How would Germany impose upon a vanquished Eng-
land commercial arrangements which would impoverish
the vanquished and enrich the victor? By enforcing
another Frankfurt treaty, by which English ports should
be kept open to German goods? But that is precisely
what English ports have been for sixty years, and Ger-
many has not been obliged to wage a costly war to effect
it. Would Germany close her own markets to our goods ?
But, again, that is precisely what she has done — ^again
without war, and by a right which we never dream of
challenging. How is war going to affect the question
one way or another? I have been asking for a detailed
answer to that question from European publicists and
statesmen for the last ten years, and I have never yet
been answered, save by much vagueness, much fine
phrasing concerning commercial supremacy, a spirited
foreign policy, national prestige, and much else, which
no one seems able to define, but a real policy, a modus
operandi, a balance-sheet which one can analyze, never.
And imtil such is forthcoming I shall continue to believe
that the whole thing is based upon an illusion.
The true test of fallacies of this kind is progression.
Imagine Germany (as our Jingoes seem to dream of her)
absolute master of Europe, and able to dictate any policy
that she pleased. How would she treat such a European
empire? By impoverishing its component parts? But
that would be suicidal. Where would her big industrial
population find their markets?* If she set out to develop
and enrich the component parts, these would become

* See note oonoeming French colonial policy, pp. 122*124.
