beyond the Oxus?  Mind you, we are not making the mistake Napoleon made, when he forced all Europe to be for him or against him.  We threaten no world aggressions, we are satiated where he was insatiable.  We have cast down one overshadowing Power from the face of the world, because it stood in our way, but we have made no attempt to spread our branches over all the space that it covered.  We have not tried to set up a tributary Canadian republic or to partition South Africa; we have dreamed no dream of making ourselves Lords of Hindostan.  On the contrary, we have given proof of our friendly intentions towards our neighbours.  We backed France up the other day in her squabble with Spain over the Moroccan boundaries, and proclaimed our opinion that the Republic had as indisputable a mission on the North Africa coast as we have in the North Sea.  That is not the action or the language of aggression.  No,” continued von Kwarl, after a moment’s silence, “the world may fear us and dislike us, but, for the present at any rate, there will be no leagues against us.  No, there is one rock on which our attempt at assimilation will founder or find firm anchorage.”

“And that is—?”

“The youth of the country, the generation that is at the threshold now.  It is them that we must capture.  We must teach them to learn, and coax them to forget.  In course of time Anglo-Saxon may blend with German, as the Elbe Saxons and the Bavarians and Swabians have blended with the Prussians into a loyal united people under the sceptre of the Hohenzollerns.  Then we should be doubly strong, Rome and Carthage rolled into one, an Empire of the West greater than Charlemagne ever knew.  Then we could look Slav and Latin and Asiatic in the face and keep our place as the central dominant force of the civilised world.”

The speaker paused for a moment and drank a deep draught of wine, as though he were invoking the prosperity of that future world-power.  Then he resumed in a more level tone: 

“On the other hand, the younger generation of Britons may grow up in hereditary hatred, repulsing all our overtures, forgetting nothing and forgiving nothing, waiting and watching for the time when some weakness assails us, when some crisis entangles us, when we cannot be everywhere at once.  Then our work will be imperilled, perhaps undone.  There lies the danger, there lies the hope, the younger generation.”

“There is another danger,” said the banker, after he had pondered over von Kwarl’s remarks for a moment or two amid the incense-clouds of a fat cigar; “a danger that I foresee in the immediate future; perhaps not so much a danger as an element of exasperation which may ultimately defeat your plans.  The law as to military service will have to be promulgated shortly, and that cannot fail to be bitterly unpopular.  The people of these islands will have to be brought into line with the rest of the Empire in the matter of military training and military service, and how will they like that?  Will not the enforcing of such a measure enfuriate them against us?  Remember, they have made great sacrifices to avoid the burden of military service.”