In 1900 the British navy controlled the seas--all seas. From 1910 to 1914 the British navy has controlled the North Sea only.[vii-1] Some doubt whether this control can long be maintained. If it is lost, the British Empire is finished.[vii-2] The adhesion of the dependencies to their various governments and also the voluntary cohesion of the self-governing units would be at an end. "The disorders which followed the fall of Rome would be insignificant compared with those which would {viii} ensue were the British Empire to break in pieces."[viii-1] Such a splitting up would place each English-speaking nation in an exposed position, and would strengthen its rivals, Germany, Japan, Russia, and China. It would compel America to protect with arms, or to abandon to its enemies, not only the countries to which the Monroe Doctrine has been considered as applicable, but those lands still more important to the future of our race, New Zealand and Australia. If this catastrophe is to be averted, the English-speaking peoples must regain control of the seas. These pages are concerned with the English-speaking people of 1914. Here will be found no jingoism, if this be defined as a desire to flaunt power for its own sake; no altruism, if this means placing the welfare of others before one's own; and no sentiment except that which leads to self-preservation. No technical discussion of military or naval power is here attempted. The purpose of these pages is to indicate some of the common heritages of these English-speaking peoples, their need of land and their desire for the sole privilege of taxing themselves for their own purposes and in their own way. Federation is here recognized as the method by which English-speaking people ensure the freedom of the individual. It utilizes ideals and methods common to them all. Where it has been applied, it fulfils its dual purpose of protecting the group and leaving the individual unhampered. This consideration may appear to the political {ix} economist to be merely a few comments on one instance of the relationship of the food supply to the excess of births over deaths; to the international politician, as notes on the struggles of the English-speaking race; and to the business man, as hints on present and future markets and the maintenance of routes thereto. Books could be written on each of these and kindred topics. This is not any one of such treatises, but a statement of only a few aspects of a huge question.