Page 247 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

228 A Twentieth-Century Outlook.

the world is in its present stage of develop-
ment equity which cannot be had by law must
be had by force, upon which ultimately law
rests, not for its sanction, but for its efficacy.
We have been familiar latterly with the term
" buffer states ; " the pleasant function dis-
charged by Siam between Great Britain and
France. Though not strictly analogous, the
term conveys an idea of the relations that
have hitherto obtained between Eastern and
Western civilizations. They have existed
apart, each a world of itself; but they are
approaching not only in geographical propin-
quity, a recognized source of danger, but, what
is more important, in common ideas of material
advantage, without a corresponding sympathy
in spiritual ideas. It is not merely that the
two are in different stages of development
from a common source, as are Russia and
Great Britain. They are running as yet on
wholly different lines, springing from concep-
tions radically different. To bring them into
correspondence in that, the most important
realm of ideas, there is needed on the one side
— or on the other — not growth, but conver-
sion. However far it has wandered, and how-