308 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
tinents with these into a political system. When Cardinal Albe- roni, in the third decade of the eighteenth century, proposed a United States of Europe with an European parliament, how vis- ionary the plan appeared then, and how unexpectedly has com- merce and civilization in general set the example for it today ! For the North American statesman, the American system reaches from Greenland to Cape Horn, includes Cuba, Hawaii, and Samoa, where it comes into conflict with the Australian ideal of the union of all the Pacific islands with Australia. 1 Although in Europe the formation of united empires of Asiatic or American proportions must be recognized as impossible, still a tendency is making itself felt in a milder form towards extensive territorial schemes of a political character, which have evidently been sug- gested by non-European conditions. The similarity of the eco- nomic situation in the two great countries, Russia and the United States, between which the states of western and central Europe seem to be wedged in, has emphasized the admonition to com- bine.
At the discussion of the new commercial treaties in the Reichstag on the loth of December, 1891, Caprivi mentioned as a phenomenon of universal history which he considered very significant, the fact of the formation of great empires, their awakened national self-consciousness, and their effort to shut themselves off from others. He said that the stage of history has expanded, that political proportions have grown larger, "and a state that has played the role of a great European power can r in a conceivable time, sink to the rank of a small power, as far as its material strength is concerned. If European states wish to maintain their permanent position in the world, they will be compelled to make a close union with one another, so far, at least, as they are adapted to it in other respects." In other
'This is particularly advocated by the statesmen of New Zealand. See Sir Julius Vogel's New Zealand and the South Sea Islands and their relation to the Empire (London: 1878), and the speech of Seddon, the prime minister of New Zealand, in Hokidada on the iith of January, 1895 (The Times, January 15), in which he enunci- ates the necessity that the islands of the Pacific Ocean be "peopled by the British
