ABSTRACT
The individual man's immediate neighborhood, the state, territory, or province, where he lives, the particular needs of the region in which his interests lie, have with him a prominence upon which it is needless to insist, and which is both natural and proper. While the rivalry of Austria and Prussia lasted, Germany by inherited prepossessions divided into two groups; each finding its center of attraction in one or other of the two great monarchies. With the overthrow of Louis XIV the predominance in Europe had passed to Great Britain. Upon the Continent no single state can make head against her in aggregate of power; while coöperation between any two, or all, of them encounters the difficulty of combining their action, and the certainty that from the nature of things, in any grouping of the Powers, Austria-Hungary will stand by the side of Germany.
