Warm friendship promotes trade far more than political domi nation, as we have found through our treatment of Cuba. Yet the greatest of all incentives to trade is geographical location. Countries that are near together are sure to carry on a lively trade, especially if one supplies food and raw materials and the other supplies manufac tured goods. France and Germany prove the power of geographical position, for even though they are mutually hostile and differ only a little in their products, French trade with Germany before the war amounted to as much as the trade of France with all her colonies. In the same way, in proportion to the population Canada does sev eral times as much business with the United States as with Great Britain. Thus it appears that if Japan remains on friendly terms with China without political control she can some day be the chief factor in the trade of that country, and at the same time maintain the world's respect. In some ways the relations of those two coun tries are similar to our relations with Mexico, although China is better governed and more advanced than Mexico.
(6) The Expansion of Germany.—The relation of Germany to its weaker neighbors is different from that of any other country. She was so busy with attempts at unifying her own states that she was not ready to look abroad until after the formation of the German Empire in 1871. After that she gradually formed the purpose of building up an empire outside Germany. Just as England's purpose was the formation of a great empire of self-governing dominions, and as that of the United States was the spread of self-government and liberty to people who were oppressed, so Germany's great idea was that she should rule the world by land and by sea.
Among all the Great Powers Germany is the only one that has had no real opportunity to expand either to adjacent territory or to terri tory lying just across neighboring seas. Landward she was hemmed in by France, Austria, and Russia, all of which were then strong and were in the process of expansion. In part she was also hemmed in by the little nations of Denmark, Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland which, though small, are too energetic to be fields for expansion, as Germany found to her cost in Belgium. She did, to be sure, expand a little, absorbing part of Poland, taking Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, and Alsace-Lorraine from France. This gained her only a small area, however, and increased the difficulty of farther expansion by arousing antagonism among her strong, energetic neighbors. Expansion by water to the north has been impossible, for Norway and Sweden are as energetic and highly civilized as France and Denmark, and their boundaries are so sharply defined that there can be no possible dispute as to where they lie. Seaward her expansion
was blocked by British sea power and by the fact that Britain had already acquired a vast colonial empire before the Germans awoke to the value of colonies.
In distant and backward parts of the world Germany also found it difficult to acquire colonies. In the early days of the modern colonial movement her continental position did not encourage her people to be world-wide traders like the British. Moreover, the many German states were so late in uniting into a strong empire that when at last Germany was able to seek colonies, most of the available territory had already been claimed by other powers. Yet her population was increasing greatly. German manufactured goods were flooding the world, and the country was eager to expand like the other nations of cyclonic regions. Germany, to be sure, obtained a few colonies, such as German East Africa, German West Africa, Kamerun, and part of New Guinea, but they were the scraps left over after the best parts had been taken, and they did not supply the raw materials which Germany so much desired. Nevertheless German expansion was bound to come in one form or another.
(1) It might have come by taking possession of South American regions such as Brazil and Argentina, but there the United States with its Monroe Doctrine blocked the way. Germany knew that if she encroached in America, Britain was ready to use her fleet to help the United States, and German prospects would have been blasted at once. .
(2) Germany's expansion might have come by crushing one of her neighbors, but that was difficult because all her neighbors are ener getic nations living in the cyclonic region of great energy. Moreover, they were largely allied with one another, and the larger nations had agreed to protect the small ones.
(3) Next after South America the region that the Germans most desired as a field for expansion was China. Hence they took Tsing tau on Kiau-Chau Bay, and began to exploit, the province of Shan tung. They dared not go farther, however, for England, France, Japan and Russia all were looking for new territory in China, while the United States was trying to preserve China intact.
(4) Still another possible field of expansion was Turkey, the only remaining large and backward part of the world which no strong nation had yet converted into a colony or at least protected against the aggression of other nations.