'More and more Germany needs the assured importation of raw materials, and, where possible, control of regions productive of such materials. More and more she requires assured markets, and security as to the importation of food, since less and less comparatively is produced within her own borders for her rapidly increasing population. This all means security at sea.... Yet the supremacy of Great Britain in European seas means a perpetually latent control of German commerce.... The world has long been accustomed to the idea of a predominant naval power, coupling it accurately with the name of Great Britain: and it has been noted that such power, when achieved, is commonly found associated with commercial and industrial pre-eminence, the struggle for which is now in progress between Great Britain and Germany. Such pre-eminence forces a nation to seek markets, and, where possible, to control them to its own advantage by preponderant force, the ultimate expression of which is possession.... From this flow two results: the attempt to possess, and the organisation of force by which to maintain possession already achieved.... This statement is simply a specific formulation of the general necessity stated; itself an inevitable link in a chain of logical sequence: industry, markets, control, navy, bases....[104] Mr Spenser Wilkinson, of a corresponding English school, is just as definite:-- 'The effect of growth is an expansion and an increase of power. It necessarily affects the environment of the growing organisms; it interferes with the _status quo_. Existing rights and interests are disturbed by the fact of growth, which is itself a change. The growing community finds itself hedged in by previously existing and surviving conditions, and fettered by prescriptive rights. There is, therefore, an exertion of force to overcome resistance. No process of law or of arbitration can deal with this phenomenon, because any tribunal administering a system of right or law must base its decision upon the tradition of the past which has become unsuited to the new conditions that have arisen. The growing State is necessarily expansive or aggressive.'[105] Even more decisive as a definite philosophy are the propositions of Mr Petre, who, writing on 'The Mandate of Humanity,' says:-- 'The conscience of a State cannot, therefore, be as delicate, as disinterested, as altruistic, as that of the noblest individuals. The State exists primarily for its own people and only secondarily for the rest of the world. Hence, given a dispute in which it feels its rights and welfare to be at stake, it may, however erroneously, set aside its moral obligations to international society in favour of its obligations to the people for whom it exists.