ambition, of Germany to play a part proportional to her real strength in
the determination of policy beyond the seas. These reasons, according to
the ideas that govern European statesmanship, are valid and sufficient.
They are the same that have influenced all great Powers; and if Germany
was influenced by them we need not infer any specially sinister intentions
on her part. The fact that during the present war German trade has been
swept from the seas, and that she is in the position of a blockaded Power,
will certainly convince any German patriot, not that she did not need a
navy, but that she needed a much stronger one; and the retort that there
need have been no war if Germany had not provoked it by building a fleet
is not one that can be expected to appeal to any nation so long as the
European anarchy endures. For, of course, every nation regards itself
as menaced perpetually by aggression from some other Power. Defence was
certainly a legitimate motive for the building of the fleet, even if
there had been no other. There was, however, in fact, another reason
avowed. Germany, as we have said, desired to have a voice in policy
beyond the seas. Here, too, the reason is good, as reasons go in a
world of competing States. A great manufacturing and trading Power
cannot be indifferent to the parcelling out of the world among its
rivals. Wherever, in countries economically undeveloped, there were
projects of protectorates or annexations, or of any kind of monopoly
to be established in the interest of any Power, there German interests
were directly affected. She had to speak, and to speak with a loud voice,
if she was to be attended to. And a loud voice meant a navy. So, at least,
the matter naturally presented itself to German imperialists, as, indeed,
it would to imperialists of any other country.

The reasons given by German statesmen for building their fleet were in
this sense valid. But were they the only reasons? In the beginning most
probably they were. But the formation and strengthening of the Entente,