very great degree. In the unification of Germany and Italy the national principle obtained its most signal and dramatic triumphs. Much remains for it, no doubt, to do, but nothing that in interest or importance can rival those achievements; and from the moment that Germany and Italy attained to unity, nationality gradually ceased to be the real dynamic force of European politics. The great European wars of 1859, 1866, and 1870 turned exclusively upon it. The next in order, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, was ambiguous, being partly an affair of the Balkan nationalities, partly an assault by a European Power on an Asiatic Empire. But since then there has been no ambiguity at all. The three great conflicts of the last seven years—the American War with Spain, our own war in South Africa, and the war just concluded between Russia and Japan—have none of them been fought in Europe, and have been wholly concerned with questions of dominion far beyond the bounds of Europe.
It is not, perhaps, an accident that one of the new Powers which owe their existence to the national enthusiasm of the last century should have been a main instrument of the change. No sooner had Germany achieved internal unity than she began to look about in the outside world for fresh fields of activity. The movement of European expansion had by no means been arrested, but it had passed for the time being out of notice; but when Germany threw herself into it, the competition for territory and dominion in the outside world soon became the dominant motive of international politics. The action of Germany led to the scramble for Africa. Asia has succeeded to Africa as the chief field of ambition; all the greater nation States of Europe have joined in the race, and even the United States, the greatest nation of European origin outside the bounds of Europe, has abandoned her traditional policy of isolation, gone outside her natural limits of expansion, and eagerly seized a share of the 'white mans burden.' During the last quarter of a
