Note 138 — Chapter IX

[Footnote 138: Hermann Oncken (Heidelberg), in the Quarterly Review, October, 1913. The author of the article charges Great Britain with screwing down the valves, which is a deliberate distortion of the truth. Britain has always opened her markets free to German goods and admitted the same privileges to her rival—so far as these did not run contrary to established rights—in all parts of the world. With regard to territorial expansion a treaty had been drawn up between the two Powers and was ready to be signed just when war broke out. That treaty would have afforded Germany immense opportunities for expansion, but not at the expense of Europe. Germany, however, desired European expansion, and according to her accepted teaching, the fate of extra-European territories will be decided on the battlefields of Europe.]