Tacitus tells us of a Teuton tribe, "just and upright." "Unmolested by their neighbors, they enjoyed the sweets of peace, forgetting that amidst powerful and ambitious neighbors the repose, which you enjoy, serves only to lull you into a calm, always pleasing, but deceitful in the end. When the sword is drawn, and the power of the strongest is to decide, you talk in vain of equity and moderation: those virtues always belong to the conqueror. Thus it happened to the Cheruscans: they were formerly just and upright; at present they are called fools and cowards." [137-1] We, unmolested by our neighbours, are now enjoying "the sweets of peace." Is there anything we are forgetting? Are we backing the Pax Britannica and the Pax Americana with sufficient power to ensure their maintenance? Shall we continue to be called "just and upright"? We still have land to which to extend our population. Our prosperity is still undimmed. No one is our proved superior in civilization. Recent wars have not contributed to our military reputation, but our faith in our naval superiority has not been shaken and our pride of race intensifies. {138} Yet slowly a consciousness is creeping over us by way now of London, now of Brisbane, now of Durban, or again of Vancouver or San Francisco, that all is not as safe for us as it once was. Once we could afford to squabble a bit in the family; now we feel we must stop such silly behaviour. To all of us has come this feeling. It is not merely the appearance of Germany in the North Sea or the South Pacific, nor the desire of Asiatic Indian coolies for entrance to the Transvaal, nor the willingness of these and other Asiatics to share with us the wealth of North America. These are but signs. They forebode coming dangers whose extent we cannot foresee. Out of the future loom menacing forms, hardly more tangible and comprehensible to us than were the Teutonic hordes to the Romans. What latent energies lie hidden in the north and east we can only fearfully surmise. There, perhaps, are peoples multitudinous in numbers and unmeasured in resources. Their faiths and ideals are not ours. To be subject to them would be no illusion.