I N the affairs of nations as of men, there are rights so inalienable that merely to question them is to violate every inherent, elementary feeling of justice and commonsense. As such a right the German People have regarded their claim to the recovery of their colonies. This profound and passionate conviction has persisted steadfastly through every hour of the long World War. It may even be said that in assuming that their colonies would naturally be returned to them after the war, the German People have done signal honour to their enemies in crediting them with the just recognition of this clear and incontrovertible claim.
It is a claim based upon three deeply-rooted factors which determine the entire attitude of the German People towards their colonies. First, the bitter knowledge that, owing to their former unfortunate national disunity, their colonization began long after the choice lands of the world had been parcelled out, whence their opportunity for sharing in the great civilizing mission of the Aryan race was confined to toiling in the fields of others; second, that owing to their relatively small European territory and their relatively large increase