IO

The Fiction of “World Supremacy.”

This inevitable development brought about the fiction that Germany was seeking the commercial supremacy of the world, from which arose another fiction, namely that this was to be the forerunner of a political and military supremacy—thus generating envy, suspicion and distrust. The commercial expansion of Germany was however, almost entirely due to Germany’s want of colonial expansion. This great land was like a congested workshop, whose denizens must buy from their neighbours what they should have been able to grow in their own garden and who were then forced to energetic competition in order to pay for the materials which these had sold them. Here again we observe the vicious circle, the friction, the irritation in international rela­tionships, due to an evil system, a faulty organization and lack of adjustment—sand, as it were, in the wheels of world economics.

Overcrowded Germany.

Clear-sighted statesmen of all countries had recog­nized the urgent necessity of granting such a highly- organized and steadily developing land as Germany ade­quate colonies for its constantly-growing surplus popu­lation and for the cultivation of raw materials. SEVENTY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE LIVED AND WORKED ON