universal culture.

Even if we succeed in guarding our possessions in the East and West, and
in preserving the German nationality in its present form throughout the
world, we shall not be able to maintain our present position, powerful
as it is, in the great competition with the other Powers, if we are
contented to restrict ourselves to our present sphere of power, while
the surrounding countries are busily extending their dominions. If we
wish to compete further with them, a policy which our population and our
civilization both entitle and compel us to adopt, we must not hold back
in the hard struggle for the sovereignty of the world.

Lord Rosebery, speaking at the Royal Colonial Institute on March 1,
1893, expressed himself as follows: "It is said that our Empire is
already large enough and does not need expansion.... We shall have to
consider not what we want now, but what we want in the future.... We
have to remember that it is part of our responsibility and heritage to
take care that the world, so far as it can be moulded by us, should
receive the Anglo-Saxon and not another character." [D]

[Footnote D: This passage is quoted in the book of the French ex-Minister
Hanotaux, "Fashoda et le partage de l'Afrique."]

That is a great and proud thought which the Englishman then expressed.

If we count the nations who speak English at the present day, and if we
survey the countries which acknowledge the rule of England, we must
admit that he is justified from the English point of view. He does not
here contemplate an actual world-sovereignty, but the predominance of
the English spirit is proclaimed in plain language.