Page:Democratic Ideals and Reality (1919).djvu/101

Rh the War on the Manchurian front—may be regarded as advanced guards of British, American, and Japanese sea-power. Dutch Java is the only island of large population which is not in the Western Alliance, and even Java is not on the side of the Continentals. There can be no mistaking the significance of this unanimity of the Islanders. The collapse of Russia has cleared our view of the realities, as the Russian revolution purified the ideals for which we have been fighting.

The facts appear in the same perspective if we consider the population of the Globe. More than fourteen-sixteenths of all humanity live on the Great Continent, and nearly one-sixteenth more on the closely off-set Islands of Britain and Japan. Even to-day, after four centuries of emigration, only about one-sixteenth live in the lesser continents. Nor is time likely to change these proportions materially. If the middle-west of North America comes presently to support, let us say, another hundred million people, it is probable that the interior of Asia will at the same time carry two hundred millions more than now, and if the Tropical part of South America should feed a hundred millions more, then the Tropical parts of Africa and the Indies may not improbably support two