perceived that it was no longer the liberties of Europe, but the liberties of the world that were at stake. For, if the existence of England depended upon freedom in Europe, freedom in Europe in its turn now hinged upon the freedom of the world.
Therefore, behind her practical and business-like motive, already mentioned, of organising an empire in order to protect the commerce essential to her life, the profounder thought has increasingly possessed her that she must expend her last penny and her last drop of blood in maintaining not merely the balance of Europe, but the balance of the globe.
Thus the ultimate destiny of England, in this sphere of politics, begins to stand revealed. By mere action in Europe, by the sole agency of all that fivefold list of excellent expedients, she will evidently not settle the European question. But she will come, and is coming, to realise that at her own instigation, and by her own contrivance, the New World, in the sense of the world outside Europe, must, in default of all other plans, be trained to be the policeman and warden of the Old.
Let us gather precisely how this bids fair to be.
If we could put ourselves into the position of the statesmen, say, of the central powers in Europe, we should find that England's action and influence in the outer world increasingly hampers their warlike proclivities in a specific way. To her, incomparably above all other nations, is due the continuous rise of a number of communities
