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The turning-points of world-history have generally been military discoveries. The unknown genius who found out that copper could be hardened into a serviceweapon by the admixture of a small percentage of tin probably revolutionised Europe in prehistoric times. The Altaic shepherd on his horse shattered civilisation over the greater part of the Old World. The invention of gunpowder curbed his aggression, and for the first time gave civilisation a decisive superiority over barbarism in warfare. But the turn of the tide which has now brought nearly the whole world under the political control of the European races began with two feats of naval enterprise. In 1492 Columbus, while seeking a western route to the East Indies, landed on one of the Bahama Islands; and two years later Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and crossed the Indian Ocean to Calicut. The blockade of Europe by the Moslem was broken, and the Atlantic period of history, which to the future historian will be as distinct an epoch as the Mediterranean period, began. Almost simultaneously with these discoveries, the Moors were finally driven from Spain; the tide of Moslem conquest had begun to ebb from its western high-water mark. In 1519-1521 the most wonderful of all voyages brought the crew of Magelhaës to the Philippines from Patagonia. From that time the white man has been at home on every ocean.

The ascendancy of the white man may be dated from these discoveries; but the full effect of them was not felt till the 19th century. By an amazing piece of good edfortune, which can never be repeated in the history of the world, however many millennia remain during which it will be inhabited by our species, the white man, newly remancipated by the Renaissance and ready for new adventures, found a vast continent across the Atlantic, only sparsely peopled by a feeble race with no effective weapons, waiting for his occupation. He was able to

populate a great part of this enormous area with his own stock; till a second stroke of luck opened to him, in the nick of time, the only other large territories suitable for white colonisation, in Australasia. Thus two new continents, with an area of about 17 million square miles, were added to the domains of the European.

It was not, however, till the industrial revolution in the reign of George III that the overwhelming predominance of the European declared itself. That momentous transformation of the whole economic structure of European society produced an unexampled increase, both in wealth and numbers. The population of Europe, which in 1801, after the rapid growth had begun, was only 150 millions, was about 450 millions in 1914, besides 110 million white men in America and the British colonies. Wealth in England increased about tenfold between the two great wars, a striking comment on Wellington's forecast in 1832: 'Few people will be sanguine enough to imagine that we shall ever again be as prosperous as we have been.' After 1870, the progress of Germany was even more rapid than our own. In North America material expansion was on a yet more portentous scale. The three million colonists who revolted against Great Britain in the reign of George III; are now represented by a nation of 110 millions, of whom a very large majority are of white descent. More recently, Canada and the Argentine Republic have entered on the path of rapid growth.

This expansion of the Western Europeans by no means exhausts the tale of aggression. The Russians brought under their dominion, and began to colonise, the vast expanse of Northern Asia as far as the Pacific; and practically the whole of Africa, which covers 11 million square miles, was staked out by rival white races for present or future exploitation. At the beginning of the Great War, out of the 53 million square miles which (excluding the Polar regions) constitute the land surface of the globe, only six million square miles were not under white government. The exceptions to universal white domination were China, Japan, Tibet, Siam, Turkey, Afghanistan, Persia, Abyssinia, Liberia, and Hayti. As the result of the Great War, Turkey, Persia, and Hayti may almost be

subtracted from the list. No important coloured governments remain, except in China and Japan.

It is no wonder that till a few years ago it was assumed as probable that the remaining Asiatic Empires would follow the same path as India, and fall under one or other of the European powers. Mr Meredith Townsend, writing in 1901, says, 'So grand is the prize [of Asiatic trade] that failures will not daunt the Europeans, still less alter their conviction. If these movements follow historic lines, they will recur for a time upon a constantly ascending scale, each repulse eliciting a greater effort, until at last Asia, like Africa, is partitioned, that is, each section is left at the disposal of some white people. If Europe can avoid internal war, or war with a much aggrandised America, she will by A.D. 2000 be mistress in Asia, and at liberty, as her people think, to enjoy.'

But in 1901 the tide had really begun to turn, and Mr Townsend himself was one of the first to sound the warning. The culmination of white ascendancy may almost be fixed at the date of the second Jubilee of Queen Victoria, when the spectators of that magnificent pageant could observe the contrast between the splendid physique of the coloured troops in the procession and the stunted and unhealthy appearance of the crowds who lined the streets. The shock came in 1904, when Russia, who with the help of France and Germany had robbed Japan of the fruits of her victory over China, extended covetous hands over Manchuria and threatened Korea. The military prestige of Russia at that time stood very high, and Europe was startled when an Asiatic people, poor and relatively small in numbers, threw down the gauntlet to the Colossus of the North. Kuroki's victory on the Yalu, though due to the blunder of a subordinate general, will perhaps rank as one of the turning-points of history. It was followed by a series of successes, both by land and sea, which amazed Europe, and sent waves of excitement and hope through the entire continent of Asia. A Frenchman has described the arrival of the first batch of tall Russian prisoners at a Japanese port. The white men present consisted of French, Germans, English, and Americans; but at the sight of Europeans in the custody of Asiatics they forgot

their rivalries; a feeling of horror went through them all, and they huddled together as if they realised that something uncanny was happening which threatened them all alike. There was in reality nothing mysterious in the Japanese victories. A few European officers had seen their army before the war, and a distinguished Anglo-Indian had reported that they were 'quite as good as Gurkhas.' Russia was honeycombed with disaffection and corruption, and was never able to bring her whole force to bear in the Manchurian battle-fields. But the decisive factor was the German training of the Japanese army, which had learnt all that the best instructors could teach, with wonderful thoroughness and ability. This was the momentous lesson of the war. An Asiatic army, with equally good weapons and training, is a match for the same number of Europeans; and there is no part of European military or naval science which the Asiatic cannot readily master. In these facts an observer might well recognise the fate of white ascendancy in Asia.

Mr Stoddard, in his remarkable book on 'The Rising Tide of Colour,' has collected evidence of the effect of this campaign upon the Japanese themselves. A temper of arrogant and aggressive imperialism has grown up among them. The semi-official Japanese Colonial Journal declared in the autumn of 1914: To protect Chinese territory Japan is ready to fight no matter what nation. Not only will Japan try to erase the ambitions of Russia and Germany; it will also do its best to prevent England and the United States from touching the Chinese cake.' The Great War seems to have raised their ambitions still higher. Count Okuma, in the summer of 1919, recommends an alliance with Russia, as soon Bolsheviks have been suppressed.

'Then, by marching westward to the Balkans, to Germany, to France, to Italy, the greater part of the world may be brought under our sway.'

Another plan is to arm and drill the Chinese.

'We have now China. China is our steed! Far shall we ride upon her! So our 50 millions becomes 500 millions; so our hundreds of millions of gold grow into billions. . . How our strength has grown and still grows! In 1895 we conquered

China; Russia, Germany, and France stole the booty from us. In ten years we punished Russia and took back our own; in twenty we were quits with Germany; with France there is no need for haste. She knows that her Oriental possessions are ours for the taking. As for America, that fatuous booby with much money and sentiment but no cohesion and no brains of government, were she alone we should not need our China steed. America is an immense melon, ripe for the cutting. North America will support a thousand million people; they shall be Japanese with their slaves.'

So wrote a Japanese imperialist in 1916. Such rodomontades have some importance as symptoms of a new spirit, but otherwise need not be taken seriously. More interesting is the growing consciousness of Pan-Asiatic sympathy, which finds vent in the cry, 'Asia for the Asiatics, and in proposals to establish a Monroe doctrine for the East. The revolution in China in 1911 was probably the beginning of a new awakening in that vast empire. In speaking of Chinese stagnation we have often forgotten the paralysing effect of the Tartar domination, which has only lately been thrown off. And the new China, in spite of its hatred of Japan, is dreaming of a Pan-Mongolian alliance. An Indo-Japanese association has existed for some years; its object is certainly not to maintain the British Raj. Let us go to India, where the people are looking for our help!' exclaims Count Okuma in 1907.

Many Anglo-Indian writers, and among them Mr Townsend, have commented on the extreme slenderness of the threads by which we hold India. Above this inconceivable mass of humanity, governing all, protecting all, taxing all, rises what we call the Empire, a corporation of less than 1500 men, who protect themselves by finding pay for a minute white garrison of 65,000 men, one-fifth of the Roman legions. There is nothing else. To support the official world and its garrison there is, except Indian opinion, absolutely nothing. If the brown men struck for a week, the Empire would collapse like a house of cards, and every European would be a starving prisoner in his own house. He could not move or feed himself or get water. The Empire hangs in the air, supported by nothing but the minute white garrison and the unproved assumption that the people of India