drawn us into the proceedings there, and which promise to involve us still further. We accepted a rôle in the war between China and Japan which was by no means that of an uninterested stranger. Will anyone maintain that we could carry out the policy of abstention in respect to that part of the world?
On the other hand, so long as European nations own colonies in America, how can we rule the Western continent without coming in collision with them? Even if we should dispossess them of those colonies, how would it be possible to rule the Western continent and to deny them any right to meddle in its affairs, so long as their citizens may visit the same for business or pleasure? The notion that the world can be so divided that we can rule one part and Europe the other, and thus never be brought in collision with each other, is evidently a silly whim. We may talk about "Western civilization" or "American ideas," but these are only grandiloquent phrases. Everybody knows that there is no civilization common to all America and different from that of Europe; there are no ideas common to all America and different from European ideas. There has never been any sympathy between North and South America, and there are only few and comparatively feeble bonds of interest based on commerce or investments. Either North or South America has far stronger bonds to Europe than they both have to each other. As far as the external resemblance of "republics" is concerned, the South American states have hitherto only made republican government ridiculous. The geographical neighborhood, on which stress is often laid, can be seen by a glance at the map to be non-existent. If it existed it would be of little importance compared with economic distance, which is reckoned by cost, time, and facility of transportation.
