There are only three answers, two that the Germans understand as well as we do, and one that, being what they are, they could hardly be expected to admit, though it is the only one that justifies our case. The two answers which the Germans understand are of course these: that we had the sea-power while they had not; and that, because we had it, we had reaped the full benefit of "first come, first served." But the third answer, which is much the most important, because it turns upon the question of right and wrong, is that while the Germans, like the Spaniards, have grossly abused their imperial powers, we, on the whole, with all our faults, have not. There are so many crimes for which the Germans have to answer that this whole book could not contain the hundredth part of them. But one crime in one of their oversea possessions will be enough to mention here, because it was all of a piece with the rest. In German South-West Africa the Herreros, a brave native people, were robbed if they worked hard for the German slave-drivers, flogged till their backs were flayed if they did not, and killed if they stood up for their rights. There are plenty of German photographs to prove that the modern Germans are very like the Spaniards of Philip II and utterly unlike the kindly modern French, Italians, Americans, and British. The world itself is witness now, and its conscience is the judge. So there we shall leave our case and turn to follow the ever thickening plot of coming war. In 1889 Britain spent an extra hundred million dollars on building new men-of-war. Next year Germany got Heligoland from Britain in exchange for Zanzibar. Heligoland is only a tiny inland off the North Sea coast of Germany. But it was very useful to the Germans as one of the main defences of the great naval base there.