tion. Both wants and production mean increased transportation.

THE TIE BETWEEN CANADA

AND BRITAIN

THIS effect upon Sea Power of the Panama Canal will have two principal aspects; one civil, one military. The civil effect will be the more rapid peopling of the Pacific coasts of North and South America, with consequent necessary increase of commerce. The military effect will be the facility with which the navy of the United States, and that of the government controlling Canada, can pass from one side to the other, in support of either coast as needed. I say somewhat generally, but advisedly, the government controlling Canada; for while Canada is a part of the British Empire, and therefore will receive the support of the British navy where its interests are concerned, and while Canada also, taken as a whole, is for the time present attached to the British connection, as the Thirteen Colonies were from 1732 to 1770, it is difficult, in view of current political discussions in Canada, especially those touching the question of support to the Empire, not to feel that the preponderant tone there does not in this respect reflect that of Australia, New Zealand, or even of South Africa. The strong opposition in the French provinces to the government proposals for the development of a Canadian navy, the apologetic defense of the measure by the Premier, himself a French Canadian, in which the assertion of Canadian independence of action is more conspicuous than that of devotion to Imperial interests, tend to prove a looseness of allegiance, which already simulates the independence of separation and may issue in it. Since these words were written, the inference contained in them receives support from the reported effect produced upon Imperialistic sentiment in Great Britain by the recent reciprocity agreement of Canada with the United States. In short, there does not appear to be between Canada and Great Britain that strong dependence of mutual interest of defense, of which the British navy is the symbol and the instrument, and which binds together the other self-governing communities. I regret this, because I believe it the interest of the United States that Great Britain, by her relations to Canada, should be

strongly committed to the naval support of the North Pacific coasts. The ultimate issue will manifestly affect the question of Sea Power in the Pacific, according as it involves the British navy, or only a Canadian. Meantime, under present conditions, the opening of the Canal will bring the British navy six thousand miles nearer the Pacific coast of Canada.

NORTH EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION AND THE PACIFIC COAST

THE greatest factor of Sea Power in any region is the distribution and numbers of the populations, and their characteristics, as permitting the formation and maintenance of stable and efficient governments. This stability and efficiency depend upon racial traits, the distinguishing element of which is not so much the economical efficiency of the individual citizen as his political capacity for sustained corporate action,-action which, however marked by internal contentions, is in the main result homogeneous and organic. As a matter of modern history, so far, this capacity has been confined to nations of European civilization, with the recent exception of Japan. At times, it is true, great masses of men have for a period moved in unison, as by instinct, with an impetus that nothing for the moment could resist. Huns, the Arabs, the Turks, are instances in point; but none would cite either the peoples or their governments as instances of political efficiency. At other times great personages have built up an immense sway upon their own personality alone; but the transiency of such is too proverbial for indication. The political aptitudes of the average citizen, steadied by tried political institutions, are the sole ground of ultimate national efficiency.

The

The most immediate, the foremost question of the Pacific, as affecting Sea Power, therefore, is the filling up of the now partly vacant regions, our own Pacific coast, with that of the British Empire in Canada and in Australasia, by a population. of European derivation. It is most desirable that such immigration should be from northern Europe, because there is found the stock temperamentally most consonant to the local institutions; but, from whencesoever coming, immigrants to all the regions named will find awaiting them settled forms of government, differ

at Gibraltar held the entrance of the Mediterranean successfully against all comers; but in the same period she twice lost Minorca, an outpost like Hawaii, because the navy was too heavily engaged in the Atlantic, and the land forces elsewhere, to afford relief. In case of the fall of Pearl Harbor, where the defense of Hawaii is concentrated, an enemy temporarily superior to the United States in local naval force would become possessed of a fortified permanent base of operations within half-steaming distance of the Pacific shore. There, in furtherance of his designs, he could establish temporary depots for coaling and repairs; as Japan in the recent war did at the Elliott Islands, sixty miles from Port Arthur, then the decisive center of her military and naval operations. Such advanced temporary positions need a permanent base not too far distant; such as the Japanese home ports Sasebo and Kure afforded the Elliott Islands, and as Pearl Harbor in the instance considered would to a navy resting upon it.

But, if Pearl Harbor should hold out successfully, a superior American fleet on arrival finds there a secure base of operations, which with its own command of the water, due to its superior strength, enables it to neutralize and ultimately to overthrow any system of operations or attack resting on improvised bases and inferior fleet force. One has only to imagine the effect upon the Japanese land operations in Manchuria, if Rozhestvensky had destroyed Togo's fleet and so established control of the water between Japan and Manchuria. The same line of reasoning applies to Corregidor Island, in Manila Bay; qualified by the greater distance of the Philippines from America.

The Pacific coast of America is less thickly populated, less extensively developed, than the Atlantic. Labor there is dearer, and the local coal distinctly inferior for naval purposes to eastern coal, necessitating sending fuel there. All upon which a fleet depends for vitality is less abundant, less cheap, and therefore more remote. These economical reasons, until qualified by military urgency, render expedient the maintenance of the fleet in the Atlantic. Division of it is forbidden by military considerations, in that it is too small; the half is weaker than any probable enemy. At present, not less than four

months would be required for the battlefleet to reach Pearl Harbor in effective condition. With the Canal less than four weeks would be necessary.

These considerations affect the time that Pearl Harbor needs to hold out, and illustrate the military gain from the Canal; but they do not affect in any sense the necessity for a superior navy. Canal or no canal, if a fleet be distinctly inferior, it can protect the coast committed to its charge only to a limited degree and for a limited time; unless it can reverse the balance by professional skill. The professional skill may be forthcoming; it is the affair of the commander-in-chief; but the naval security is original superiority of force, and that is the affair of the nation represented in Congress.

A BOND BETWEEN AMERICA

AND AUSTRALIA

THE great English-speaking colonies of Australia and New Zealand will be less immediately and directly affected as to populating by the Panama Canal; but its influence upon Pacific America, including Hawaii, cannot be a matter of small importance to communities which share with equal fervor the determination that their land shall be peopled by men of European antecedents. This identity of feeling on the subject of Asiatic immigration between the North American Pacific and Australia, both inheritors of the same political tradition, is certain to create political sympathies, and may drag into a common action the nations of which each forms a part. This particular determination, in the midst of that recent prevalent unrest which is called the Awakening of the East, is probably the very largest factor in the future of the Pacific, and one which eventually will draw in most of the WestEuropean nations in support of their present possessions in the East. Immediately north of Australia, barricading it, as it were, from west to east, is a veritable Caribbean of European tropical possessions-Sumatra, Java, to New Guineadistributed between Germany, Great Britain, and Holland; while immediately north of them again come the Philippines under American administration. It is needless to say that support to such distant dependencies means military Sea Power;

SENTIMENTS WHICH DEFY EVERY

ARGUMENT BUT FORCE

IT is not difficult here to note the identity of tone with that of the Pacific slope of the United States and of Canada, to the frequent embarrassment of both central governments. It is increasing in imperativeness in British Columbia, is extending thence eastward to Alberta and Saskatchewan, and is felt even as far as Winnipeg. Use the phrase "national honor," "vital interests," or what you will, there are popular sentiments and determinations which defy every argument but force. It is the failure to note these which vitiates much of the argument for arbitration. Such sentiments, on both sides, are large factors to be taken into account in the forecast of the future of Sea Power in an ocean one of whose shores is Asiatic, the other European in derivation.

The Panama Canal will tend to link, and to emphasize the solidarity of, the several English-speaking communities affected by these feelings; and not least by the greater nearness which it will give the North American districts to the more thickly settled, and consequently more. powerful, Atlantic regions with which they are politically united. Debatable ground, undeveloped occupation, such as exists in them all, is from this particular point of view an especial source of weakIn none of them, and especially in Australia and New Zealand, is the population proportionate to the soil. The garrison is not commensurate to the extent of the walls. Hence immigration becomes a pressing question; and in Australia radical land legislation, to break up huge unimproved holdings, and so to facilitate agricultural immigration, is a prominent feature in prospective legislation.

ness.

THE IMPORTANCE OF PANAMA TO
BRITISH SEA POWER

THIS state of things is a matter of consummate moment, and will compel the sympathy of American Pacific communities with peoples who discern a common danger, and who share a common political tradition. This weakness explains also the evident closer attachment of Australasia than of Canada to the mother coun

try. Not only is there no alien element, like the French Canadian, but there is far greater exposure, and sense of dependence, such as our own ancestors felt when Canada was French. Here enters the Sea Power of Great Britain into the Pacific with an urgency even greater than that of commercial gain. It is there a question of keeping her own. So far as Australia is weak in numbers, she is proportionately dependent upon power at sea, to prevent those numbers from having to encounter overwhelming odds on shore. In this, her case resembles that of the British Islands themselves. She has shown sense of that dependence by the adoption of naval measures much more virile than those which in Canada are meeting opposition; but at best her resources are not sufficient, and dependence on the mother country will be for a long time inevitable.

Lord Kitchener is quoted as saying, "It is an axiom of the British Government that the existence of the Empire depends primarily upon the maintenance of adequate and efficient naval forces. As long as this condition is fulfilled, and as long as British superiority at sea is assured, then it is an accepted principle that no British dominion can be successfully and permanently conquered by an organized invasion from oversea." The remark was addressed to Australia specifically, and accompanied with the admonition that a navy has many preoccupations; that it may not be able immediately to repair to a distant scene of action; and that therefore the provision of local defense, both by forts and mobile troops, is the correlative of naval defense. This impedes and delays an invader, lessens his advance and the injury possible, and so expedites and diminishes the task of the navy, when this, having established preponderance elsewhere, is able to appear in force upon the distant waters of a remote dependency.

VITAL IMPORTANCE OF PANAMA TO

THE UNITED STATES