Turning to the subject with which we are here chiefly concerned, it is interesting to note that Germany has undertaken in the last years to carry forward her world expansion by methods that are entirely different. While she has federated in industrial life she appears in her foreign relations as a true representative of the spirit that built up the trusts. She means to unify her competitor states, not as she has united her industries, but as the American trusts secured the whole field of operations. First she forms a small group with herself at the head. In the group are Germany, Austria, Turkey, and, later on, Bulgaria. At this stage of her progress she has gone as far as the Standard Oil Company had gone when Mr. Rockefeller had perfected the idea of the “trust” in 1882. Her next step was to attack her rivals. France she would crush at a blow, first lulling Great Britain to inactivity by feigned friendship and the promise of gains in the Near East. Then she would do what she would with Russia. With these two nations disposed of, Britain, the unready, could be easily brought to terms, and the United States would then be at her mercy. The mass of German people had not, perhaps, reasoned the process out in this way; but it was so easily seen that it could not have escaped the minds of the leaders of the German military party. No trust builder ever made fairer plans for the upbuilding of his enterprise than these gentlemen made for putting through their combination, before which they saw in their minds the states of the world toppling. So well were the plans made and so efficient were the strokes that the utmost efforts of the rest of the world have become necessary to defeat the German hopes. The United States have approached the problem of world relations in another spirit. Rejecting the spirit of the trust magnate, which Germany accepted, we have turned to coöperation as the means of avoiding international competition and distrust. President Wilson’s repeated suggestions of a federated peace are couched in the exact spirit of the cartel. He asks that war may be replaced by coöperation, pointing out the tremendous advantage to all if the machinery of competition can be discarded. Viewed in its largest aspects, therefore, the present struggle has resolved itself into a debate over the amount of unity that shall in the future exist between states. It does not seem possible that Austria will ever be a thoroughly sovereign state again, nor that Turkey will escape from the snare in which her feet are caught. What degree of unity this will engender between France and Great Britain, if the old system of international relations continues, it is not hard to guess. And as for the small states of Europe, their future is very perplexing.