July 16.
A FRESH attempt to explain the fundamental causes of the world war has been made by no less a personage than our Ambassador to Washington. A few weeks ago Princeton University conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws, and it was on that occasion that he endeavoured to set forth the real causes for. the struggle, to point out the dangers now before the world, and to insist on the need for universal Anglo-Saxon cooperation if these perils are to be successfully overcome. Sir Auckland Geddes, it happens, has been much criticize ed by his countrymen since his appointment to Washington for the number of speeches he has made upon questions of world polities, the feeling being that he is overstepping his duties as Ambassador in even suggesting those world perils to the American people and in asking for their sympathy and help in meeting them. So far as can be seen his utterances have been tactful in the extreme, have been singularly well received so far, and are entirely in line with what the big American financiers and business men are themselves preaching.
It has generally been accepted that Germany brought the war about by her demand for expansion and her not too scrupulous methods of achieving it. She went out to seek colonies in the far places of the earth, but her real dream of expansion was close at hand. Belgium she coveted, but her main scheme was covered ip the Drang nach Osten, which would have opened to her the Near East, although to gain it she would have to trample upon all the smaller nations standing in the way. But Sir Auckland Geddes now comes forward with economic considerations. He points out that during the nineteenth century the Continent of America bad large areas available for the production of food, either in the form of grain or meat, and a large surplus was exported to Europe. But with the opening of the present century the industrial §development of America had brought about such an increase of population that a large proportion of this surplus was required for home consumption. At the same time Germany had changed from an agricultural into a manufactur-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.