Moreover, in this talk of the open door in the undeveloped territories, we again seem to lose all our sense of proportion. English trade is in relative importance first with the great nations--the United States, France, Germany, Argentina, South America generally--after that with the white Colonies; after that with the organized East; and last of all, and to a very small extent, with the countries concerned in this squabble for the open door--territories in which the trade really is so small as hardly to pay for the making and upkeep of a dozen battleships. When the man in the street, or, for that matter, the journalistic pundit, talks commercial diplomacy, his arithmetic seems to fall from him. Some years since the question of the relative position of the three Powers in Samoa exercised the minds of these wiseacres, who got fearfully warlike both in England and in the United States. Yet the trade of the whole island is not worth that of an obscure Massachusetts village, and the notion that naval budgets should be increased to "maintain our position," the notion that either of the countries concerned should really think it worth while to build so much as a single battleship the more for such a purpose, is not throwing away a sprat to catch a whale, but throwing away a whale to catch a sprat--and then not catching it. For even when you _have_ the predominant political position, even when you _have_ got your extra _Dreadnought_ or extra dozen _Dreadnoughts_, it is the more efficiently organized nation on the commercial side that will take the trade. And while England is getting excited over the trade of territories that matter very little, rivals, including Germany, will be quietly walking off with the trade that _does_ matter, will be increasing their hold upon such markets as the United States, Argentina, South America, and the lesser Continental States.