policy. The essential point is for a country to have colonies or its own
and a predominant political influence in the spheres where its markets
lie. Our German world policy must be guided by these considerations.

The execution of such political schemes would certainly clash with many
old-fashioned notions and vested rights of the traditional European
policy. In the first place, the principle of the balance of power in
Europe, which has, since the Congress of Vienna, led an almost
sacrosanct but entirely unjustifiable existence, must be entirely
disregarded.

The idea of a balance of power was gradually developed from the feeling
that States do not exist to thwart each other, but to work together for
the advancement of culture. Christianity, which leads man beyond the
limits of the State to a world citizenship of the noblest kind, and lays
the foundation of all international law, has exercised a wide influence
in this respect. Practical interests, too, have strengthened the theory
of balance of power. When it was understood that the State was a power,
and that, by its nature, it must strive to extend that power, a certain
guarantee of peace was supposed to exist in the balance of forces. The
conviction was thus gradually established that every State had a close
community of interests with the other States, with which it entered into
political and economic relations, and was bound to establish some sort
of understanding with them. Thus the idea grew up in Europe of a
State-system, which was formed after the fall of Napoleon by the five
Great Powers--England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, which
latter had gained a place in the first rank by force of arms; in 1866
Italy joined it as the sixth Great Power.

"Such a system cannot be supported with an approximate equilibrium among