Earlier in the book reference was made to the possibility of a war between Japan and either America or ourselves. Though this contingency is being thought out in detail by the naval authorities of all three countries, care is taken in diplomatic circles to assert that such practical measures as the equipment of Singapore imply no unfriendly or suspicious attitude toward Japan. Few people, however, are deceived by these utterances. The mutual fear and distrust is growing and will probably continue to grow. There is little doubt, that, if this war comes about, its essential cause, the increase of Japanese in excess of the power of maintenance of their country, will be obscured by that outburst of vilification of the enemy and glorification of self which is now demanded by popular sentiment in the conduct of wars. Yet this cause will remain here incomparably the most important of the predisposing causes. After such a war will there remain any vestige of civilization to profit from the hard-won lesson? The principal aim of Soviet Russia to-day is the spread of her communistic principles throughout the world. The chief obstacles to this are the firmly entrenched and powerful capitalism of the United States, and the more diffused and essentially more vulnerable capitalistic organisations of the British Empire. These last the Russians are doing their best to undermine now. A second world war would give them a long-coveted opportunity. Realizing that prolonged wars and the social unrest that follows them are the soil from which revolutions most readily spring, Russia would probably associate herself with Japan. The secret treaty between the two countries whose aspirations and political ideals have otherwise little in common, gives a premonition of this. By the time a war comes it is possible that the exploitation of China by Japan will be more complete, and the effects of anti-foreign propaganda, carried on by Russia, more far-reaching. The increase of anti-British feeling in India, also stimulated by Russia, will co-operate to unify Asia and European Russia in a solid block, determined to shake off the yoke of the Western Powers and of America. Such a war could never be conclusive, however prolonged. The vast length of the fighting front, the colossal numbers of active belligerents, and the enhanced destructiveness of war would probably lead, after initial successes, to a collapse of the organized fighting forces of the West. The seeds of revolution in Europe, by then more deeply sown, would germinate, and the present social order would come to an end. The continent would then embark upon a new phase of its history, with the first chapter steeped in the bloodshed of revolution, and founded upon the ruins of our industrial civilization. The centre of civilization might then shift to the southern hemisphere where to-day there is less to destroy.