and the set of the At lantic waters from the tropical southwest carry the warmth and moisture of lower •latitudes into a great climatic bay over Britain, in which long frosts and long droughts are equally rare. Unlike either the south or the east of Europe, there is labor in the fields at all seasons, for Britain has neither a Mediterranean summer nor a Russian winter. May not the moral effect of this continuity of effort account for some of the socalled Anglo-Saxon characteristics? Yet the mists of the oceanic air and the long north ern nights are often as unfavorable to repose in the open as the other conditions are favor able to work there. Hence a second Anglo Saxon characteristic, the home round the fireside.
Nor, it must be remembered, is climatic control limited to agriculture and domestic con ditions. There are splendid waterways in the wide plains of eastern Germany and Russia, but navigation is there intermittent owing to the long grip of the winter frosts. The rivers of Spain and Italy have abundant volume after the rains and the thaw in the mountains, but they are reduced in the summer to strips of pebble desert. The smaller waterways of Eng land, closed neither in winter nor summer, were long ago made navigable by means of locks.
6. Internal Natural Dtvisions.—Britain is divided into the two islands of Great Britain and Ireland. The same causes which have sep arated British conditions as a whole from those of continental Europe have of course tended to separate Irish conditions from those of Great Britain, but they have acted with less effect, because Britain by her position has been driven to obtain sea power, and thus for many pur poses to remove her frontiers from her own coast to the coasts across the water. Thus Ire land has been strategically enveloped by Eng land, yet because adequate English manpower was lacking in the time of Henry II, Queen Elizabeth and Cromwell, was never completely assimilated to England. Ireland conquered and necessarily conquered, by England, is in the position that Britain would be in if there were a united Europe across the Channel. Had Ireland been an organized kingdom in the early Middle Ages, instead of a group of rival and hostile tribes, she would have supported Scot land against England, would have retained her independence longer, and when modern con ditions rendered union inevitable, would have come into the sisterhood like Scotland as an organized force capable of holding her own.
What every map does not show, however, is the coherent area of bleak uplands occupying the centre of the length of Great Britain, and dividing the agricultural lowland of England from the smaller lowland of Scotland. This upland area has no single name, but is known in different parts as the Southern Uplands of Scotland, the Cheviot Hills, the Pennine Moors, and the Lake Mountains. Until a century and a half ago it had but a sparse population, and was in fact a broad natural frontier between the England of London and the Scotland of Edinburgh. This utilized by a people of Teutonic tenacity, was the geographical posi tion from which Scotland for six centuries held at bay the superior might of England. Not a little of the effect of modern British action in the world is due to the interaction of the two national characters thus evolved in antagonism.
The central uplands of Great Britain be tween England and Scotland are now the seat of great industries, and for most purposes the two countries form a single economic organism. But in the Highlands of Scotland on the one hand, and in the broad upland of Wales on the other, a remnant of Celtic speech still survives. In all parts of the world there is a marked contrast between the highlander and the low lander, but this contrast is here increased by that between Celt and Teuton. Formerly mar riage was between neighbors, and provincial isms were inbred. But modern facilities for communication lead to distant intermarriages, which are rapidly imparting a national solid arity of blood to states like Britain. This crossing of highlander and lowlander, Celt and Teuton, within Britain must be productive of a change in the race which may prove something far other than the mere striking of an average.
7. Adequacy of Economic Bases.—All the proceeding advantages — insularity, shallow surrounding seas, continental neighborhood, linguistic division among rivals, soft climate and internal stimulative contrasts — would, however, have been of little value unless Britain had had length and breadth enough to supply the economic bases for a people able to count among the powers of Europe. It is therefore important to note on the map of Europe a certain rough equality as between the great natural regions — the Spanish, Italian and Balkan Peninsulas; the plain of the Middle Danube; the French land between the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Bay, and the Channel; the north German plain; and the southern habitable portion of Scandinavia. Even the vast Rus sian plain, after all only partially European, must not deceive by the space which it oc cupies on the map. North and east of the great bend of the Volga at Kazan it contributes little to the strength of the Russian people. Many advantages and disadvantages, moreover. compensate for such differences of mere area in this bundle of natural regions which we call Europe. Thus there is a rough equality of re source among the tenant nations, and this has sufficed for a balance of power during several centuries.
Until within the last few generations agri culture was the chief economic base of these nations. For the reason given just now — the separation of their agricultural plains — Eng land, Scotland and Ireland were separate eco nomic organisms. Relatively to her population, England was until lately so adequately en dowed with land that in the Middle Ages she was the principal exporter of wool, and in the 18th century, of wheat, to the Continent of Europe. The vast improvement of agriculture achieved by the English farmer in the 18th cen tury was one of the chief causes —if not the chief — of the wealth which enabled England to defeat Napoleon. (See GREAT BRITAIN