The policy of domination—for that policy, though concealed, has had
great influence over the French Government—has been as great a failure as the rest ; though it sounded so logical and so thorough: Had France been wise, cool, moderate, and careful not to offend or to raise suspicions and anxieties in the minds of her late Allies, the Continent would have acquiesced in the peaceful penetration of her hegemony as something natural, inevitable, and not unbeneficent. The Little Entente would have waxed strong under The shadow of her wing, and the expansion of her North African Empire and her Syrian Mandate would have made it impossible for anyone to challenge her supremaey in the Mediterranean. As it is, the reckless way in which the policy of domination has been pursued and advertised has awakened a sense of uneasiness, if not of fear, in every Chancellery on the Continent. Italy has been alarmed and has begun "to get cover." The same thing, though low be it spoken, has happened even at Brussels. Switzerland has been wondering what is to come. Even the Little Entente has been finding the grapes sour and is having its teeth set on edge. Turkey is suspicious. The Northern Powers are wondering what is their best line of safety. Even Poland, though she has been receiving money from France which ought in equity and good faith to have gone to France's creditors, has begun to wonder how it will help her to see Germany reduced to chaos and, perhaps, to have an aggressive, restless, and implacable Soviet Government on either flank. That the great majority of Frenchmen do not desire to make a wild clutch, which is sure to be unsuccessful, at the empire of the world we fully realize. But, alas, the people of France are not very vigilant politicians and have too often waked from dreams of peace, plenty, and the cultivation of the arts to find themselves committed to wild adventures.
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