There is one point in the tremendous acceleration of Germany's
building programme which deservei notice, though, as far as we have seen, it has yet received none. We talk as if the sudden and tremendous advancement of the German programme only concerned us, and as if it were not a matter of prime interest to any other Power. We forget the United States. It is an open secret that the great Navy which the United, States has built up is in no way aimed at this country Its object, to put . the matter in the shortest compass, is, in the first place, to enforce the Monroe doctrine, as dear new as ever it was to the American people, and secondly, to secure American interests in the Pacific, interests which now extend as fax South and West as the .Philippines. The able and far-seeing men who control naval policy at Washington know perfectly well that if the American Fleet is not as strong As, or stronger than, that of Germany, there is very little doubt but that some day or other, whether in Brazil or Venezuela or in the West India Islands, the Monroe doctrine
will be challenged by the Power whose commercial interests are dominant in many parts of Spanish America. For example, Brazil, one of the provinces of the South, is, as far as the white population is concerned, almost a German country. It was in view of this fact, and in all probability at a hint from the United States, that Brazil ordered her three ' D re adnoughts.'
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