Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/100

88 that of Lincoln in America. The wars of Alfred the Great and William the Conqueror were in no small degree between contending parts of England, with the Norsemen intervening, and England was not effectively insular until the time of Elizabeth, because not until then was she free from the hostility of Scotland, and herself united, and therefore a unit, in her relations with the neighbouring continent. America is to-day a unit, for the American people have fought out their internal differences, and it is insular, because events are compelling Americans to realise that their so-called continent lies on the same globe as the Continent.

Picture upon the map of the world this War as it has been fought in the year 1918. It has been a war between Islanders and Continentals, there can be no doubt of that. It has been fought on the Continent, chiefly across the landward front of peninsular France; and ranged on the one side have been Britain, Canada, the United States, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan—all insular. France and Italy are peninsular, but even with that advantage they would not have been in the War to the end had it not been for the support of the Islanders. India and China—so far as China has been in