THE INTEREST OF AMERICA

IN SEA POWER, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 

ByCAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN, D. C. L. , LL. D. United States Navy. 

Author of "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, ""The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, "of a "Life of Farragut, " and of "The Life of Nelson, The Embodimentof the Sea Power of Great Britain. "

London:Sampson Low, Marston & Company, _Limited. _1897. 

_Copyright, 1897, _By Alfred T. Mahan. 

_Copyright, 1890, 1893, _By Houghton, Mifflin and Company. 

_Copyright, 1893, _By The Forum Publishing Company. 

_Copyright, 1894, _By Lloyd Bryce. 

_Copyright, 1895, 1897, _By Harper and Brothers. 

_All rights reserved. _

University Press:John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A. 

PREFACE. 

Whatever interest may be possessed by a collection of detached papers, issued at considerable intervals during a term of several years, andwritten without special reference one to the other, or, at the first, with any view to subsequent publication, depends as much upon the dateat which they were composed, and the condition of affairs thenexistent, as it does upon essential unity of treatment. If such unityperchance be found in these, it will not be due to antecedent purpose, but to the fact that they embody the thought of an individual mind, consecutive in the line of its main conceptions, but adjusting itselfcontinually to changing conditions, which the progress of eventsentails. 

The author, therefore, has not sought to bring these papers down tothe present date; to reconcile seeming contradictions, if such therebe; to suppress repetitions; or to weld into a consistent whole theseveral parts which in their origin were independent. Such changes ashave been made extend only to phraseology, with the occasionalmodification of an expression that seemed to err by excess or defect. The dates at the head of each article show the time of its writing, not of its publication. 

The thanks of the author are expressed to the proprietors of the"Atlantic Monthly, " of the "Forum, " of the "North American Review, "and of "Harper's New Monthly Magazine, " who have kindly permitted therepublication of the articles originally contributed to their pages. 

A. T. MAHAN. 

_November, 1897. _

CONTENTS. 

 I. THE UNITED STATES LOOKING OUTWARD From the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1890. 

 II. HAWAII AND OUR FUTURE SEA POWER From the Forum, March, 1893. 

 III. THE ISTHMUS AND SEA POWER From the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1893. 

 IV. POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN REUNION From the North American Review, November, 1894. 

 V. THE FUTURE IN RELATION TO AMERICAN NAVAL POWER Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October, 1895. 

 VI. PREPAREDNESS FOR NAVAL WAR Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March, 1897. 

 VII. A TWENTIETH-CENTURY OUTLOOK Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September, 1897. 

VIII. STRATEGIC FEATURES OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October, 1897. 

MAPS. 

THE PACIFIC

THE GULF AND CARIBBEAN

THE UNITED STATES LOOKING OUTWARD. 

_August, 1890. _

Indications are not wanting of an approaching change in the thoughtsand policy of Americans as to their relations with the world outsidetheir own borders. For the past quarter of a century, the predominantidea, which has asserted itself successfully at the polls and shapedthe course of the government, has been to preserve the home market forthe home industries. The employer and the workman alike have beentaught to look at the various economical measures proposed from thispoint of view, to regard with hostility any step favoring the intrusionof the foreign producer upon their own domain, and rather to demandincreasingly rigorous measures of exclusion than to acquiesce in anyloosening of the chain that binds the consumer to them. The inevitableconsequence has followed, as in all cases when the mind or the eye isexclusively fixed in one direction, that the danger of loss or theprospect of advantage in another quarter has been overlooked; andalthough the abounding resources of the country have maintained theexports at a high figure, this flattering result has been due more tothe superabundant bounty of Nature than to the demand of other nationsfor our protected manufactures. 

For nearly the lifetime of a generation, therefore, American industrieshave been thus protected, until the practice has assumed the force of atradition, and is clothed in the mail of conservatism. In their mutualrelations, these industries resemble the activities of a modernironclad that has heavy armor, but inferior engines and guns; mightyfor defence, weak for offence. Within, the home market is secured; butoutside, beyond the broad seas, there are the markets of the world, that can be entered and controlled only by a vigorous contest, to whichthe habit of trusting to protection by statute does not conduce. 

At bottom, however, the temperament of the American people isessentially alien to such a sluggish attitude. Independently of allbias for or against protection, it is safe to predict that, when theopportunities for gain abroad are understood, the course of Americanenterprise will cleave a channel by which to reach them. Viewedbroadly, it is a most welcome as well as significant fact that aprominent and influential advocate of protection, a leader of the partycommitted to its support, a keen reader of the signs of the times andof the drift of opinion, has identified himself with a line of policywhich looks to nothing less than such modifications of the tariff asmay expand the commerce of the United States to all quarters of theglobe. Men of all parties can unite on the words of Mr. Blaine, asreported in a recent speech: "It is not an ambitious destiny for sogreat a country as ours to manufacture only what we can consume, orproduce only what we can eat. " In face of this utterance of so shrewdand able a public man, even the extreme character of the recent tarifflegislation seems but a sign of the coming change, and brings to mindthat famous Continental System, of which our own is the analogue, tosupport which Napoleon added legion to legion and enterprise toenterprise, till the fabric of the Empire itself crashed beneath theweight. 

The interesting and significant feature of this changing attitude isthe turning of the eyes outward, instead of inward only, to seek thewelfare of the country. To affirm the importance of distant markets, and the relation to them of our own immense powers of production, implies logically the recognition of the link that joins the productsand the markets, --that is, the carrying trade; the three togetherconstituting that chain of maritime power to which Great Britain owesher wealth and greatness. Further, is it too much to say that, as twoof these links, the shipping and the markets, are exterior to our ownborders, the acknowledgment of them carries with it a view of therelations of the United States to the world radically distinct from thesimple idea of self-sufficingness? We shall not follow far this line ofthought before there will dawn the realization of America's uniqueposition, facing the older worlds of the East and West, her shoreswashed by the oceans which touch the one or the other, but which arecommon to her alone. 

Coincident with these signs of change in our own policy there is arestlessness in the world at large which is deeply significant, if notominous. It is beside our purpose to dwell upon the internal state ofEurope, whence, if disturbances arise, the effect upon us may be butpartial and indirect. But the great seaboard powers there do not standon guard against their continental rivals only; they cherish alsoaspirations for commercial extension, for colonies, and for influencein distant regions, which may bring, and, even under our presentcontracted policy, already have brought them into collision withourselves. The incident of the Samoa Islands, trivial apparently, wasnevertheless eminently suggestive of European ambitions. America thenroused from sleep as to interests closely concerning her future. Atthis moment internal troubles are imminent in the Sandwich Islands, where it should be our fixed determination to allow no foreigninfluence to equal our own. All over the world German commercial andcolonial push is coming into collision with other nations: witness theaffair of the Caroline Islands with Spain; the partition of New Guineawith England; the yet more recent negotiation between these two powersconcerning their share in Africa, viewed with deep distrust andjealousy by France; the Samoa affair; the conflict between Germancontrol and American interests in the islands of the western Pacific;and the alleged progress of German influence in Central and SouthAmerica. It is noteworthy that, while these various contentions aresustained with the aggressive military spirit characteristic of theGerman Empire, they are credibly said to arise from the national tempermore than from the deliberate policy of the government, which in thismatter does not lead, but follows, the feeling of the people, --acondition much more formidable. 

There is no sound reason for believing that the world has passed into aperiod of assured peace outside the limits of Europe. Unsettledpolitical conditions, such as exist in Haiti, Central America, and manyof the Pacific islands, especially the Hawaiian group, when combinedwith great military or commercial importance as is the case with mostof these positions, involve, now as always, dangerous germs of quarrel, against which it is prudent at least to be prepared. Undoubtedly, thegeneral temper of nations is more averse from war than it was of old. If no less selfish and grasping than our predecessors, we feel moredislike to the discomforts and sufferings attendant upon a breach ofpeace; but to retain that highly valued repose and the undisturbedenjoyment of the returns of commerce, it is necessary to argue uponsomewhat equal terms of strength with an adversary. It is thepreparedness of the enemy, and not acquiescence in the existing stateof things, that now holds back the armies of Europe. 

On the other hand, neither the sanctions of international law nor thejustice of a cause can be depended upon for a fair settlement ofdifferences, when they come into conflict with a strong politicalnecessity on the one side opposed to comparative weakness on the other. In our still-pending dispute over the seal-fishing of Bering Sea, whatever may be thought of the strength of our argument, in view ofgenerally admitted principles of international law, it is beyond doubtthat our contention is reasonable, just, and in the interest of theworld at large. But in the attempt to enforce it we have come intocollision not only with national susceptibilities as to the honor ofthe flag, which we ourselves very strongly share, but also with a stategoverned by a powerful necessity, and exceedingly strong where we areparticularly weak and exposed. Not only has Great Britain a mighty navyand we a long defenceless seacoast, but it is a great commercial andpolitical advantage to her that her larger colonies, and above allCanada, should feel that the power of the mother country is somethingwhich they need, and upon which they can count. The dispute is betweenthe United States and Canada, not the United States and Great Britain;but it has been ably used by the latter to promote the solidarity ofsympathy between herself and her colony. With the mother country alonean equitable arrangement, conducive to well-understood mutualinterests, could be reached readily; but the purely local andpeculiarly selfish wishes of Canadian fishermen dictate the policy ofGreat Britain, because Canada is the most important link uniting her toher colonies and maritime interests in the Pacific. In case of aEuropean war, it is possible that the British navy will not be able tohold open the route through the Mediterranean to the East; but having astrong naval station at Halifax, and another at Esquimalt, on thePacific, the two connected by the Canadian Pacific Railroad, Englandpossesses an alternate line of communication far less exposed tomaritime aggression than the former, or than the third route by theCape of Good Hope, as well as two bases essential to the service of hercommerce, or other naval operations, in the North Atlantic and thePacific. Whatever arrangement of this question is finally reached, thefruit of Lord Salisbury's attitude scarcely can fail to be astrengthening of the sentiments of attachment to, and reliance upon, the mother country, not only in Canada, but in the other greatcolonies. These feelings of attachment and mutual dependence supply theliving spirit, without which the nascent schemes for ImperialFederation are but dead mechanical contrivances; nor are they withoutinfluence upon such generally unsentimental considerations as those ofbuying and selling, and the course of trade. 

This dispute, seemingly paltry yet really serious, sudden in itsappearance and dependent for its issue upon other considerations thanits own merits, may serve to convince us of many latent and yetunforeseen dangers to the peace of the western hemisphere, attendantupon the opening of a canal through the Central American Isthmus. In ageneral way, it is evident enough that this canal, by modifying thedirection of trade routes, will induce a great increase of commercialactivity and carrying trade throughout the Caribbean Sea; and that thisnow comparatively deserted nook of the ocean will become, like the RedSea, a great thoroughfare of shipping, and will attract, as neverbefore in our day, the interest and ambition of maritime nations. Everyposition in that sea will have enhanced commercial and military value, and the canal itself will become a strategic centre of the most vitalimportance. Like the Canadian Pacific Railroad, it will be a linkbetween the two oceans; but, unlike it, the use, unless most carefullyguarded by treaties, will belong wholly to the belligerent whichcontrols the sea by its naval power. In case of war, the United Stateswill unquestionably command the Canadian Railroad, despite thedeterrent force of operations by the hostile navy upon our seaboard;but no less unquestionably will she be impotent, as against any ofthe great maritime powers, to control the Central American canal. Militarily speaking, and having reference to European complicationsonly, the piercing of the Isthmus is nothing but a disaster to theUnited States, in the present state of her military and navalpreparation. It is especially dangerous to the Pacific coast; but theincreased exposure of one part of our seaboard reacts unfavorably uponthe whole military situation. 

Despite a certain great original superiority conferred by ourgeographical nearness and immense resources, --due, in other words, toour natural advantages, and not to our intelligent preparations, --theUnited States is wofully unready, not only in fact but in purpose, toassert in the Caribbean and Central America a weight of influenceproportioned to the extent of her interests. We have not the navy, and, what is worse, we are not willing to have the navy, that will weighseriously in any disputes with those nations whose interests willconflict there with our own. We have not, and we are not anxious toprovide, the defence of the seaboard which will leave the navy free forits work at sea. We have not, but many other powers have, positions, either within or on the borders of the Caribbean, which not onlypossess great natural advantages for the control of that sea, but havereceived and are receiving that artificial strength of fortificationand armament which will make them practically inexpugnable. On thecontrary, we have not on the Gulf of Mexico even the beginning of anavy yard which could serve as the base of our operations. Let me notbe misunderstood. I am not regretting that we have not the means tomeet on terms of equality the great navies of the Old World. Irecognize, what few at least say, that, despite its great surplusrevenue, this country is poor in proportion to its length of seaboardand its exposed points. That which I deplore, and which is a sober, just, and reasonable cause of deep national concern, is that the nationneither has nor cares to have its sea frontier so defended, and itsnavy of such power, as shall suffice, with the advantages of ourposition, to weigh seriously when inevitable discussions arise, --suchas we have recently had about Samoa and Bering Sea, and which may atany moment come up about the Caribbean Sea or the canal. Is the UnitedStates, for instance, prepared to allow Germany to acquire the Dutchstronghold of Curaçao, fronting the Atlantic outlet of both theproposed canals of Panama and Nicaragua? Is she prepared to acquiescein any foreign power purchasing from Haiti a naval station on theWindward Passage, through which pass our steamer routes to the Isthmus?Would she acquiesce in a foreign protectorate over the SandwichIslands, that great central station of the Pacific, equidistant fromSan Francisco, Samoa, and the Marquesas, and an important post on ourlines of communication with both Australia and China? Or will it bemaintained that any one of these questions, supposing it to arise, isso exclusively one-sided, the arguments of policy and right soexclusively with us, that the other party will at once yield his eagerwish, and gracefully withdraw? Was it so at Samoa? Is it so as regardsBering Sea? The motto seen on so many ancient cannon, _Ultima ratioregum_, is not without its message to republics. 

It is perfectly reasonable and legitimate, in estimating our needs ofmilitary preparation, to take into account the remoteness of the chiefnaval and military nations from our shores, and the consequentdifficulty of maintaining operations at such a distance. It is equallyproper, in framing our policy, to consider the jealousies of theEuropean family of states, and their consequent unwillingness to incurthe enmity of a people so strong as ourselves; their dread of ourrevenge in the future, as well as their inability to detach more than acertain part of their forces to our shores without losing much of theirown weight in the councils of Europe. In truth, a careful determinationof the force that Great Britain or France could probably spare foroperations against our coasts, if the latter were suitably defended, without weakening their European position or unduly exposing theircolonies and commerce, is the starting-point from which to calculatethe strength of our own navy. If the latter be superior to the forcethat thus can be sent against it, and the coast be so defended as toleave the navy free to strike where it will, we can maintain ourrights; not merely the rights which international law concedes, andwhich the moral sense of nations now supports, but also those equallyreal rights which, though not conferred by law, depend upon a clearpreponderance of interest, upon obviously necessary policy, uponself-preservation, either total or partial. Were we so situated now inrespect of military strength, we could secure our perfectly just claimas to the seal fisheries; not by seizing foreign ships on the open sea, but by the evident fact that, our cities being protected from maritimeattack, our position and superior population lay open the CanadianPacific, as well as the frontier of the Dominion, to do with as weplease. Diplomats do not flourish such disagreeable truths in eachother's faces; they look for a _modus vivendi_, and find it. 

While, therefore, the advantages of our own position in the westernhemisphere, and the disadvantages under which the operations of aEuropean state would labor, are undeniable and just elements in thecalculations of the statesman, it is folly to look upon them assufficient alone for our security. Much more needs to be cast into thescale that it may incline in favor of our strength. They are meredefensive factors, and partial at that. Though distant, our shores canbe reached; being defenceless, they can detain but a short time a forcesent against them. With a probability of three months' peace in Europe, no maritime power would fear to support its demands by a number ofships with which it would be loath indeed to part for a year. 

Yet, were our sea frontier as strong as it now is weak, passiveself-defence, whether in trade or war, would be but a poor policy, solong as this world continues to be one of struggle and vicissitude. Allaround us now is strife; "the struggle of life, " "the race of life, "are phrases so familiar that we do not feel their significance till westop to think about them. Everywhere nation is arrayed against nation;our own no less than others. What is our protective system but anorganized warfare? In carrying it on, it is true, we have only to usecertain procedures which all states now concede to be a legal exerciseof the national power, even though injurious to themselves. It islawful, they say, to do what we will with our own. Are our people, however, so unaggressive that they are likely not to want their own wayin matters where their interests turn on points of disputed right, orso little sensitive as to submit quietly to encroachment by others, inquarters where they long have considered their own influence shouldprevail?

Our self-imposed isolation in the matter of markets, and the decline ofour shipping interest in the last thirty years, have coincidedsingularly with an actual remoteness of this continent from the life ofthe rest of the world. The writer has before him a map of the North andSouth Atlantic oceans, showing the direction of the principal traderoutes and the proportion of tonnage passing over each; and it iscurious to note what deserted regions, comparatively, are the Gulf ofMexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the adjoining countries and islands. Abroad band stretches from our northern Atlantic coast to the EnglishChannel; another as broad from the British Islands to the East, throughthe Mediterranean and Red Sea, overflowing the borders of the latter inorder to express the volume of trade. Around either cape--Good Hope andHorn--pass strips of about one-fourth this width, joining near theequator, midway between Africa and South America. From the West Indiesissues a thread, indicating the present commerce of Great Britain witha region which once, in the Napoleonic wars, embraced one-fourth of thewhole trade of the Empire. The significance is unmistakable: Europe hasnow little mercantile interest in the Caribbean Sea. 

When the Isthmus is pierced, this isolation will pass away, and with itthe indifference of foreign nations. From wheresoever they come andwhithersoever they afterward go, all ships that use the canal will passthrough the Caribbean. Whatever the effect produced upon the prosperityof the adjacent continent and islands by the thousand wants attendantupon maritime activity, around such a focus of trade will centre largecommercial and political interests. To protect and develop its own, each nation will seek points of support and means of influence in aquarter where the United States always has been jealously sensitive tothe intrusion of European powers. The precise value of the Monroedoctrine is understood very loosely by most Americans, but the effectof the familiar phrase has been to develop a national sensitiveness, which is a more frequent cause of war than material interests; and overdisputes caused by such feelings there will preside none of the calminginfluence due to the moral authority of international law, with itsrecognized principles, for the points in dispute will be of policy, ofinterest, not of conceded right. Already France and Great Britain aregiving to ports held by them a degree of artificial strength uncalledfor by their present importance. They look to the near future. Amongthe islands and on the mainland there are many positions of greatimportance, held now by weak or unstable states. Is the United Stateswilling to see them sold to a powerful rival? But what right will sheinvoke against the transfer? She can allege but one, --that of herreasonable policy supported by her might. 

Whether they will or no, Americans must now begin to look outward. Thegrowing production of the country demands it. An increasing volume ofpublic sentiment demands it. The position of the United States, betweenthe two Old Worlds and the two great oceans, makes the same claim, which will soon be strengthened by the creation of the new link joiningthe Atlantic and Pacific. The tendency will be maintained and increasedby the growth of the European colonies in the Pacific, by the advancingcivilization of Japan, and by the rapid peopling of our Pacific Stateswith men who have all the aggressive spirit of the advanced line ofnational progress. Nowhere does a vigorous foreign policy find morefavor than among the people west of the Rocky Mountains. 

It has been said that, in our present state of unpreparedness, atrans-isthmian canal will be a military disaster to the United States, and especially to the Pacific coast. When the canal is finished, theAtlantic seaboard will be neither more nor less exposed than it now is;it will merely share with the country at large the increased danger offoreign complications with inadequate means to meet them. The danger ofthe Pacific coast will be greater by so much as the way between it andEurope is shortened through a passage which the stronger maritime powercan control. The danger will lie not merely in the greater facility fordespatching a hostile squadron from Europe, but also in the fact that amore powerful fleet than formerly can be maintained on that coast by aEuropean power, because it can be called home so much more promptly incase of need. The greatest weakness of the Pacific ports, however, ifwisely met by our government, will go far to insure our navalsuperiority there. The two chief centres, San Francisco and PugetSound, owing to the width and the great depth of the entrances, cannotbe effectively protected by torpedoes; and consequently, as fleets canalways pass batteries through an unobstructed channel, they cannotobtain perfect security by means of fortifications only. Valuable assuch works will be to them, they must be further garrisoned bycoast-defence ships, whose part in repelling an enemy will beco-ordinated with that of the batteries. The sphere of action of suchships should not be permitted to extend far beyond the port to whichthey are allotted, and of whose defence they form an essential part;but within that sweep they will always be a powerful reinforcement tothe sea-going navy, when the strategic conditions of a war causehostilities to centre around their port. By sacrificing power to golong distances, the coast-defence ship gains proportionate weight ofarmor and guns; that is, of defensive and offensive strength. Ittherefore adds an element of unique value to the fleet with which itfor a time acts. No foreign states, except Great Britain, have ports sonear our Pacific coast as to bring it within the radius of action oftheir coast-defence ships; and it is very doubtful whether even GreatBritain will put such ships at Vancouver Island, the chief value ofwhich will be lost to her when the Canadian Pacific is severed, --a blowalways in the power of this country. It is upon our Atlantic seaboardthat the mistress of Halifax, of Bermuda, and of Jamaica will nowdefend Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific. In the present state of ourseaboard defence she can do so absolutely. What is all Canada comparedwith our exposed great cities? Even were the coast fortified, she stillcould do so, if our navy be no stronger than is designed as yet. Whatharm can we do Canada proportionate to the injury we should suffer bythe interruption of our coasting trade, and by a blockade of Boston, New York, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake? Such a blockade GreatBritain certainly could make technically efficient, under the somewhatloose definitions of international law. Neutrals would accept it assuch. 

The military needs of the Pacific States, as well as their supremeimportance to the whole country, are yet a matter of the future, but ofa future so near that provision should begin immediately. To weightheir importance, consider what influence in the Pacific would beattributed to a nation comprising only the States of Washington, Oregon, and California, when filled with such men as now people themand still are pouring in, and which controlled such maritime centres asSan Francisco, Puget Sound, and the Columbia River. Can it be countedless because they are bound by the ties of blood and close politicalunion to the great communities of the East? But such influence, to workwithout jar and friction, requires underlying military readiness, likethe proverbial iron hand under the velvet glove. To provide this, threethings are needful: First, protection of the chief harbors, byfortifications and coast-defence ships, which gives defensive strength, provides security to the community within, and supplies the basesnecessary to all military operations. Secondly, naval force, the arm ofoffensive power, which alone enables a country to extend its influenceoutward. Thirdly, it should be an inviolable resolution of our nationalpolicy, that no foreign state should henceforth acquire a coalingposition within three thousand miles of San Francisco, --a distancewhich includes the Hawaiian and Galapagos islands and the coast ofCentral America. For fuel is the life of modern naval war; it is thefood of the ship; without it the modern monsters of the deep die ofinanition. Around it, therefore, cluster some of the most importantconsiderations of naval strategy. In the Caribbean and in the Atlanticwe are confronted with many a foreign coal depot, bidding us stand toour arms, even as Carthage bade Rome; but let us not acquiesce in anaddition to our dangers, a further diversion of our strength, by beingforestalled in the North Pacific. 

In conclusion, while Great Britain is undoubtedly the most formidableof our possible enemies, both by her great navy and by the strongpositions she holds near our coasts, it must be added that a cordialunderstanding with that country is one of the first of our externalinterests. Both nations doubtless, and properly, seek their ownadvantage; but both, also, are controlled by a sense of law andjustice, drawn from the same sources, and deep-rooted in theirinstincts. Whatever temporary aberration may occur, a return to mutualstandards of right will certainly follow. Formal alliance between thetwo is out of the question, but a cordial recognition of the similarityof character and ideas will give birth to sympathy, which in turn willfacilitate a co-operation beneficial to both; for if sentimentality isweak, sentiment is strong. 

[Illustration: THE PACIFIC OCEAN]

HAWAII AND OUR FUTURE SEA POWER. 

 [The origin of the ensuing article was as follows: At the time of the Revolution in Hawaii, at the beginning of 1893, the author addressed to the "New York Times" a letter, which appeared in the issue of January 31. This, falling under the eye of the Editor of the "Forum, " suggested to him to ask an article upon the general military--or naval--value of the Hawaiian group. The letter alluded to ran thus:--

 _To the Editor of the "New York Times"_:--

 There is one aspect of the recent revolution in Hawaii which seems to have been kept out of sight, and that is the relation of the islands, not merely to our own and to European countries, but to China. How vitally important that may become in the future is evident from the great number of Chinese, relatively to the whole population, now settled in the islands. 

 It is a question for the whole civilized world and not for the United States only, whether the Sandwich Islands, with their geographical and military importance, unrivalled by that of any other position in the North Pacific, shall in the future be an outpost of European civilization, or of the comparative barbarism of China. It is sufficiently known, but not, perhaps, generally noted in our country, that many military men abroad, familiar with Eastern conditions and character, look with apprehension toward the day when the vast mass of China--now inert--may yield to one of those impulses which have in past ages buried civilization under a wave of barbaric invasion. The great armies of Europe, whose existence is so frequently deplored, may be providentially intended as a barrier to that great movement, if it come. Certainly, while China remains as she is, nothing more disastrous for the future of the world can be imagined than that general disarmament of Europe which is the Utopian dream of some philanthropists. 

 China, however, may burst her barriers eastward as well as westward, toward the Pacific as well as toward the European Continent. In such a movement it would be impossible to exaggerate the momentous issues dependent upon a firm hold of the Sandwich Islands by a great, civilized, maritime power. By its nearness to the scene, and by the determined animosity to the Chinese movement which close contact seems to inspire, our own country, with its Pacific coast, is naturally indicated as the proper guardian for this most important position. To hold it, however, whether in the supposed case or in war with a European state, implies a great extension of our naval power. Are we ready to undertake this?

 A. T. MAHAN, _Captain, United States Navy_. 

 NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 1893. ]

The suddenness--so far, at least, as the general public isconcerned--with which the long-existing troubles in Hawaii have come toa head, and the character of the advances reported to be addressed tothe United States by the revolutionary government, formally recognizedas _de facto_ by our representative on the spot, add another to themany significant instances furnished by history, that, as men in themidst of life are in death, so nations in the midst of peace findthemselves confronted with unexpected causes of dissension, conflictsof interests, whose results may be, on the one hand, war, or, on theother, abandonment of clear and imperative national advantage in orderto avoid an issue for which preparation has not been made. By nopremeditated contrivance of our own, by the cooperation of a series ofevents which, however dependent step by step upon human action, werenot intended to prepare the present crisis, the United States findsherself compelled to answer a question--to make a decision--not unlikeand not less momentous than that required of the Roman senate, when theMamertine garrison invited it to occupy Messina, and so to abandon thehitherto traditional policy which had confined the expansion of Rome tothe Italian peninsula. For let it not be overlooked that, whether wewish or no, we _must_ answer the question, we _must_ make the decision. The issue cannot be dodged. Absolute inaction in such a case is adecision as truly as the most vehement action. We can now advance, but, the conditions of the world being what they are, if we do not advancewe recede; for there is involved not so much a particular action as aquestion of principle, pregnant of great consequences in one directionor in the other. 

Occasion of serious difficulty, indeed, should not arise here. Unlikethe historical instance just cited, the two nations whose interestshave come now into contact--Great Britain and the United States--areso alike in inherited traditions, habits of thought, and views ofright, that injury to the one need not be anticipated from thepredominance of the other in a quarter where its interests alsopredominate. Despite the heterogeneous character of the immigrationwhich the past few years have been pouring into our country, ourpolitical traditions and racial characteristics still continueEnglish--Mr. Douglas Campbell would say Dutch, but even so the stockis the same. Though thus somewhat gorged with food not wholly to itstaste, our political digestion has contrived so far to master theincongruous mass of materials it has been unable to reject; and ifassimilation has been at times imperfect, our political constitutionand spirit remain English in essential features. Imbued with likeideals of liberty, of law, of right, certainly not less progressivethan our kin beyond sea, we are, in the safeguards deliberately placedaround our fundamental law, even more conservative than they. Thatwhich we received of the true spirit of freedom we have kept--libertyand law--not the one or the other, but both. In that spirit we notonly have occupied our original inheritance, but also, step by step, as Rome incorporated the other nations of the peninsula, we have addedto it, spreading and perpetuating everywhere the same foundationprinciples of free and good government which, to her honor be it said, Great Britain also has maintained throughout her course. And now, arrested on the south by the rights of a race wholly alien to us, andon the north by a body of states of like traditions to our own, whosefreedom to choose their own affiliations we respect, we have come tothe sea. In our infancy we bordered upon the Atlantic only; our youthcarried our boundary to the Gulf of Mexico; to-day maturity sees usupon the Pacific. Have we no right or no call to progress farther inany direction? Are there for us beyond the sea horizon none of thoseessential interests, of those evident dangers, which impose a policyand confer rights?

This is the question that long has been looming upon the brow of afuture now rapidly passing into the present. Of it the Hawaiianincident is a part--intrinsically, perhaps, a small part--but in itsrelations to the whole so vital that, as has been said before, a wrongdecision does not stand by itself, but involves, not only in principlebut in fact, recession along the whole line. In our natural, necessary, irrepressible expansion, we are come here into contact with theprogress of another great people, the law of whose being has impressedupon it a principle of growth which has wrought mightily in the past, and in the present is visible by recurring manifestations. Of thisworking, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, Aden, India, in geographicalsuccession though not in strict order of time, show a completed chain;forged link by link, by open force or politic bargain, but alwaysresulting from the steady pressure of a national instinct, so powerfuland so accurate that statesmen of every school, willing or unwilling, have found themselves carried along by a tendency which noindividuality can resist or greatly modify. Both unsubstantial rumorand incautious personal utterance have suggested an impatient desirein Mr. Gladstone to be rid of the occupation of Egypt; but scarcelyhas his long exclusion from office ended when the irony of eventssignalizes his return thereto by an increase in the force ofoccupation. Further, it may be noted profitably of the chain justcited, that the two extremities were first possessed--first India, then Gibraltar, far later Malta, Aden, Cyprus, Egypt--and that, withscarce an exception, each step has been taken despite the jealousvexation of a rival. Spain has never ceased angrily to bewailGibraltar. "I had rather see the English on the heights ofMontmartre, " said the first Napoleon, "than in Malta. " The feelings ofFrance about Egypt are matter of common knowledge, not evendissembled; and, for our warning be it added, her annoyance isincreased by the bitter sense of opportunity rejected. 

It is needless here to do more than refer to that other chain ofmaritime possessions--Halifax, Bermuda, Santa Lucia, Jamaica--whichstrengthen the British hold upon the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and theIsthmus of Panama. In the Pacific the position is for them much lesssatisfactory--nowhere, perhaps, is it less so, and from obvious naturalcauses. The commercial development of the eastern Pacific has been farlater, and still is less complete, than that of its western shores. Thelatter when first opened to European adventure were already the seat ofancient economies in China and Japan, furnishing abundance of curiousand luxurious products to tempt the trader by good hopes of profit. Thewestern coast of America, for the most part peopled by savages, offeredlittle save the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru, and these weremonopolized jealously by the Spaniards--not a commercial nation--duringtheir long ascendency. Being so very far from England and affording solittle material for trade, Pacific America did not draw the enterpriseof a country the chief and honorable inducement of whose seamen was thehope of gain, in pursuit of which they settled and annexed point afterpoint in the regions where they penetrated, and upon the routes leadingthither. The western coasts of North America, being reached only by thelong and perilous voyage around Cape Horn, or by a more toilsome anddangerous passage across the continent, remained among the last of thetemperate productive seaboards of the earth to be possessed by whitemen. The United States were already a nation, in fact as well as inform, when Vancouver was exploring Puget Sound and passed first throughthe channel separating the mainland of British America from the islandwhich now bears his name. Thus it has happened that, from the latedevelopment of British Columbia in the northeastern Pacific, and ofAustralia and New Zealand in the southwestern, Great Britain is foundagain holding the two extremities of a line, between which she mustinevitably desire the intermediate links; nor is there any good reasonwhy she should not have them, except the superior, more urgent, morevital necessities of another people--our own. Of these links theHawaiian group possesses unique importance--not from its intrinsiccommercial value, but from its favorable position for maritime andmilitary control. 

The military or strategic value of a naval position depends upon itssituation, upon its strength, and upon its resources. Of the three, thefirst is of most consequence, because it results from the nature ofthings; whereas the two latter, when deficient, can be suppliedartificially, in whole or in part. Fortifications remedy the weaknessesof a position, foresight accumulates beforehand the resources whichnature does not yield on the spot; but it is not within the power ofman to change the geographical situation of a point which lies outsidethe limit of strategic effect. It is instructive, and yet apparent tothe most superficial reading, to notice how the first Napoleon, incommenting upon a region likely to be the scene of war, begins byconsidering the most conspicuous natural features, and then enumeratesthe commanding positions, their distances from each other, the relativedirections, or, as the sea phrase is, their "bearings, " and theparticular facilities each offers for operations of war. This furnishesthe ground plan, the skeleton, detached from confusing secondaryconsiderations, and from which a clear estimate of the decisive pointscan be made. The number of such points varies greatly, according to thecharacter of the region. In a mountainous, broken country they may bevery many; whereas in a plain devoid of natural obstacles there may befew, or none save those created by man. If few, the value of each isnecessarily greater than if many; and if there be but one, itsimportance is not only unique, but extreme, --measured only by the sizeof the field over which its unshared influence extends. 

The sea, until it approaches the land, realizes the ideal of a vastplain unbroken by obstacles. On the sea, says an eminent Frenchtactician, there is no field of battle, meaning that there is none ofthe natural conditions which determine, and often fetter, the movementsof the general. But upon a plain, however flat and monotonous, causes, possibly slight, determine the concentration of population into townsand villages, and the necessary communications between the centrescreate roads. Where the latter converge, or cross, tenure conferscommand, depending for importance upon the number of routes thusmeeting, and upon their individual value. It is just so at sea. Whilein itself the ocean opposes no obstacle to a vessel taking any one ofthe numerous routes that can be traced upon the surface of the globebetween two points, conditions of distance or convenience, of trafficor of wind, do prescribe certain usual courses. Where these pass nearan ocean position, still more where they use it, it has an influenceover them, and where several routes cross near by that influencebecomes very great, --is commanding. 

Let us now apply these considerations to the Hawaiian group. To any oneviewing a map that shows the full extent of the Pacific Ocean, with itsshores on either side, two striking circumstances will be apparentimmediately. He will see at a glance that the Sandwich Islands stand bythemselves, in a state of comparative isolation, amid a vast expanse ofsea; and, again, that they form the centre of a large circle whoseradius is approximately--and very closely--the distance from Honoluluto San Francisco. The circumference of this circle, if the trouble istaken to describe it with compass upon the map, will be seen, on thewest and south, to pass through the outer fringe of the system ofarchipelagoes which, from Australia and New Zealand, extend to thenortheast toward the American continent. Within the circle a fewscattered islets, bare and unimportant, seem only to emphasize thefailure of nature to bridge the interval separating Hawaii from herpeers of the Southern Pacific. Of these, however, it may be noted thatsome, like Fanning and Christmas Islands, have within a few years beentaken into British possession. The distance from San Francisco toHonolulu, twenty-one hundred miles--easy steaming distance--issubstantially the same as that from Honolulu to the Gilbert, Marshall, Samoan, Society, and Marquesas groups, all under European control, except Samoa, in which we have a part influence. 

To have a central position such as this, and to be alone, having norival and admitting no alternative throughout an extensive tract, areconditions that at once fix the attention of the strategist, --it may beadded, of the statesmen of commerce likewise. But to this strikingcombination are to be added the remarkable relations, borne by thesesingularly placed islands, to the greater commercial routes traversingthis vast expanse known to us as the Pacific, --not only, however, tothose now actually in use, important as they are, but also to thosethat must be called into being necessarily by that future to which theHawaiian incident compels our too unwilling attention. Circumstances, as already remarked, create centres, between which communicationnecessarily follows; and in the vista of the future all discern, however dimly, a new and great centre that must largely modify existingsea routes, as well as bring new ones into existence. Whether the canalof the Central American isthmus be eventually at Panama or at Nicaraguamatters little to the question now in hand, although, in common withmost Americans who have thought upon the subject, I believe it surelywill be at the latter point. Whichever it be, the convergence there ofso many ships from the Atlantic and the Pacific will constitute acentre of commerce, interoceanic, and inferior to few, if to any, inthe world; one whose approaches will be watched jealously, and whoserelations to the other centres of the Pacific by the lines joining itto them must be examined carefully. Such study of the commercial routesand of their relations to the Hawaiian Islands, taken together with theother strategic considerations previously set forth, completes thesynopsis of facts which determine the value of the group for conferringeither commercial or naval control. 

Referring again to the map, it will be seen that while the shortestroutes from the Isthmus to Australia and New Zealand, as well as thoseto South America, go well clear of any probable connection with orinterference from Hawaii, those directed toward China and Japan passeither through the group or in close proximity to it. Vessels fromCentral America bound to the ports of North America come, of course, within the influence of our own coast. These circumstances, and theexisting recognized distribution of political power in the Pacific, point naturally to an international acquiescence in certain definedspheres of influence, for our own country and for others, such as hasbeen reached already between Great Britain, Germany, and Holland in theSouthwestern Pacific, to avoid conflict there between their respectiveclaims. Though artificial in form, such a recognition, in the case heresuggested, would depend upon perfectly natural as well as indisputableconditions. The United States is by far the greatest, in numbers, interests, and power, of the communities bordering upon the easternshores of the North Pacific; and the relations of the Hawaiian Islandsto her naturally would be, and actually are, more numerous and moreimportant than they can be to any other state. This is true, although, unfortunately for the equally natural wishes of Great Britain and hercolonies, the direct routes from British Columbia to Eastern Australiaand New Zealand, which depend upon no building of a future canal, passas near the islands as those already mentioned. Such a fact, that thisadditional great highway runs close to the group, both augments andemphasizes their strategic importance; but it does not affect thestatement just made, that the interest of the United States in themsurpasses that of Great Britain, and dependent upon a natural cause, nearness, which has been admitted always as a reasonable ground fornational self-assertion. It is unfortunate, doubtless, for the wishesof British Columbia, and for the communications, commercial andmilitary, depending upon the Canadian Pacific Railway, that the UnitedStates lies between them and the South Pacific, and is the statenearest to Hawaii; but, the fact being so, the interests of oursixty-five million people, in a position so vital to our part in thePacific, must be allowed to outweigh those of the six millions ofCanada. 

From the foregoing considerations may be inferred the importance of theHawaiian Islands as a position powerfully influencing the commercialand military control of the Pacific, and especially of the NorthernPacific, in which the United States, geographically, has the strongestright to assert herself. These are the main advantages, which can betermed positive: those, namely, which directly advance commercialsecurity and naval control. To the negative advantages of possession, by removing conditions which, if the islands were in the hands of anyother power, would constitute to us disadvantages and threats, allusiononly will be made. The serious menace to our Pacific coast and ourPacific trade, if so important a position were held by a possibleenemy, has been mentioned frequently in the press, and dwelt upon inthe diplomatic papers which from time to time are given to the public. It may be assumed that it is generally acknowledged. Upon oneparticular, however, too much stress cannot be laid, one to which navalofficers cannot but be more sensitive than the general public, and thatis the immense disadvantage to us of any maritime enemy having acoaling-station well within twenty-five hundred miles, as this is, ofevery point of our coast-line from Puget Sound to Mexico. Were theremany others available, we might find it difficult to exclude from all. There is, however, but the one. Shut out from the Sandwich Islands as acoal base, an enemy is thrown back for supplies of fuel to distances ofthirty-five hundred or four thousand miles, --or between seven thousandand eight thousand, going and coming, --an impediment to sustainedmaritime operations well-nigh prohibitive. The coal-mines of BritishColumbia constitute, of course, a qualification to this statement; butupon them, if need arose, we might hope at least to impose sometrammels by action from the land side. It is rarely that so important afactor in the attack or defence of a coast-line--of a sea frontier--isconcentrated in a single position; and the circumstance renders doublyimperative upon us to secure it, if we righteously can. 

It is to be hoped, also, that the opportunity thus thrust upon us maynot be viewed narrowly, as though it concerned but one section of ourcountry or one portion of its external trade or influence. This is nomere question of a particular act, for which, possibly, just occasionmay not have offered yet; but of a principle, a policy, fruitful ofmany future acts, to enter upon which, in the fulness of our nationalprogress, the time now has arrived. The principle being accepted, to beconditioned only by a just and candid regard for the rights andreasonable susceptibilities of other nations, --none of which iscontravened by the step here immediately under discussion, --theannexation, even, of Hawaii would be no mere sporadic effort, irrational because disconnected from an adequate motive, but afirst-fruit and a token that the nation in its evolution has arouseditself to the necessity of carrying its life--that has been thehappiness of those under its influence--beyond the borders whichheretofore have sufficed for its activities. That the vaunted blessingsof our economy are not to be forced upon the unwilling may be conceded;but the concession does not deny the right nor the wisdom of gatheringin those who wish to come. Comparative religion teaches that creedswhich reject missionary enterprise are foredoomed to decay. May it notbe so with nations? Certainly the glorious record of England isconsequent mainly upon the spirit, and traceable to the time, when shelaunched out into the deep--without formulated policy, it is true, orforeseeing the future to which her star was leading, but obeying theinstinct which in the infancy of nations anticipates the more reasonedimpulses of experience. Let us, too, learn from her experience. Not allat once did England become the great sea power which she is, but stepby step, as opportunity offered, she has moved on to the world-widepre-eminence now held by English speech, and by institutions sprungfrom English germs. How much poorer would the world have been, hadEnglishmen heeded the cautious hesitancy that now bids us reject everyadvance beyond our shore-lines! And can any one doubt that a cordial, if unformulated, understanding between the two chief states of Englishtradition, to spread freely, without mutual jealousy and in mutualsupport, would increase greatly the world's sum of happiness?

But if a plea of the world's welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak fornational self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as theadequate motive which it assuredly is. Let us not shrink from pitting abroad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which somewould restrict us. The demands of our three great seaboards, theAtlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific, --each for itself, and all for thestrength that comes from drawing closer the ties between them, --arecalling for the extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broadsea common along which, and along which alone, in all the agesprosperity has moved. Land carriage, always restricted and thereforealways slow, toils enviously but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking toreplace and supplant the royal highway of nature's own making. Corporate interests, vigorous in that power of concentration which isthe strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for awhile the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimlyconscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed andbaffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelmall that stand in the way of its necessary progress. So the IsthmianCanal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet onethat cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policydependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly. Butbecause the precise steps that hereafter may be opportune or necessarycannot yet be foretold certainly, is not a reason the less, but areason the more, for establishing a principle of action which may serveto guide as opportunities arise. Let us start from the fundamentaltruth, warranted by history, that the control of the seas, andespecially along the great lines drawn by national interest or nationalcommerce, is the chief among the merely material elements in the powerand prosperity of nations. It is so because the sea is the world'sgreat medium of circulation. From this necessarily follows theprinciple that, as subsidiary to such control, it is imperative to takepossession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positionsas contribute to secure command. If this principle be adopted, therewill be no hesitation about taking the positions--and they aremany--upon the approaches to the Isthmus, whose interests incline themto seek us. It has its application also to the present case of Hawaii. 

There is, however, one caution to be given from the military point ofview, beyond the need of which the world has not yet passed. Militarypositions, fortified posts, by land or by sea, however strong oradmirably situated, do not confer control by themselves alone. Peopleoften say that such an island or harbor will give control of such abody of water. It is an utter, deplorable, ruinous mistake. The phraseindeed may be used by some only loosely, without forgetting otherimplied conditions of adequate protection and adequate navies; but theconfidence of our own nation in its native strength, and itsindifference to the defence of its ports and the sufficiency of itsfleet, give reason to fear that the full consequences of a forward stepmay not be weighed soberly. Napoleon, who knew better, once talked thisway. "The islands of San Pietro, Corfu, and Malta, " he wrote, "willmake us masters of the whole Mediterranean. " Vain boast! Within oneyear Corfu, in two years Malta, were rent away from the state thatcould not support them by its ships. Nay, more: had Bonaparte not takenthe latter stronghold out of the hands of its degenerate but innocuousgovernment, that citadel of the Mediterranean would perhaps--wouldprobably--never have passed into those of his chief enemy. There ishere also a lesson for us. 

It is by no means logical to leap, from this recognition of thenecessity of adequate naval force to secure outlying dependencies, tothe conclusion that the United States would need for that object a navyequal to the largest now existing. A nation as far removed as is ourown from the bases of foreign naval strength may reasonably reckon uponthe qualification that distance--not to speak of the complex Europeaninterests close at hand--impresses upon the exertion of naval strengthby European powers. The mistake is when our remoteness, unsupported bycarefully calculated force, is regarded as an armor of proof, undercover of which any amount of swagger may be indulged safely. Anestimate of what is an adequate naval force for our country mayproperly take into account the happy interval which separates both ourpresent territory and our future aspirations from the centres ofinterest really vital to European states. If to these safeguards beadded, on our part, a sober recognition of what our reasonable sphereof influence is, and a candid justice in dealing with foreign interestswithin that sphere, there will be little disposition to question ourpreponderance therein. 

Among all foreign states, it is especially to be hoped that eachpassing year may render more cordial the relations between ourselvesand the great nation from whose loins we sprang. The radical identityof spirit which underlies our superficial differences of polity surelywill draw us closer together, if we do not set our faces wilfullyagainst a tendency which would give our race the predominance over theseas of the world. To force such a consummation is impossible, and ifpossible would not be wise; but surely it would be a lofty aim, fraughtwith immeasurable benefits, to desire it, and to raise no needlessimpediments by advocating perfectly proper acts, demanded by ourevident interests, in offensive or arrogant terms. 

THE ISTHMUS AND SEA POWER. [1]

_June, 1898. _

For more than four hundred years the mind of man has been possessedwith a great idea, which, although by its wide diffusion and propheticnature resembling one of those fundamental instincts, whose veryexistence points to a necessary fulfilment, first quickened into lifein the thought of Christopher Columbus. To him the vision, dimly seenthrough the scanty and inaccurate knowledge of his age, imaged a closeand facile communication, by means of the sea, that great bond ofnations, between two ancient and diverse civilizations, which centred, the one around the Mediterranean, the birthplace of European commerce, refinement, and culture, the other upon the shores of that distantEastern Ocean which lapped the dominions of the Great Khan, and heldupon its breast the rich island of Zipangu. Hitherto an envious wasteof land, entailing years of toilsome and hazardous journey, had barredthem asunder. A rare traveller now and again might penetrate from oneto the other, but it was impossible to maintain by land the constantexchange of influence and benefit which, though on a contracted scale, had constituted the advantage and promoted the development of theMediterranean peoples. The microcosm of the land-girt sea typifiedthen that future greater family of nations, which one by one have beenbound since into a common tie of interest by the broad enfoldingocean, that severs only to knit them more closely together. So with aseer's eye, albeit as in a glass darkly; saw Columbus, and waspersuaded, and embraced the assurance. As the bold adventurer, walkingby faith and not by sight, launched his tiny squadron upon its voyage, making the first step in the great progress which was to be, and stillis not completed, he little dreamed that the mere incident ofstumbling upon an unknown region that lay across his route should bewith posterity his chief title to fame, obscuring the true glory ofhis grand conception, as well as delaying its fulfilment to a fardistant future. 

 [1] The Map of the Gulf and Caribbean, p. 31, will serve for geographical references of this article. 

The story of his actual achievement is sufficiently known to allreaders, and need not be repeated here. Amid the many disappointmentsand humiliations which succeeded the brief triumphant blaze of hisfirst return, and clouded the latter years of his life, Columbus wasspared the pang of realizing that the problem was insoluble for thetime. Like many a prophet before him, he knew not what, nor whatmanner of time, the spirit that was in him foretold, and died thehappier for his ignorance. The certainty that a wilderness, peopled bysavages and semi-barbarians, had been added to the known world, wouldhave been a poor awakening from the golden dreams of beneficent gloryas well as of profit which so long had beckoned him on. That thewestern land he had discovered interposed a barrier to the furtherprogress of ships towards his longed-for goal, as inexorable as themountain ranges and vast steppes of Asia, was mercifully concealedfrom his eyes; and the elusive "secret of the strait" through which heto the last hoped to pass, though tantalizing in its constant evasion, kept in tension the springs of hope and moral energy which might havesuccumbed under the knowledge of the truth. 

It fell to the great discoverer, in his last voyage, to approach thecontinent, and to examine its shores along the region where the truesecret of the strait lay hidden, --where, if ever, it shall pass from adream to a reality, by the hand of man. In the autumn of 1502, aftermany trials and misadventures, Columbus, having skirted the south sideof Cuba, reached the north coast of Honduras. There was little reason, except in his own unaccountable conviction, for continuing thence inone direction rather than in the other; but by some process of thoughthe had convinced himself that the sought-for strait lay to the southrather than to the north. He therefore turned to the eastward, thoughthe wind was contrary, and, after a hard buffet against it, doubledCape Gracias á Dios, which still retains its expressive name, significant of his relief at finding that the trend of the beach atlast permitted him to follow his desired course with a fair wind. During the next two months he searched the entire coast-line as far asPorto Bello, discovering and examining several openings in the landwhich since have been of historical importance, among others the mouthof the San Juan River and the Chiriqui Lagoon, one of whose principaldivisions still recalls his visit in its name, Almirante Bay, the Bayof the Admiral. A little beyond, to the eastward of Porto Bello, hecame to a point already known to the Spaniards, having been reachedfrom Trinidad. The explorer thus acquired the certainty that, from thelatter island to Yucatan, there was no break in the obdurate shorewhich barred his access to Asia. 

Every possible site for an interoceanic canal lies within the strip ofland thus visited by Columbus shortly before his death in 1504. Hownarrow the insurmountable obstacle, and how tantalizing, in theapparent facilities for piercing it extended by the formation of theland, were not known until ten years later, when Balboa, led on by thereports of the natives, reached the eminence whence he, first amongEuropeans, saw the South Sea, --a name long and vaguely applied to thePacific, because of the direction in which it lay from its discoverer. During these early years the history of the region we now know asCentral America was one of constant strife among the various Spanishleaders, encouraged rather than stifled by the jealous homegovernment; but it was also one of unbroken and venturesomeexploration, a healthier manifestation of the same restless and daringenergy that provoked their internal collisions. In January, 1522, oneGil Gonzalez started from Panama northward on the Pacific side, with afew frail barks, and in March discovered Lake Nicaragua, which has itsname from the cacique, Nicaragua, or Nicarao, whose town stood uponits shores. Five years later, another adventurer took his vessel topieces on the coast, transported it thus to the lake, and made thecircuit of the latter; discovering its outlet, the San Juan, just aquarter of a century after Columbus had visited the mouth of theriver. 

The conquest of Peru, and the gradual extension of Spanish dominationand settlements in Central America and along the shores of thePacific, soon bestowed upon the Isthmus an importance, vividlysuggestive of its rise into political prominence consequent upon theacquisition of California by the United States, and upon the spread ofthe latter along the Pacific coast. The length and severity of thevoyage round Cape Horn, then as now, impelled men to desire someshorter and less arduous route; and, inconvenient as the landtransport with its repeated lading and unlading was, it presentedbefore the days of steam the better alternative, as to some extent itstill does. So the Isthmus and its adjoining regions became a greatcentre of commerce, a point where many highways converged and whencethey parted; where the East and the West met in intercourse, sometimesfriendly, more often hostile. Thus was realized partially, though mostincompletely, the vision of Columbus; and thus, after manyfluctuations, and despite the immense expansion of these latter days, partial and incomplete his great conception yet remains. The secret ofthe strait is still the problem and the reproach of mankind. 

By whatever causes produced, where such a centre of commerce exists, there always will be found a point of general interest to mankind, --toall, at least, of those peoples who, whether directly commercial ornot, share in the wide-spreading benefits and inconveniences arisingfrom the fluctuations of trade. But enterprising commercial countriesare not content to be mere passive recipients of these diverseinfluences. By the very characteristics which make them what they are, they are led perforce to desire, and to aim at, control of thesedecisive regions; for their tenure, like the key of a militaryposition, exerts a vital effect upon the course of trade, and so uponthe struggle, not only for bare existence, but for that increase ofwealth, of prosperity, and of general consideration, which affect boththe happiness and the dignity of nations. Consequently, in every age, according to its particular temperament and circumstances, there willbe found manifested this desire for control; sometimes latent in anattitude of simple watchfulness; sometimes starting into vivid actionunder the impulse of national jealousies, and issuing in diplomaticrivalries or hostile encounter. 

Such, accordingly, has been the history of the Central AmericanIsthmus since the time when it became recognized as the naturalcentre, towards which, if not thwarted by adverse influences, thecurrent of intercourse between East and West inevitably must tend. Here the direction of least resistance was indicated clearly bynature; and a concurrence of circumstances, partly inherent in thegeneral character of the region, partly adventitious or accidental, contributed at an early date, and until very recently, to emphasizeand enlarge the importance consequent upon the geographical situationand physical conformation of this narrow barrier between two greatseas. For centuries the West India Islands, circling the Caribbean, and guarding the exterior approaches to the Isthmus, continued to bethe greatest single source of tropical products which had becomeincreasingly necessary to the civilized nations of Europe. In them, and in that portion of the continent which extended on either side ofthe Isthmus, known under the vague appellation of the Spanish Main, Great Britain, during her desperate strife with the first Napoleon, --astrife for very existence, --found the chief support of the commercialstrength and credit that alone carried her to the triumphant end. TheIsthmus and the Caribbean were vital elements in determining the issueof that stern conflict. For centuries, also, the treasures of Mexicoand Peru, upon which depended the vigorous action of the great thoughdecadent military kingdom of Spain, flowed towards and accumulatedaround the Isthmus, where they were reinforced by the tribute of thePhilippine Islands, and whence they took their way in the lumberinggalleons for the ports of the Peninsula. Where factors of suchdecisive influence in European politics were at stake, it wasinevitable that the rival nations, in peace as well as in open war, should carry their ambitions to the scene; and the unceasing strugglefor the mastery would fluctuate with the control of the waters, which, as in all maritime regions, must depend mainly upon navalpreponderance, but also in part upon possession of those determiningpositions, of whose tenure Napoleon said that "war is a business ofpositions. " Among these the Isthmus was chief. 

The wild enterprises and bloody cruelties of the early buccaneers weretherefore not merely a brutal exhibition of unpitying greed, indicative of the scum of nations as yet barely emerging frombarbarism. They were this, doubtless, but they were something more. Inthe march of events, these early marauders played the same part, inrelation to what was to succeed them, as the rude, unscrupulous, lawless adventurers who now precede the ruthless march of civilizedman, who swarm over the border, occupy the outposts, and by theirexcesses stain the fair fame of the race whose pioneers they are. But, while thus libels upon and reproaches to the main body, theynevertheless belong to it, share its essential character, and foretellits inevitable course. Like driftwood swept forward on the crest of atorrent, they betoken the approaching flood. So with the celebratedfreebooters of the Spanish Main. Of the same general type, --thoughvarying greatly in individual characteristics, in breadth of view, andeven in elevation of purpose, --their piratical careers not onlyevidenced the local wealth of the scene of their exploits, butattested the commercial and strategic importance of the position uponwhich in fact that wealth depended. The carcass was there, and theeagles as well as the vultures, the far-sighted as well as the merecarrion birds of prey, were gathering round it. "The spoil ofGranada, " said one of these mercenary chieftains, two centuries ago, "I count as naught beside the knowledge of the great Lake Nicaragua, and of the route between the Northern and Southern seas which dependsupon it. "

As time passed, the struggle for the mastery inevitably resulted, by akind of natural selection, in the growing predominance of the peopleof the British Islands, in whom commercial enterprise and politicalinstinct were blended so happily. The very lawlessness of the periodfavored the extension of their power and influence; for it removedfrom the free play of a nation's innate faculties the fetters whichare imposed by our present elaborate framework of precedents, constitutions, and international law. Admirably adapted as these areto the conservation and regular working of a political system, theyare, nevertheless, however wise, essentially artificial, and hence areill adapted to a transition state, --to a period in which order isevolving out of chaos, where the result is durable exactly inproportion to the freedom with which the natural forces are allowed toact, and to reach their own equilibrium without extraneousinterference. Nor are such periods confined to the early days of merelawlessness. They recur whenever a crisis is reached in the career ofa nation; when old traditions, accepted maxims, or writtenconstitutions have been outgrown, in whole or in part; when the timehas come for a people to recognize that the limits imposed upon itsexpansion, by the political wisdom of its forefathers, have ceased tobe applicable to its own changed conditions and those of the world. The question then raised is not whether the constitution, as written, shall be respected. It is how to reach modifications in theconstitution--and that betimes--so that the genius and awakenedintelligence of the people may be free to act, without violating thatrespect for its fundamental law upon which national stabilityultimately depends. It is a curious feature of our current journalismthat it is clear-sighted and prompt to see the unfortunate trammels inwhich certain of our religious bodies are held, by the cast-irontenets imposed upon them by a past generation, while at the same timepolitical tenets, similarly ancient, and imposed with a like ignoranceof a future which is our present, are invoked freely to forbid thisnation from extending its power and necessary enterprise into andbeyond the seas, to which on every side it now has attained. 

During the critical centuries when Great Britain was passing throughthat protracted phase of her history in which, from one of the leastamong states, she became, through the power of the sea, the verykeystone and foundation upon which rested the commercial--for a timeeven the political--fabric of Europe, the free action of her statesmenand people was clogged by no uneasy sense that the national genius wasin conflict with artificial, self-imposed restrictions. She plungedinto the brawl of nations that followed the discovery of a new world, of an unoccupied if not unclaimed inheritance, with a vigor and aninitiative which gained ever-accelerated momentum and power as theyears rolled by. Far and wide, in every sea, through every clime, herseamen and her colonists spread; but while their political genius andtraditions enabled them, in regions adapted to the physical well-beingof the race, to found self-governing colonies which have developedinto one of the greatest, of free states, they did not find, and neverhave found, that the possession of and rule over barbarous, orsemi-civilized, or inert tropical communities, were inconsistent withthe maintenance of political liberty in the mother country. The sturdyvigor of the broad principle of freedom in the national life isattested sufficiently by centuries of steady growth, that surestevidence of robust vitality. But, while conforming in the long run tothe dictates of natural justice, no feeble scrupulosity impeded thenation's advance to power, by which alone its mission and the law ofits being could be fulfilled. No artificial fetters were forged tocramp the action of the state, nor was it drugged with politicalnarcotics to dwarf its growth. 

In the region here immediately under consideration, Great Britainentered the contest under conditions of serious disadvantage. Theglorious burst of maritime and colonial enterprise which marked thereign of Elizabeth, as the new era dawned when the country recognizedthe sphere of its true greatness, was confronted by the full power ofSpain, as yet outwardly unshaken, in actual tenure of the mostimportant positions in the Caribbean and the Spanish Main, andclaiming the right to exclude all others from that quarter of theworld. How brilliantly this claim was resisted is well known; yet, hadthey been then in fashion, there might have been urged, to turnEngland from the path which has made her what she is, the samearguments that now are freely used to deter our own country from evenaccepting such advantages as are ready to drop into her lap. If it betrue that Great Britain's maritime policy now is imposed to someextent by the present necessities of the little group of islands whichform the nucleus of her strength, it is not true that any suchnecessities first impelled her to claim her share of influence in theworld, her part in the great drama of nations. Not for such reasonsdid she launch out upon the career which is perhaps the noblest yetrun by any people. It then could have been said to her, as it now issaid to us, "Why go beyond your own borders? Within them you have whatsuffices for your needs and those of your population. There aremanifold abuses within to be corrected, manifold miseries to berelieved. Let the outside world take care of itself. Defend yourself, if attacked; being, however, always careful to postpone preparation tothe extreme limit of imprudence. 'Sphere of influence, ' 'part in theworld, ' 'national prestige, '--there are no such things; or if therebe, they are not worth fighting for. " What England would have been, had she so reasoned, is matter for speculation; that the world wouldhave been poorer may be confidently affirmed. 

As the strength of Spain waned apace during the first half of theseventeenth century, the external efforts of Great Britain alsoslackened through the rise of internal troubles, which culminated inthe Great Rebellion, and absorbed for the time all the energies of thepeople. The momentum acquired under Drake, Raleigh, and theirassociates was lost, and an occasion, opportune through the exhaustionof the great enemy, Spain, passed unimproved. But, though thustemporarily checked, the national tendency remained, and quicklyresumed its sway when Cromwell's mighty hand had composed thedisorders of the Commonwealth. His clear-sighted statesmanship, aswell as the immediate necessities of his internal policy, dictated thestrenuous assertion by sea of Great Britain's claims, not only toexternal respect, which he rigorously exacted, but also to her dueshare in influencing the world outside her borders. The nation quicklyresponded to his proud appeal, and received anew the impulse upon theroad to sea power which never since has been relaxed. To him were duethe measures--not, perhaps, economically the wisest, judged by modernlights, but more than justified by the conditions of his times--whichdrew into English hands the carrying trade of the world. The gloriesof the British navy as an organized force date also from his shortrule; and it was he who, in 1655, laid a firm basis for thedevelopment of the country's sea power in the Caribbean, by theconquest of Jamaica, from a military standpoint the most decisive ofall single positions in that sea for the control of the Isthmus. It istrue that the successful attempt upon this island resulted from thefailure of the leaders to accomplish Cromwell's more immediate purposeof reducing Santo Domingo, --that in so far the particular fortunateissue was of the nature of an accident; but this fact serves only toillustrate more emphatically that, when a general line of policy, whether military or political, is correctly chosen upon soundprinciples, incidental misfortunes or disappointments do not frustratethe conception. The sagacious, far-seeing motive, which promptedCromwell's movement against the West Indian possessions of Spain, wasto contest the latter's claim to the monopoly of that wealthy region;and he looked upon British extension in the islands as simply astepping-stone to control upon the adjacent continent. It is asingular commentary upon the blindness of historians to the truesecret of Great Britain's rise among the nations, and of the eminentposition she so long has held, that writers so far removed from eachother in time and characteristics as Hume and the late J. R. Greenshould detect in this far-reaching effort of the Protector, only thedulled vision of "a conservative and unspeculative temper misled bythe strength of religious enthusiasm. " "A statesman of wise politicalgenius, " according to them, would have fastened his eyes rather uponthe growing power of France, "and discerned the beginning of thatgreat struggle for supremacy" which was fought out under Louis XIV. But to do so would have been only to repeat, by anticipation, thefatal error of that great monarch, which forever forfeited for Francethe control of the seas, in which the surest prosperity of nations isto be found; a mistake, also, far more ruinous to the island kingdomthan it was to her continental rival, bitter though the fruits thereofhave been to the latter. Hallam, with clearer insight, says: "WhenCromwell declared against Spain, and attacked her West Indianpossessions, there was little pretence, certainly, of justice, but notby any means, as I conceive, the impolicy sometimes charged againsthim. So auspicious was his star, that the very failure of thatexpedition obtained a more advantageous possession for England thanall the triumphs of her former kings. " Most true; but because his starwas despatched in the right direction to look for fortune, --by sea, not by land. 

The great aim of the Protector was checked by his untimely death, which perhaps also definitely frustrated a fulfilment, in the actualpossession of the Isthmus, that in his strong hands might have beenfeasible. His idea, however, remained prominent among the purposes ofthe English people, as distinguished from their rulers; and in it, ashas been said before, is to be recognized the significance of theexploits of the buccaneers, during the period of external debilitywhich characterized the reigns of the second Charles and James. WithWilliam of Orange the government again placed itself at the head ofthe national aspirations, as their natural leader; and the irregularoperations of the freebooters were merged in a settled nationalpolicy. This, although for a moment diverted from its course bytemporary exigencies, was clearly formulated in the avowed objectswith which, in 1702, the wise Dutchman entered upon the War of theSpanish Succession, the last great act of his political life. From thePeace of Utrecht, which closed this war in 1713, the same design waspursued with ever-increasing intensity, but with steady success, andwith it was gradually associated the idea of controlling also thecommunication between the two oceans by way of the Isthmus. The bestknown instance of this, because of its connection with the great nameof Nelson, was the effort made by him, in conjunction with a landforce, in 1780, when still a simple captain, to take possession of thecourse of the San Juan River, and so of the interoceanic route throughLake Nicaragua. The attempt ended disastrously, owing partly to theclimate, and partly to the strong series of works, numbering no lessthan twelve, which the Spaniards, duly sensible of the importance ofthe position, had constructed between the lake and the sea. 

Difficulties such as were encountered by Nelson withstood GreatBritain's advance throughout this region. While neither blind norindifferent to the advantages conferred by actual possession, throughwhich she had profited elsewhere abundantly, the prior andlong-established occupation by Spain prevented her obtaining by suchmeans the control she ardently coveted, and in great measure reallyexercised. The ascendency which made her, and still makes her, thedominant factor in the political system of the West Indies and theIsthmus resulted from her sea power, understood in its broadest sense. She was the great trader, source of supplies, and medium ofintercourse between the various colonies themselves, and from them tothe outer world; while the capital and shipping employed in thistraffic were protected by a powerful navy, which, except on very rareoccasions, was fully competent to its work. Thus, while unable toutilize and direct the resources of the countries, as she could havedone had they been her own property, she secured the fruitful use andreaped the profit of such commercial transactions as were possibleunder the inert and narrow rule of the Spaniards. The fact isinstructive, for the conditions to-day are substantially the same asthose of a century ago. Possession still vests in states and raceswhich have not attained yet the faculty of developing by themselvesthe advantages conferred by nature; and control will abide still withthose whose ships, whose capital, whose traders support the industrialsystem of the region, provided these are backed by a naval forceadequate to the demands of the military situation, rightly understood. To any foreign state, control at the Central American Isthmus meansnaval control, naval predominance, to which tenure of the land is atbest but a convenient incident. 

Such, in brief, was the general tendency of events until the time whenthe Spanish colonial empire began to break up, in 1808-10, and theindustrial system of the West India islands to succumb under theapproaching abolition of slavery. The concurrence of these twodecisive incidents, and the confusion which ensued in the politicaland economical conditions, rapidly reduced the Isthmus and itsapproaches to an insignificance from which the islands have not yetrecovered. The Isthmus is partially restored. Its importance, however, depends upon causes more permanent, in the natural order of things, than does that of the islands, which, under existing circumstances, and under any circumstances that can be foreseen as yet, derive theirconsequence chiefly from the effect which may be exerted from themupon the tenure of the Isthmus. Hence the latter, after a period ofcomparative obscurity, again emerged into notice as a vital politicalfactor, when the spread of the United States to the Pacific raised thequestion of rapid and secure communication between our two greatseaboards. The Mexican War, the acquisition of California, thediscovery of gold, and the mad rush to the diggings which followed, hastened, but by no means originated, the necessity for a settlementof the intricate problems involved, in which the United States, fromits positions on the two seas, has the predominant interest. But, though predominant, ours is not the sole interest; though less vital, those of other foreign states are great and consequential; and, accordingly, no settlement can be considered to constitute anequilibrium, much less a finality, which does not effect ourpreponderating influence, and at the same time insure the naturalrights of other peoples. So far as the logical distinction betweencommercial and political will hold, it may be said that our interestis both commercial and political, that of other states almost whollycommercial. 

The same national characteristics that of old made Great Britain thechief contestant in all questions of maritime importance--with theDutch in the Mediterranean, with France in the East Indies, and withSpain in the West--have made her also the exponent of foreignopposition to our own asserted interest in the Isthmus. The policyinitiated by Cromwell, of systematic aggression in the Caribbean, andof naval expansion and organization, has resulted in a combination ofnaval force with naval positions unequalled, though not whollyunrivalled, in that sea. And since, as the great sea carrier, GreatBritain has a preponderating natural interest in every new route opento commerce, it is inevitable that she should scrutinize jealouslyevery proposition for the modification of existing arrangements, conscious as she is of power to assert her claims, in case thequestion should be submitted to the last appeal. 

Nevertheless, although from the nature of the occupations whichconstitute the welfare of her people, as well as from thecharacteristics of her power, Great Britain seemingly has the largerimmediate stake in a prospective interoceanic canal, it has beenrecognized tacitly on her part, as on our side openly asserted, thatthe bearing of all questions of Isthmian transit upon our nationalprogress, safety, and honor, is more direct and more urgent than uponhers. That she has felt so is plain from the manner in which she hasyielded before our tenacious remonstrances, in cases where the controlof the Isthmus was evidently the object of her action, --as in thematters of the tenure of the Bay Islands and of the protectorate ofthe Mosquito Coast. Our superior interest appears also from the natureof the conditions which will follow from the construction of a canal. So far as these changes are purely commercial, they will operate tosome extent to the disadvantage of Great Britain; because the resultwill be to bring our Atlantic seaboard, the frontier of a rivalmanufacturing and commercial state, much nearer to the Pacific than itnow is, and nearer to many points of that ocean than is England. Tomake a rough general statement, easily grasped by a reader without themap before him, Liverpool and New York are at present aboutequidistant, by water, from all points on the west coast of America, from Valparaiso to British Columbia. This is due to the fact that, togo through the Straits of Magellan, vessels from both ports must passnear Cape St. Roque, on the east coast of Brazil, which is nearly thesame distance from each. If the Nicaragua Canal existed, the line onthe Pacific equidistant from the two cities named would pass, roughly, by Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, or along the coastsof Japan, China, and eastern Australia, --Liverpool, in this case, using the Suez Canal, and New York that of Nicaragua. In short, theline of equidistance would be shifted from the eastern shore of thePacific to its western coast, and all points of that ocean east ofJapan, China, and Australia--for example, the Hawaiian Islands--wouldbe nearer to New York than to Liverpool. 

A recent British writer has calculated that about one-eighth of theexisting trade of the British Islands would be affected unfavorably bythe competition thus introduced. But this result, though a matter ofnational concern, is political only in so far as commercial prosperityor adversity modifies a nation's current history; that is, indirectly. The principal questions affecting the integrity or security of theBritish Empire are not involved seriously, for almost all of itscomponent parts lie within the regions whose mutual bond of union andshortest line of approach are the Suez Canal. Nowhere has GreatBritain so little territory at stake, nowhere has she such scantypossessions, as in the eastern Pacific, upon whose relations to theworld at large, and to ourselves in particular, the Isthmian Canalwill exert the greatest influence. 

The chief political result of the Isthmian Canal will be to bring ourPacific coast nearer, not only to our Atlantic seaboard, but also tothe great navies of Europe. Therefore, while the commercial gain, through an uninterrupted water carriage, will be large, and is clearlyindicated by the acrimony with which a leading journal, apparently inthe interest of the great transcontinental roads, has latelymaintained the singular assertion that water transit is obsolete ascompared with land carriage, it is still true that the canal willpresent an element of much weakness from the military point of view. Except to those optimists whose robust faith in the regeneration ofhuman nature rejects war as an impossible contingency, thisconsideration must occasion serious thought concerning the policy tobe adopted by the United States. 

The subject, so far, has given rise only to diplomatic arrangement anddiscussion, within which it is permissible to hope it always may beconfined; but the misunderstandings and protracted disputes thatfollowed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and the dissatisfaction with theexisting status that still obtains among many of our people, givewarning that our steps, as a nation, should be governed by somesettled notions, too universally held to be set aside by a mere changeof administration or caprice of popular will. Reasonable discussion, which tends, either by its truth or by its evident errors, to clarifyand crystallize public opinion on so important a matter, never can beamiss. 

This question, from an abstract, speculative phase of the MonroeDoctrine, took on the concrete and somewhat urgent form of securityfor our trans-Isthmian routes against foreign interference towards themiddle of this century, when the attempt to settle it was made by theoft-mentioned Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, signed April 19, 1850. GreatBritain was found then to be in possession, actual or constructive, ofcertain continental positions, and of some outlying islands, whichwould contribute not only to military control, but to that kind ofpolitical interference which experience has shown to be the naturalconsequence of the proximity of a strong power to a weak one. Thesepositions depended upon, indeed their tenure originated in, thepossession of Jamaica, thus justifying Cromwell's forecast. Of them, the Belize, a strip of coast two hundred miles long, on the Bay ofHonduras, immediately south of Yucatan, was so far from the Isthmusproper, and so little likely to affect the canal question, that theAmerican negotiator was satisfied to allow its tenure to passunquestioned, neither admitting nor denying anything as to the rightsof Great Britain thereto. Its first occupation had been by Britishfreebooters, who "squatted" there a very few years after Jamaica fell. They went to cut logwood, succeeded in holding their ground againstthe efforts of Spain to dislodge them, and their right to occupancyand to fell timber was allowed afterwards by treaty. Since thesignature of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, this "settlement, " as it wasstyled in that instrument, has become a British "possession, " by aconvention with Guatemala contracted in 1859. Later, in 1862, thequondam "settlement" and recent "possession" was erected, by royalcommission, into a full colony, subordinate to the government ofJamaica. Guatemala being a Central American state, this constituted adistinct advance of British dominion in Central America, contrary tothe terms of our treaty. 

A more important claim of Great Britain was to the protectorate of theMosquito Coast, --a strip understood by her to extend from Cape Graciasá Dios south to the San Juan River. In its origin, this asserted rightdiffered little from similar transactions between civilized man andsavages, in all times and all places. In 1687, thirty years after theisland was acquired, a chief of the aborigines there settled wascarried to Jamaica, received some paltry presents, and acceptedBritish protection. While Spanish control lasted, a certain amount ofsquabbling and fighting went on between the two nations; but when thequestions arose between England and the United States, the latterrefused to acquiesce in the so-called protectorate, which rested, inher opinion, upon no sufficient legal ground as against the priorright of Spain, that was held to have passed to Nicaragua when thelatter achieved its independence. The Mosquito Coast was too close tothe expected canal for its tenure to be considered a matter ofindifference. Similar ground was taken with regard to the Bay Islands, Ruatan and others, stretching along the south side of the Bay ofHonduras, near the coast of the republic of that name, and so uniting, under the control of the great naval power, the Belize to the MosquitoCoast. The United States maintained that these islands, then occupiedby Great Britain, belonged in full right to Honduras. 

Under these _de facto_ conditions of British occupation, the UnitedStates negotiator, in his eagerness to obtain the recession of thedisputed points to the Spanish-American republics, seems to have paidtoo little regard to future bearings of the subject. Men's minds alsowere dominated then, as they are now notwithstanding the interveningexperience of nearly half a century, by the maxims delivered as atradition by the founders of the republic who deprecated annexationsof territory abroad. The upshot was that, in consideration of GreatBritain's withdrawal from Mosquitia and the Bay Islands, to which, byour contention, she had no right, and therefore really yielded nothingbut a dispute, we bound ourselves, as did she, without term, toacquire no territory in Central America, and to guarantee theneutrality not only of the contemplated canal, but of any other thatmight be constructed. A special article, the eighth, was incorporatedin the treaty to this effect, stating expressly that the wish of thetwo governments was "not only to accomplish a particular object, butto establish a general principle. "

Considerable delay ensued in the restoration of the islands and of theMosquito Coast to Honduras and Nicaragua, --a delay attended withprolonged discussion and serious misunderstanding between the UnitedStates and Great Britain. The latter claimed that, by the wording ofthe treaty, she had debarred herself only from future acquisitions ofterritory in Central America; whereas our government asserted, andpersistently instructed its agents, that its understanding had beenthat an entire abandonment of all possession, present and future, wassecured by the agreement. It is difficult, in reading the firstarticle, not to feel that, although the practice may have been perhapssomewhat sharp, the wording can sustain the British position quite aswell as the more ingenuous confidence of the United States negotiator;an observation interesting chiefly as showing the eagerness on the oneside, whose contention was the weaker in all save right, and thewariness on the other, upon whom present possession and naval powerconferred a marked advantage in making a bargain. By 1860, however, the restorations had been made, and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty sincethen has remained the international agreement, defining our relationsto Great Britain on the Isthmus. 

Of the subsequent wrangling over this unfortunate treaty, if soinvidious a term may be applied to the dignified utterances ofdiplomacy, it is unnecessary to give a detailed account. Our owncountry cannot but regret and resent any formal stipulations whichfetter its primacy of influence and control on the American continentand in American seas; and the concessions of principle over-eagerlymade in 1850, in order to gain compensating advantages which ourweakness could not extort otherwise, must needs cause us to chafe now, when we are potentially, though, it must be confessed sorrowfully, notactually, stronger by double than we were then. The interest of GreatBritain still lies, as it then lay, in the maintenance of the treaty. So long as the United States jealously resents all foreigninterference in the Isthmus, and at the same time takes no steps toformulate a policy or develop a strength that can give shape and forceto her own pretensions, just so long will the absolute control overany probable contingency of the future rest with Great Britain, byvirtue of her naval positions, her naval power, and her omnipresentcapital. 

A recent unofficial British estimate of the British policy at theIsthmus, as summarized in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, may here haveinterest: "In the United States was recognized a coming formidablerival to British trade. In the face of the estimated disadvantage toEuropean trade in general, and that of Great Britain in particular, tobe looked for from a Central American canal, British statesmen, finding their last attempt to control the most feasible route (byNicaragua) abortive, accomplished the next best object in the interestof British trade. They cast the onus of building the canal on thepeople who would reap the greatest advantage from it, and who werebound to keep every one else out, but were at the same time veryunlikely to undertake such a gigantic enterprise outside their ownundeveloped territories for many a long year; while at the same timethey skilfully handicapped that country in favor of British sea powerby entering into a joint guarantee to respect its neutrality whenbuilt. This secured postponement of construction indefinitely, and yetforfeited no substantial advantage necessary to establish effectivenaval control in the interests of British carrying trade. "

Whether this passage truly represents the deliberate purpose ofsuccessive British governments may be doubtful, but it is an accurateenough estimate of the substantial result, as long as our policycontinues to be to talk loud and to do nothing, --to keep others out, while refusing ourselves to go in. We neutralize effectually enough, doubtless; for we neutralize ourselves while leaving other powers toact efficiently whenever it becomes worth while. 

In a state like our own, national policy means public conviction, elseit is but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. But publicconviction is a very different thing from popular impression, differing by all that separates a rational process, resulting in manlyresolve, from a weakly sentiment that finds occasional hystericalutterance. The Monroe Doctrine, as popularly apprehended and indorsed, is a rather nebulous generality, which has condensed about the Isthmusinto a faint point of more defined luminosity. To those who willregard, it is the harbinger of the day, incompletely seen in thevision of the great discoverer, when the East and the West shall bebrought into closer communion by the realization of the strait thatbaffled his eager search. But, with the strait, time has introduced afactor of which he could not dream, --a great nation midway between theWest he knew and the East he sought, spanning the continent heunwittingly found, itself both East and West in one. To such a state, which in itself sums up the two conditions of Columbus's problem; towhich the control of the strait is a necessity, if not of existence, at least of its full development and of its national security, who candeny the right to predominate in influence over a region so vital toit? None can deny save its own people; and they do it, --not in words, perhaps, but in act. For let it not be forgotten that failure to actat an opportune moment is action as real as, though less creditablethan, the most strenuous positive effort. 

Action, however, to be consistent and well proportioned, must dependupon well-settled conviction; and conviction, if it is to bereasonable, and to find expression in a sound and continuous nationalpolicy, must result from a careful consideration of present conditionsin the light of past experiences. Here, unquestionably, strongdifferences of opinion will be manifested at first, both as to thetrue significance of the lessons of the past, and the manner ofapplying them to the present. Such differences need not cause regret. Their appearance is a sign of attention aroused; and when discussionhas become general and animated, we may hope to see the gradualemergence of a sound and operative public sentiment. What is to bedeprecated and feared is indolent drifting, in wilful blindness to theapproaching moment when action must be taken; careless delay to removefetters, if such there be in the Constitution or in traditionalprejudice, which may prevent our seizing opportunity when it occurs. Whatever be the particular merits of the pending Hawaiian question, itscarcely can be denied that its discussion has revealed the existence, real or fancied, of such clogs upon our action, and of a painfuldisposition to consider each such occurrence as merely an isolatedevent, instead of being, as it is, a warning that the time has comewhen we must make up our minds upon a broad issue of national policy. That there should be two opinions is not bad, but it is very bad tohalt long between them. 

There is one opinion--which it is needless to say the writer does notshare--that, because many years have gone by without armed collisionwith a great power, the teaching of the past is that none such canoccur; and that, in fact, the weaker we are in organized militarystrength, the more easy it is for our opponents to yield our points. Closely associated with this view is the obstinate rejection of anypolitical action which involves implicitly the projection of ourphysical power, if needed, beyond the waters that gird our shores. Because our reasonable, natural--it might almost be calledmoral--claim to preponderant influence at the Isthmus heretofore hascompelled respect, though reluctantly conceded, it is assumed that nocircumstances can give rise to a persistent denial of it. 

It appears to the writer--and to many others with whom he agrees, though without claim to represent them--that the true state of thecase is more nearly as follows: Since our nation came into being, acentury ago, with the exception of a brief agitation about the year1850, --due to special causes, which, though suggestive, were notadequate, and summarized as to results in the paralyzingClayton-Bulwer Treaty, --the importance of the Central American Isthmushas been merely potential and dormant. But, while thus temporarilyobscured, its intrinsic conditions of position and conformation bestowupon it a consequence in relation to the rest of the world which isinalienable, and therefore, to become operative, only awaits thosechanges in external conditions that must come in the fulness of time. The indications of such changes are already sufficiently visible tochallenge attention. The rapid peopling of our territory entails atleast two. The growth of the Pacific States enhances the commercialand political importance of the Pacific Ocean to the world at large, and to ourselves in particular; while the productive energies of thecountry, and its advent to the three seas, impel it necessarily toseek outlet by them and access to the regions beyond. Under suchconditions, perhaps not yet come, but plainly coming, the consequenceof an artificial waterway that shall enable the Atlantic coast tocompete with Europe, on equal terms as to distance, for the markets ofeastern Asia, and shall shorten by two-thirds the sea route from NewYork to San Francisco, and by one-half that to Valparaiso, is tooevident for insistence. 

In these conditions, not in European necessities, is to be found theassurance that the canal will be made. Not to ourselves only, however, though to ourselves chiefly, will it be a matter of interest whencompleted. Many causes will combine to retain in the line of the SuezCanal the commerce of Europe with the East; but to the American shoresof the Pacific the Isthmian canal will afford a much shorter andeasier access for a trade already of noteworthy proportions. A weightyconsideration also is involved in the effect upon British navigationof a war which should endanger its use of the Suez Canal. The power ofGreat Britain to control the long route from Gibraltar to the Red Seais seriously doubted by a large and thoughtful body of her statesmenand seamen, who favor dependence, in war, upon that by the Cape ofGood Hope. By Nicaragua, however, would be shorter than by the Cape tomany parts of the East; and the Caribbean can be safeguarded againstdistant European states much more easily than the line through theMediterranean, which passes close by their ports. 

Under this increased importance of the Isthmus, we cannot safelyanticipate for the future the cheap acquiescence which, under verydifferent circumstances, has been yielded in the past to our demands. Already it is notorious that European powers are betraying symptoms ofincreased sensitiveness as to the value of Caribbean positions, andare strengthening their grip upon those they now hold. Moralconsiderations undoubtedly count for more than they did, and nationsare more reluctant to enter into war; but still, the policy of statesis determined by the balance of advantages, and it behooves us to knowwhat our policy is to be, and what advantages are needed to turn inour favor the scale of negotiations and the general current of events. 

If the decision of the nation, following one school of thought, isthat the weaker we are the more likely we are to have our way, thereis little to be said. Drifting is perhaps as good a mode as another toreach that desirable goal. If, on the other hand, we determine thatour interest and dignity require that our rights should depend uponthe will of no other state, but upon our own power to enforce them, wemust gird ourselves to admit that freedom of interoceanic transitdepends upon predominance in a maritime region--the CaribbeanSea--through which pass all the approaches to the Isthmus. Control ofa maritime region is insured primarily by a navy; secondarily, bypositions, suitably chosen and spaced one from the other, upon whichas bases the navy rests, and from which it can exert its strength. Atpresent the positions of the Caribbean are occupied by foreign powers, nor may we, however disposed to acquisition, obtain them by meansother than righteous; but a distinct advance will have been made whenpublic opinion is convinced that we need them, and should not exertour utmost ingenuity to dodge them when flung at our head. If theConstitution really imposes difficulties, it provides also a way bywhich the people, if convinced, can remove its obstructions. Aprotest, however, may be entered against a construction of theConstitution which is liberal, by embracing all it can be constrainedto imply, and then immediately becomes strict in imposing theseingeniously contrived fetters. 

Meanwhile no moral obligation forbids developing our navy upon linesand proportions adequate to the work it may be called upon to do. Here, again, the crippling force is a public impression, which limitsour potential strength to the necessities of an imperfectly realizedsituation. A navy "for defence only" is a popular catchword. When, ifever, people recognize that we have three seaboards, that thecommunication by water of one of them with the other two will dependin a not remote future upon a strategic position hundreds of milesdistant from our nearest port, --the mouth of the Mississippi, --theywill see also that the word "defence, " already too narrowlyunderstood, has its application at points far away from our own coast. 

That the organization of military strength involves provocation to waris a fallacy, which the experience of each succeeding year nowrefutes. The immense armaments of Europe are onerous; butnevertheless, by the mutual respect and caution they enforce, theypresent a cheap alternative, certainly in misery, probably in money, to the frequent devastating wars which preceded the era of generalmilitary preparation. Our own impunity has resulted, not from ourweakness, but from the unimportance to our rivals of the points indispute, compared with their more immediate interests at home. Withthe changes consequent upon the canal, this indifference willdiminish. We also shall be entangled in the affairs of the greatfamily of nations, and shall have to accept the attendant burdens. Fortunately, as regards other states, we are an island power, and canfind our best precedents in the history of the people to whom the seahas been a nursing mother. 

POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN REUNION. 

_July, 1894. _

 [The following article was requested by the Editor of the "North American Review, " as one of a number, by several persons, dealing with the question of a formal political connection, proposed by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, between the United States and the British Empire, for the advancement of the general interests of the English-speaking peoples. The projects advocated by previous writers embraced: 1, a federate union; 2, a merely naval union or alliance; or, 3, a defensive alliance of a kind frequent in political history. ]

The words "kinship" and "alliance" express two radically distinctideas, and rest, for both the privileges and the obligations involvedin them, upon foundations essentially different. The former representsa natural relation, the latter one purely conventional, --even thoughit may result from the feelings, the mutual interests, and the senseof incumbent duty attendant upon the other. In its very etymology, accordingly, is found implied that sense of constraint, of anartificial bond, that may prove a source, not only of strength, but ofirksomeness as well. Its analogue in our social conditions is themarriage tie, --the strongest, doubtless, of all bonds when it realizesin the particular case the supreme affection of which our human natureis capable; but likewise, as daily experience shows, the most frettingwhen, through original mistake or unworthy motive, love fails, andobligation alone remains. 

Personally, I am happy to believe that the gradual but, as I think, unmistakable growth of mutual kindly feelings between Great Britainand the United States during these latter years--and of which therecent articles of Sir George Clarke and Mr. Arthur Silva White in the"North American Review" are pleasant indications--is a sure evidencethat a common tongue and common descent are making themselves felt, and are breaking down the barriers of estrangement which haveseparated too long men of the same blood. There is seen here theworking of kinship, --a wholly normal result of a common origin, thenatural affection of children of the same descent, who have quarrelledand have been alienated with the proverbial bitterness of civilstrife, but who all along have realized--or at the least have beendimly conscious--that such a state of things is wrong and harmful. Asa matter of sentiment only, this reviving affection well might fix theserious attention of those who watch the growth of world questions, recognizing how far imagination and sympathy rule the world; but when, besides the powerful sentimental impulse, it is remembered thatbeneath considerable differences of political form there lie a commoninherited political tradition and habit of thought, that the moralforces which govern and shape political development are the same ineither people, the possibility of a gradual approach to concertedaction becomes increasingly striking. Of all the elements of thecivilization that has spread over Europe and America, none is sopotential for good as that singular combination of two essential butopposing factors--of individual freedom with subjection to law--whichfinds its most vigorous working in Great Britain and the UnitedStates, its only exponents in which an approach to a due balance hasbeen effected. Like other peoples, we also sway between the two, inclining now to one side, now to the other; but the departure fromthe normal in either direction is never very great. 

There is yet another noteworthy condition common to the two states, which must tend to incline them towards a similar course of action inthe future. Partners, each, in the great commonwealth of nations whichshare the blessings of European civilization, they alone, though invarying degrees, are so severed geographically from all existingrivals as to be exempt from the burden of great land armies; while atthe same time they must depend upon the sea, in chief measure, forthat intercourse with other members of the body upon which nationalwell-being depends. How great an influence upon the history of GreatBritain has been exerted by this geographical isolation issufficiently understood. In her case the natural tendency has beenincreased abnormally by the limited territorial extent of the BritishIslands, which has forced the energies of their inhabitants to seekfields for action outside their own borders; but the figures quoted bySir George Clarke sufficiently show that the same tendency, arisingfrom the same cause, does exist and is operative in the United States, despite the diversion arising from the immense internal domain not yetfully occupied, and the great body of home consumers which has beensecured by the protective system. The geographical condition, inshort, is the same in kind, though differing in degree, and must impelin the same direction. To other states the land, with its privilegesand its glories, is the chief source of national prosperity anddistinction. To Great Britain and the United States, if they rightlyestimate the part they may play in the great drama of human progress, is intrusted a maritime interest, in the broadest sense of the word, which demands, as one of the conditions of its exercise and itssafety, the organized force adequate to control the general course ofevents at sea; to maintain, if necessity arise, not arbitrarily, butas those in whom interest and power alike justify the claim to do so, the laws that shall regulate maritime warfare. This is no merespeculation, resting upon a course of specious reasoning, but is basedon the teaching of the past. By the exertion of such force, and by themaintenance of such laws, and by these means only, Great Britain, inthe beginning of this century, when she was the solitary power of theseas, saved herself from destruction, and powerfully modified for thebetter the course of history. 

With such strong determining conditions combining to converge the twonations into the same highway, and with the visible dawn of the daywhen this impulse begins to find expression in act, the questionnaturally arises, What should be the immediate course to be favored bythose who hail the growing light, and would hasten gladly the perfectday? That there are not a few who seek a reply to this question isevidenced by the articles of Mr. Carnegie, of Sir George Clarke, andof Mr. White, all appearing within a short time in the pages of the"North American Review. " And it is here, I own, that, though desirousas any one can be to see the fact accomplished, I shrink fromcontemplating it, under present conditions, in the form of analliance, naval or other. Rather I should say: Let each nation beeducated to realize the length and breadth of its own interest in thesea; when that is done, the identity of these interests will becomeapparent. This identity cannot be established firmly in men's mindsantecedent to the great teacher, Experience; and experience cannot behad before that further development of the facts which will follow thenot far distant day, when the United States people must again betakethemselves to the sea and to external action, as did their forefathersalike in their old home and in the new. 

There are, besides, questions in which at present doubt, if not evenfriction, might arise as to the proper sphere of each nation, agreement concerning which is essential to cordial co-operation; andthis the more, because Great Britain could not be expected reasonablyto depend upon our fulfilment of the terms of an alliance, or to yieldin points essential to her own maritime power, so long as the UnitedStates is unwilling herself to assure the security of the positionsinvolved by the creation of an adequate force. It is just because inthat process of adjusting the parts to be played by each nation, uponwhich alone a satisfactory cooperation can be established, a certainamount of friction is probable, that I would avoid all prematurestriving for alliance, an artificial and possibly even an irritatingmethod of reaching the desired end. Instead, I would dwell continuallyupon those undeniable points of resemblance in natural characteristics, and in surrounding conditions, which testify to common origin andpredict a common destiny. Cast the seed of this thought into theground, and it will spring and grow up, you know not how, --first theblade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Then you may putin your sickle and reap the harvest of political result, which as yetis obviously immature. How quietly and unmarked, like the slowprocesses of nature, such feelings may be wrought into the very beingof nations, was evidenced by the sudden and rapid rising of the Northat the outbreak of our civil war, when the flag was fired upon at FortSumter. Then was shown how deeply had sunk into the popular heart thedevotion to the Union and the flag, fostered by long dwelling upon theideas, by innumerable Fourth of July orations, often doubtlessvainglorious, sometimes perhaps grotesque, but whose living force andoverwhelming results were vividly apparent, as the fire leaped fromhearthstone to hearthstone throughout the Northern States. Equally inthe South was apparent how tenacious and compelling was the grip whichthe constant insistence upon the predominant claim of the State uponindividual loyalty had struck into the hearts of her sons. What paperbonds, treaties, or alliances could have availed then to hold togetherpeople whose ideals had drifted so far apart, whose interests, as eachat that time saw them, had become so opposed?

Although I am convinced firmly that it would be to the interest ofGreat Britain and the United States, and for the benefit of the world, that the two nations should act together cordially on the seas, I amequally sure that the result not only must be hoped but also quietlywaited for, while the conditions upon which such cordiality dependsare being realized by men. All are familiar with the idea conveyed bythe words "forcing process. " There are things that cannot be forced, processes which cannot be hurried, growths which are strong and noblein proportion as they imbibe slowly the beneficent influence of thesun and air in which they are bathed. How far the forcing process canbe attempted by an extravagant imagination, and what the inevitablerecoil of the mind you seek to take by storm, is amusingly shown byMr. Carnegie's "Look Ahead, " and by the demur thereto of so ardent achampion of Anglo-American alliance--on terms which appear to me tobe rational though premature--as Sir George Clarke. A country with apast as glorious and laborious as that of Great Britain, unpreparedas yet, as a whole, to take a single step forward toward reunion, is confronted suddenly--as though the temptation must beirresistible--with a picture of ultimate results which I will notundertake to call impossible (who can say what is impossible?), butwhich certainly deprives the nation of much, if not all, thehard-wrought achievement of centuries. Disunion, loss of nationalidentity, changes of constitution more than radical, the exchange of aworld-wide empire for a subordinate part in a great federation, --such_may_ be the destiny of Great Britain in the distant future. I knownot; but sure I am, were I a citizen of Great Britain, the prospectwould not allure me now to move an inch in such a direction. Surely invain the net is spread in the sight of any bird. 

The suggestions of Sir George Clarke and of Mr. White are not open tothe reproach of repelling those whom they seek to convince. They areclear, plain, business-like propositions, based upon indisputablereasons of mutual advantage, and in the case of the former quickened, as I have the pleasure of knowing through personal acquaintance, by amore than cordial good-will and breadth of view in all that relates tothe United States. Avoiding criticism of details--of which I havelittle to offer--my objection to them is simply that I do not thinkthe time is yet ripe. The ground is not prepared yet in the hearts andunderstandings of Americans, and I doubt whether in those of Britishcitizens. Both proposals contemplate a naval alliance, though ondiffering terms. The difficulty is that the United States, as anation, does not realize or admit as yet that it has any stronginterest in the sea; and that the great majority of our people restfirmly in a belief, deep rooted in the political history of our past, that our ambitions should be limited by the three seas that wash oureastern, western, and southern coasts. For myself, I believe thatthis, once a truth, can be considered so no longer with reference evento the present--much less to a future so near that it scarcely needs aprophet's eye to read; but even if it be but a prejudice, it must beremoved before a further step can be taken. In our country nationalpolicy, if it is to be steadfast and consistent, must be identicalwith public conviction. The latter, when formed, may remain longquiescent; but given the appointed time, it will spring to mightyaction--aye, to arms--as did the North and the South under theirseveral impulses in 1861. 

It is impossible that one who sees in the sea--in the function whichit discharges towards the world at large--the most potent factor innational prosperity and in the course of history, should not desire achange in the mental attitude of our countrymen towards maritimeaffairs. The subject presents itself not merely as one of nationalimportance, but as one concerning the world's history and the welfareof mankind, which are bound up, so far as we can see, in the securityand strength of that civilization which is identified with Europe andits offshoots in America. For what, after all, is our not unjustlyvaunted European and American civilization? An oasis set in the midstof a desert of barbarism, rent with many intestine troubles, andultimately dependent, not upon its mere elaboration of organization, but upon the power of that organization to express itself in amenacing and efficient attitude of physical force, sufficient toresist the numerically overwhelming, but inadequately organized hostsof outsiders. Under present conditions these are diked off by themagnificent military organizations of Europe, which also as yet copesuccessfully with the barbarians within. Of what the latter arecapable--at least in will--we have from time to time, and not least oflate, terrific warnings, to which men scarcely can shut their eyes andears; but sufficient attention hardly is paid to the possible dangersfrom those outside, who are wholly alien to the spirit of ourcivilization; nor do men realize how essential to the conservation ofthat civilization is the attitude of armed watchfulness betweennations, which is maintained now by the great states of Europe. Evenif we leave out of consideration the invaluable benefit to society, inthis age of insubordination and anarchy, that so large a number ofyouth, at the most impressionable age, receive the lessons ofobedience, order, respect for authority and law, by which militarytraining conveys a potent antidote to lawlessness, it still wouldremain a mistake, plausible but utter, to see in the hoped-forsubsidence of the military spirit in the nations of Europe a pledge ofsurer progress of the world towards universal peace, general materialprosperity, and ease. That alluring, albeit somewhat ignoble, ideal isnot to be attained by the representatives of civilization droppingtheir arms, relaxing the tension of their moral muscle, and fromfighting animals becoming fattened cattle fit only for slaughter. 

When Carthage fell, and Rome moved onward, without an equal enemyagainst whom to guard, to the dominion of the world of Mediterraneancivilization, she approached and gradually realized the reign ofuniversal peace, broken only by those intestine social and politicaldissensions which are finding their dark analogues in our modern timesof infrequent war. As the strife between nations of that civilizationdied away, material prosperity, general cultivation and luxury, flourished, while the weapons dropped nervelessly from their palsiedarms. The genius of Cæsar, in his Gallic and Germanic campaigns, builtup an outside barrier, which, like a dike, for centuries postponed theinevitable end, but which also, like every artificial barrier, gaveway when the strong masculine impulse which first created it haddegenerated into that worship of comfort, wealth, and generalsoftness, which is the ideal of the peace prophets of to-day. The waveof the invaders broke in, --the rain descended, the floods came, thewinds blew, and beat upon the house, and it fell, because not foundedupon the rock of virile reliance upon strong hands and brave hearts todefend what was dear to them. 

Ease unbroken, trade uninterrupted, hardship done away, all roughnessremoved from life, --these are our modern gods; but can they deliverus, should we succeed in setting them up for worship? Fortunately, asyet we cannot do so. We may, if we will, shut our eyes to the vastoutside masses of aliens to our civilization, now powerless because westill, with a higher material development, retain the masculinecombative virtues which are their chief possession; but, even if wedisregard them, the ground already shakes beneath our feet withphysical menace of destruction from within, against which the onlysecurity is in constant readiness to contend. In the rivalries ofnations, in the accentuation of differences, in the conflict ofambitions, lies the preservation of the martial spirit, which alone iscapable of coping finally with the destructive forces that fromoutside and from within threaten to submerge all the centuries havegained. 

It is not then merely, nor even chiefly, a pledge of universal peacethat may be seen in the United States becoming a naval power ofserious import, with clearly defined external ambitions dictated bythe necessities of her interoceanic position; nor yet in the cordialco-operation, as of kindred peoples, that the future may have in storefor her and Great Britain. Not in universal harmony, nor in fonddreams of unbroken peace, rest now the best hopes of the world, asinvolved in the fate of European civilization. Rather in thecompetition of interests, in that reviving sense of nationality, whichis the true antidote to what is bad in socialism, in the jealousdetermination of each people to provide first for its own, of whichthe tide of protection rising throughout the world, whethereconomically an error or not, is so marked a symptom--in these jarringsounds which betoken that there is no immediate danger of the leadingpeoples turning their swords into ploughshares--are to be heard theassurance that decay has not touched yet the majestic fabric erectedby so many centuries of courageous battling. In this same pregnantstrife the United States doubtless will be led, by undeniableinterests and aroused national sympathies, to play a part, to castaside the policy of isolation which befitted her infancy, and torecognize that, whereas once to avoid European entanglement wasessential to the development of her individuality, now to take hershare of the travail of Europe is but to assume an inevitable task, anappointed lot, in the work of upholding the common interests ofcivilization. Our Pacific slope, and the Pacific colonies of GreatBritain, with an instinctive shudder have felt the threat, which ableEuropeans have seen in the teeming multitudes of central and northernAsia; while their overflow into the Pacific Islands shows that notonly westward by land, but also eastward by sea, the flood may sweep. I am not careful, however, to search into the details of a greatmovement, which indeed may never come, but whose possibility, inexisting conditions, looms large upon the horizon of the future, andagainst which the only barrier will be the warlike spirit of therepresentatives of civilization. Whate'er betide, Sea Power will playin those days the leading part which it has in all history, and theUnited States by her geographical position must be one of thefrontiers from which, as from a base of operations, the Sea Power ofthe civilized world will energize. 

For this seemingly remote contingency preparation will be made, if menthen shall be found prepared, by a practical recognition now ofexisting conditions--such as those mentioned in the opening of thispaper--and acting upon that knowledge. Control of the sea, by maritimecommerce and naval supremacy, means predominant influence in theworld; because, however great the wealth product of the land, nothingfacilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea. The fundamentaltruth concerning the sea--perhaps we should rather say the water--isthat it is Nature's great medium of communication. It is improbablethat control ever again will be exercised, as once it was, by a singlenation. Like the pettier interests of the land, it must be competedfor, perhaps fought for. The greatest of the prizes for which nationscontend, it too will serve, like other conflicting interests, to keepalive that temper of stern purpose and strenuous emulation which isthe salt of the society of civilized states, whose unity is to befound, not in a flat identity of conditions--the ideal ofsocialism--but in a common standard of moral and intellectual ideas. 

Also, amid much that is shared by all the nations of Europeancivilization, there are, as is universally recognized, certain radicaldifferences of temperament and character, which tend to divide theminto groups having the marked affinities of a common origin. When, asfrequently happens on land, the members of these groups aregeographically near each other, the mere proximity seems, like similarelectricities, to develop repulsions which render political variancethe rule and political combination the exception. But when, as is thecase with Great Britain and the United States, the frontiers areremote, and contact--save in Canada--too slight to cause politicalfriction, the preservation, advancement, and predominance of the racemay well become a political ideal, to be furthered by politicalcombination, which in turn should rest, primarily, not upon cleverlyconstructed treaties, but upon natural affection and a clearrecognition of mutual benefit arising from working together. If thespirit be there, the necessary machinery for its working will not passthe wit of the race to provide; and in the control of the sea, thebeneficent instrument that separates us that we may be better friends, will be found the object that neither the one nor the other canmaster, but which may not be beyond the conjoined energies of therace. When, if ever, an Anglo-American alliance, naval or other, doescome, may it be rather as a yielding to irresistible popular impulsethan as a scheme, however ingeniously wrought, imposed by theadroitness of statesmen. 

We may, however, I think, dismiss from our minds the belief, frequentlyadvanced, and which is advocated so ably by Sir George Clarke, thatsuch mutual support would tend in the future to exempt maritimecommerce in general from the harassment which it hitherto has undergonein war. I shall have to try for special clearness here in stating myown views, partly because to some they may appear retrogressive, andalso because they may be thought by others to contradict what I havesaid elsewhere, in more extensive and systematic treatment of thissubject. 

The alliance which, under one form or another, --either as a navalleague, according to Sir George, or as a formal treaty, according toMr. White, --is advocated by both writers, looks ultimately and chieflyto the contingency of war. True, a leading feature of either proposalis to promote good-will and avert causes of dissension between the twocontracting parties; but even this object is sought largely in orderthat they may stand by each other firmly in case of difficulty withother states. Thus even war may be averted more surely; but, should itcome, it would find the two united upon the ocean, consequentlyall-powerful there, and so possessors of that mastership of thegeneral situation which the sea always has conferred upon itsunquestioned rulers. Granting the union of hearts and hands, thesupremacy, from my standpoint, logically follows. But why, then, ifsupreme, concede to an enemy immunity for his commerce? "Neither GreatBritain nor America, " says Sir George Clarke, though he elsewherequalifies the statement, "can see in the commerce of other peoples anincentive to attack. " Why not? For what purposes, primarily, do naviesexist? Surely not merely to fight one another, --to gain what Jominicalls "the sterile glory" of fighting battles in order to win them. Ifnavies, as all agree, exist for the protection of commerce, itinevitably follows that in war they must aim at depriving their enemyof that great resource; nor is it easy to conceive what broad militaryuse they can subserve that at all compares with the protection anddestruction of trade. This Sir George indeed sees, for he sayselsewhere, "Only on the principle of doing the utmost injury to anenemy, with a view to hasten the issue of war, can commerce-destroyingbe justified;" but he fails, I think, to appreciate the fullimportance of this qualifying concession, and neither he nor Mr. Whiteseems to admit the immense importance of commerce-destroying, as such. 

The mistake of both, I think, lies in not keeping clearly inview--what both certainly perfectly understand--the difference betweenthe _guerre-de-course_, which is inconclusive, and commerce-destroying(or commerce prevention) through strategic control of the sea bypowerful navies. Some nations more than others, but all maritimenations more or less, depend for their prosperity upon maritimecommerce, and probably upon it more than upon any other single factor. Either under their own flag or that of a neutral, either by foreigntrade or coasting trade, the sea is the greatest of boons to such astate; and under every form its sea-borne trade is at the mercy of afoe decisively superior. 

Is it, then, to be expected that such foe will forego suchadvantage, --will insist upon spending blood and money in fighting, ormoney in the vain effort of maintaining a fleet which, having nothingto fight, also keeps its hands off such an obvious means of cripplingthe opponent and forcing him out of his ports? Great Britain's navy, in the French wars, not only protected her own commerce, but alsoannihilated that of the enemy; and both conditions--not onealone--were essential to her triumph. 

It is because Great Britain's sea power, though still superior, hasdeclined relatively to that of other states, and is no longer supreme, that she has been induced to concede to neutrals the principle thatthe flag covers the goods. It is a concession wrung from relativeweakness--or possibly from a mistaken humanitarianism; but, towhatever due, it is all to the profit of the neutral and to the lossof the stronger belligerent. The only justification, in policy, forits yielding by the latter, is that she can no longer, as formerly, bear the additional burden of hostility, if the neutral should allyhimself to the enemy. I have on another occasion said that theprinciple that the flag covers the goods is forever secured--meaningthereby that, so far as present indications go, no one power would bestrong enough at sea to maintain the contrary by arms. 

In the same way it may be asserted quite confidently that theconcession of immunity to what is unthinkingly called the "privateproperty" of an enemy on the sea, will never be conceded by a nationor alliance confident in its own sea power. It has been the dream ofthe weaker sea belligerents in all ages; and their arguments for it, at the first glance plausible, are very proper to urge from theirpoint of view. That arch-robber, the first Napoleon, who soremorselessly and exhaustively carried the principle of war sustainingwar to its utmost logical sequence, and even in peace scrupled not toquarter his armies on subject countries, maintaining them on what, after all, was simply private property of foreigners, --even he waxesquite eloquent, and superficially most convincing, as he compares theseizure of goods at sea, so fatal to his empire, to the seizure of awagon travelling an inland country road. 

In all these contentions there lies, beneath the surface plausibility, not so much a confusion of thought as a failure to recognize anessential difference of conditions. Even on shore the protection ofprivate property rests upon the simple principle that injury is not tobe wanton, --that it is not to be inflicted when the end to be attainedis trivial, or largely disproportionate to the suffering caused. Forthis reason personal property, not embarked in commercial venture, isrespected in civilized maritime war. Conversely, as we all know, therule on land is by no means invariable, and private property receivesscant consideration when its appropriation or destruction serves thepurposes of an enemy. The man who trudges the highway, cudgel in hand, may claim for his cudgel all the sacredness with which civilizationinvests property; but if he use it to break his neighbor's head, therespect for his property, as such, quickly disappears. Now, privateproperty borne upon the seas is engaged in promoting, in the mostvital manner, the strength and resources of the nation by which it ishandled. When that nation becomes belligerent, the private property, so called, borne upon the seas, is sustaining the well-being andendurance of the nation at war, and consequently is injuring theopponent, to an extent exceeding all other sources of national power. In these days of war correspondents, most of us are familiar with theidea of the dependence of an army upon its communications, and weknow, vaguely perhaps, but still we know, that to threaten or harm thecommunications of an army is one of the most common and effectivedevices of strategy. Why? Because severed from its base an armylanguishes and dies, and when threatened with such an evil it mustfight at whatever disadvantage. Well, is it not clear that maritimecommerce occupies, to the power of a maritime state, the precisenourishing function that the communications of an army supply to thearmy? Blows at commerce are blows at the communications of the state;they intercept its nourishment, they starve its life, they cut theroots of its power, the sinews of its war. While war remains a factor, a sad but inevitable factor, of our history, it is a fond hope thatcommerce can be exempt from its operations, because in very truthblows against commerce are the most deadly that can be struck; nor isthere any other among the proposed uses of a navy, as for instance thebombardment of seaport towns, which is not at once more cruel and lessscientific. Blockade such as that enforced by the United States Navyduring the Civil War, is evidently only a special phase ofcommerce-destroying; yet how immense--nay, decisive--its results!

It is only when effort is frittered away in the feeble disseminationof the _guerre-de-course_, instead of being concentrated in a greatcombination to control the sea, that commerce-destroying justly incursthe reproach of misdirected effort. It is a fair deduction fromanalogy, that two contending armies might as well agree to respecteach other's communications, as two belligerent states to guaranteeimmunity to hostile commerce. 

THE FUTURE IN RELATION TO AMERICAN NAVAL POWER. 

_June, 1895. _

That the United States Navy within the last dozen years should havebeen recast almost wholly, upon more modern lines, is not, in itselfalone, a fact that should cause comment, or give rise to questionsabout its future career or sphere of action. If this country needs, orever shall need, a navy at all, indisputably in 1883 the hour had comewhen the time-worn hulks of that day, mostly the honored butsuperannuated survivors of the civil war, should drop out of theranks, submit to well-earned retirement or inevitable dissolution, andallow their places to be taken by other vessels, capable of performingthe duties to which they themselves were no longer adequate. 

It is therefore unlikely that there underlay this re-creation of thenavy--for such in truth it was--any more recondite cause than theurgent necessity of possessing tools wholly fit for the work whichwar-ships are called upon to do. The thing had to be done, if thenational fleet was to be other than an impotent parody of naval force, a costly effigy of straw. But, concurrently with the process ofrebuilding, there has been concentrated upon the development of thenew service a degree of attention, greater than can be attributed evento the voracious curiosity of this age of newsmongering and ofinterviewers. This attention in some quarters is undisguisedlyreluctant and hostile, in others not only friendly but expectant, inboth cases betraying a latent impression that there is, between theappearance of the new-comer and the era upon which we now areentering, something in common. If such coincidence there be, however, it is indicative not of a deliberate purpose, but of a commencingchange of conditions, economical and political, throughout the world, with which sea power, in the broad sense of the phrase, will beassociated closely; not, indeed, as the cause, nor even chiefly as aresult, but rather as the leading characteristic of activities whichshall cease to be mainly internal, and shall occupy themselves withthe wider interests that concern the relations of states to the worldat large. And it is just at this point that the opposing lines offeeling divide. Those who hold that our political interests areconfined to matters within our own borders, and are unwilling to admitthat circumstances may compel us in the future to political actionwithout them, look with dislike and suspicion upon the growth of abody whose very existence indicates that nations have internationalduties as well as international rights, and that internationalcomplications will arise from which we can no more escape than thestates which have preceded us in history, or those contemporary withus. Others, on the contrary, regarding the conditions and signs ofthese times, and the extra-territorial activities in which foreignstates have embarked so restlessly and widely, feel that the nation, however greatly against its wish, may become involved in controversiesnot unlike those which in the middle of the century caused veryserious friction, but which the generation that saw the century openwould have thought too remote for its concern, and certainly whollybeyond its power to influence. 

Religious creeds, dealing with eternal verities, may be susceptible ofa certain permanency of statement; yet even here we in this day havewitnessed the embarrassments of some religious bodies, arising from atraditional adherence to merely human formulas, which reflect views ofthe truth as it appeared to the men who framed them in the distantpast. But political creeds, dealing as they do chiefly with thetransient and shifting conditions of a world which is passing awaycontinually, can claim no fixity of allegiance, except where theyexpress, not the policy of a day, but the unchanging dictates ofrighteousness. And inasmuch as the path of ideal righteousness is notalways plain nor always practicable; as expediency, policy, the choiceof the lesser evil, must control at times; as nations, like men, willoccasionally differ, honestly but irreconcilably, on questions ofright, --there do arise disputes where agreement cannot be reached, andwhere the appeal must be made to force, that final factor whichunderlies the security of civil society even more than it affects therelations of states. The well-balanced faculties of Washington sawthis in his day with absolute clearness. Jefferson either would not orcould not. That there should be no navy was a cardinal prepossessionof his political thought, born of an exaggerated fear of organizedmilitary force as a political, factor. Though possessed with a passionfor annexation which dominated much of his political action, heprescribed as the limit of the country's geographical expansion theline beyond which it would entail the maintenance of a navy. Yet fate, ironical here as elsewhere in his administration, compelled therecognition that, unless a policy of total seclusion is adopted, --ifeven then, --it is not necessary to acquire territory beyond sea inorder to undergo serious international complications, which could havebeen avoided much more easily had there been an imposing armedshipping to throw into the scale of the nation's argument, and tocompel the adversary to recognize the impolicy of his course as wellas what the United States then claimed to be its wrongfulness. 

The difference of conditions between the United States of to-day andof the beginning of this century illustrates aptly how necessary it isto avoid implicit acceptance of precedents, crystallized into maxims, and to seek for the quickening principle which justified, wholly or inpart, the policy of one generation, but whose application may insure avery different course of action in a succeeding age. When the centuryopened, the United States was not only a continental power, as she nowis, but she was one of several, of nearly equal strength as far asNorth America was concerned, with all of whom she had differencesarising out of conflicting interests, and with whom, moreover, she wasin direct geographical contact, --a condition which has been recognizedusually as entailing peculiar proneness to political friction; for, while the interests of two nations may clash in quarters of the worldremote from either, there is both greater frequency and greaterbitterness when matters of dispute exist near at home, and especiallyalong an artificial boundary, where the inhabitants of each aredirectly in contact with the causes of the irritation. It wastherefore the natural and proper aim of the government of that day toabolish the sources of difficulty, by bringing all the territory inquestion under our own control, if it could be done by fair means. Weconsequently entered upon a course of action precisely such as aEuropean continental state would have followed under likecircumstances. In order to get possession of the territory in whichour interests were involved, we bargained and manoeuvred andthreatened; and although Jefferson's methods were peaceful enough, fewwill be inclined to claim that they were marked by excess ofscrupulousness, or even of adherence to his own political convictions. From the highly moral standpoint, the acquisition of Louisiana underthe actual conditions--being the purchase from a government which hadno right to sell, in defiance of the remonstrance addressed to us bythe power who had ceded the territory upon the express condition thatit should not so be sold, but which was too weak to enforce its justreclamation against both Napoleon and ourselves--reduces itself prettymuch to a choice between overreaching and violence, as the lessrepulsive means of compassing an end in itself both desirable andproper; nor does the attempt, by strained construction, to wrest WestFlorida into the bargain give a higher tone to the transaction. As amatter of policy, however, there is no doubt that our government wasmost wise; and the transfer, as well as the incorporation, of theterritory was facilitated by the meagreness of the population thatwent with the soil. With all our love of freedom, it is not likelythat many qualms were felt as to the political inclinations of thepeople concerning their transfer of allegiance. In questions of greatimport to nations or to the world, the wishes, or interests, ortechnical rights, of minorities must yield, and there is notnecessarily any more injustice in this than in their yielding to amajority at the polls. 

While the need of continental expansion pressed thus heavily upon thestatesmen of Jefferson's era, questions relating to more distantinterests were very properly postponed. At the time that matters ofsuch immediate importance were pending, to enter willingly upon theconsideration of subjects our concern in which was more remote, eitherin time or place, would have entailed a dissemination of attention andof power that is as greatly to be deprecated in statesmanship as it isin the operations of war. Still, while the government of the day wouldgladly have avoided such complications, it found, as have thestatesmen of all times, that if external interests exist, whatsoevertheir character, they cannot be ignored, nor can the measures whichprudence dictates for their protection be neglected with safety. Without political ambitions outside the continent, the commercialenterprise of the people brought our interests into violent antagonismwith clear, unmistakable, and vital interests of foreign belligerentstates; for we shall sorely misread the lessons of 1812, and of theevents which led to it, if we fail to see that the questions indispute involved issues more immediately vital to Great Britain, inher then desperate struggle, than they were to ourselves, and that thegreat majority of her statesmen and people, of both parties, soregarded them. The attempt of our government to temporize with thedifficulty, to overcome violence by means of peaceable coercion, instead of meeting it by the creation of a naval force so strong as tobe a factor of consideration in the international situation, led usinto an avoidable war. 

The conditions which now constitute the political situation of theUnited States, relatively to the world at large, are fundamentallydifferent from those that obtained at the beginning of the century. Itis not a mere question of greater growth, of bigger size. It is notonly that we are larger, stronger, have, as it were, reached ourmajority, and are able to go out into the world. That alone would be adifference of degree, not of kind. The great difference between thepast and the present is that we then, as regards close contact withthe power of the chief nations of the world, were really in a state ofpolitical isolation which no longer exists. This arose from ourgeographical position--reinforced by the slowness and uncertainty ofthe existing means of intercommunication--and yet more from the gravepreoccupation of foreign statesmen with questions of unprecedented andominous importance upon the continent of Europe. A policy of isolationwas for us then practicable, --though even then only partially. It wasexpedient, also, because we were weak, and in order to allow theindividuality of the nation time to accentuate itself. Save thequestions connected with the navigation of the Mississippi, collisionwith other peoples was only likely to arise, and actually did arise, from going beyond our own borders in search of trade. The reasons nowevoked by some against our political action outside our own bordersmight have been used then with equal appositeness against ourcommercial enterprises. Let us stay at home, or we shall get intotrouble. Jefferson, in truth, averse in principle to commerce as towar, was happily logical in his embargo system. It not only punishedthe foreigner and diminished the danger of internationalcomplications, but it kept our own ships out of harm's way; and if itdid destroy trade, and cause the grass to grow in the streets of NewYork, the incident, if inconvenient, had its compensations, byrepressing hazardous external activities. 

Few now, of course, would look with composure upon a policy, whateverits ground, which contemplated the peaceable seclusion of this nationfrom its principal lines of commerce. In 1807, however, a great partyaccepted the alternative rather than fight, or even than create aforce which might entail war, although more probably it would haveprevented it. But would it be more prudent now to ignore the fact thatwe are no longer--however much we may regret it--in a position ofinsignificance or isolation, political or geographical, in any wayresembling the times of Jefferson, and that from the changedconditions may result to us a dilemma similar to that which confrontedhim and his supporters? Not only have we grown, --that is adetail, --but the face of the world is changed, economically andpolitically. The sea, now as always the great means of communicationbetween nations, is traversed with a rapidity and a certainty thathave minimized distances. Events which under former conditions wouldhave been distant and of small concern, now happen at our doors andclosely affect us. Proximity, as has been noted, is a fruitful sourceof political friction, but proximity is the characteristic of the age. The world has grown smaller. Positions formerly distant have become tous of vital importance from their nearness. But, while distances haveshortened, they remain for us water distances, and, however short, forpolitical influence they must be traversed in the last resort by anavy, the indispensable instrument by which, when emergencies arise, the nation can project its power beyond its own shore-line. 

Whatever seeming justification, therefore, there may have been in thetransient conditions of his own day for Jefferson's dictum concerninga navy, rested upon a state of things that no longer obtains, and eventhen soon passed away. The War of 1812 demonstrated the usefulness ofa navy, --not, indeed, by the admirable but utterly unavailingsingle-ship victories that illustrated its course, but by theprostration into which our seaboard and external communications fell, through the lack of a navy at all proportionate to the country's needsand exposure. The navy doubtless reaped honor in that brilliant seastruggle, but the honor was its own alone; only discredit accrued tothe statesmen who, with such men to serve them, none the less left thecountry open to the humiliation of its harried coasts and blastedcommerce. Never was there a more lustrous example of what Jomini calls"the sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them. " Except forthe prestige which at last awoke the country to the high efficiency ofthe petty force we called our navy, and showed what the sea might beto us, never was blood spilled more uselessly than in the frigate andsloop actions of that day. They presented no analogy to the outpostand reconnoissance fighting, to the detached services, that are notonly inevitable but invaluable, in maintaining the _morale_ of amilitary organization in campaign. They were simply scattered efforts, without relation either to one another or to any main body whatsoever, capable of affecting seriously the issues of war, or, indeed, to anyplan of operations worthy of the name. 

Not very long after the War of 1812, within the space of twoadministrations, there came another incident, epoch-making in thehistory of our external policy, and of vital bearing on the navy, inthe enunciation of the Monroe doctrine. That pronouncement has beencuriously warped at times from its original scope and purpose. In itsname have been put forth theories so much at odds with the relationsof states, as hitherto understood, that, if they be maintainedseriously, it is desirable in the interests of exact definition thattheir supporters advance some other name for them. It is not necessaryto attribute finality to the Monroe doctrine, any more than to anyother political dogma, in order to deprecate the application of thephrase to propositions that override or transcend it. We should bewareof being misled by names, and especially where such error may induce apopular belief that a foreign state is outraging wilfully a principleto the defence of which the country is committed. We have beencommitted to the Monroe doctrine itself, not perhaps by any suchformal assumption of obligations as cannot be evaded, but by certainprecedents, and by a general attitude, upon the whole consistentlymaintained, from which we cannot recede silently without risk ofnational mortification. If seriously challenged, as in Mexico by thethird Napoleon, we should hardly decline to emulate the sentiments sonobly expressed by the British government, when, in response to theemperors of Russia and France, it declined to abandon the strugglingSpanish patriots to the government set over them by Napoleon: "ToSpain his Majesty is not bound by any formal instrument; but hisMajesty has, in the face of the world, contracted with that nationengagements not less sacred, and not less binding upon his Majesty'smind, than the most solemn treaties. " We may have to accept alsocertain corollaries which may appear naturally to result from theMonroe doctrine, but we are by no means committed to some propositionswhich lately have been tallied with its name. Those propositionspossibly embody a sound policy, more applicable to present conditionsthan the Monroe doctrine itself, and therefore destined to succeed it;but they are not the same thing. There is, however, something incommon between it and them. Reduced to its barest statement, andstripped of all deductions, natural or forced, the Monroe doctrine, ifit were not a mere political abstraction, formulated an idea to whichin the last resort effect could be given only through theinstrumentality of a navy; for the gist of it, the kernel of thetruth, was that the country had at that time distant interests on theland, political interests of a high order in the destiny of foreignterritory, of which a distinguishing characteristic was that theycould be assured only by sea. 

Like most stages in a nation's progress, the Monroe doctrine, thoughelicited by a particular political incident, was not an isolated stepunrelated to the past, but a development. It had its antecedents infeelings which arose before our War of Independence, and which in1778, though we were then in deadly need of the French alliance, foundexpression in the stipulation that France should not attempt to regainCanada. Even then, and also in 1783, the same jealousy did not extendto the Floridas, which at the latter date were ceded by Great Britainto Spain; and we expressly acquiesced in the conquest of the BritishWest India Islands by our allies. From that time to 1815 noremonstrance was made against the transfer of territories in the WestIndies and Caribbean Sea from one belligerent to another--anindifference which scarcely would be shown at the present time, eventhough the position immediately involved were intrinsically of trivialimportance; for the question at stake would be one of principle, ofconsequences, far reaching as Hampden's tribute of ship-money. 

It is beyond the professional province of a naval officer to inquirehow far the Monroe doctrine itself would logically carry us, or howfar it may be developed, now or hereafter, by the recognition andstatement of further national interests, thereby formulating anotherand wider view of the necessary range of our political influence. Itis sufficient to quote its enunciation as a fact, and to note that itwas the expression of a great national interest, not merely of apopular sympathy with South American revolutionists; for, had it beenthe latter, it would doubtless have proved as inoperative andevanescent as declarations arising from such emotions commonly are. From generation to generation we have been much stirred by thesufferings of Greeks, or Bulgarians, or Armenians, at the hands ofTurkey; but, not being ourselves injuriously affected, our feelingshave not passed into acts, and for that very reason have beenephemeral. No more than other nations are we exempt from the profoundtruth enunciated by Washington--seared into his own consciousness bythe bitter futilities of the French alliance in 1778 and the followingyears, and by the extravagant demands based upon it by the Directoryduring his Presidential term--that it is absurd to expect governmentsto act upon disinterested motives. It is not as an utterance ofpassing concern, benevolent or selfish, but because it voiced anenduring principle of necessary self-interest, that the Monroedoctrine has retained its vitality, and has been made so easily to doduty as the expression of intuitive national sensitiveness tooccurrences of various kinds in regions beyond the sea. At itschristening the principle was directed against an apprehendedintervention in American affairs, which depended not upon actualEuropean concern in the territory involved, but upon a purelypolitical arrangement between certain great powers, itself the resultof ideas at the time moribund. In its first application, therefore, itwas a confession that danger of European complications did exist, under conditions far less provocative of real European interest thanthose which now obtain and are continually growing. Its subsequentapplications have been many and various, and the incidents giving riseto them have been increasingly important, culminating up to thepresent in the growth of the United States to be a great Pacificpower, and in her probable dependence in the near future upon anIsthmian canal for the freest and most copious intercourse between hertwo ocean seaboards. In the elasticity and flexibleness with which thedogma thus has accommodated itself to varying conditions, rather thanin the strict wording of the original statement, is to be seen theessential characteristic of a living principle--the recognition, namely, that not merely the interests of individual citizens, but theinterests of the United States as a nation, are bound up with regionsbeyond the sea, not part of our own political domain, in whichtherefore, under some imaginable circumstances, we may be forced totake action. 

It is important to recognize this, for it will help clear away theerror from a somewhat misleading statement frequently made, --that theUnited States needs a navy for defence only, adding often, explanatorily, for the defence of our own coasts. Now in a certainsense we all want a navy for defence only. It is to be hoped that theUnited States will never seek war except for the defence of herrights, her obligations, or her necessary interests. In that sense ourpolicy may always be defensive only, although it may compel us attimes to steps justified rather by expediency--the choice of thelesser evil--than by incontrovertible right. But if we have interestsbeyond sea which a navy may have to protect, it plainly follows thatthe navy has more to do, even in war, than to defend the coast; and itmust be added as a received military axiom that war, however defensivein moral character, must be waged aggressively if it is to hope forsuccess. 

For national security, the correlative of a national principle firmlyheld and distinctly avowed is, not only the will, but the power toenforce it. The clear expression of national purpose, accompanied byevident and adequate means to carry it into effect, is the surestsafeguard against war, provided always that the national contention ismaintained with a candid and courteous consideration of the rights andsusceptibilities of other states. On the other hand, no condition ismore hazardous than that of a dormant popular feeling, liable to beroused into action by a moment of passion, such as that which sweptover the North when the flag was fired upon at Sumter, but behindwhich lies no organized power for action. It is on the score of duepreparation for such an ultimate contingency that nations, andespecially free nations, are most often deficient. Yet, if wanting indefiniteness of foresight and persistency of action, owing to theinevitable frequency of change in the governments that represent them, democracies seem in compensation to be gifted with an instinct, theresult perhaps of the free and rapid interchange of thought by whichthey are characterized, that intuitively and unconsciously assimilatespolitical truths, and prepares in part for political action before thetime for action has come. That the mass of United States citizens donot realize understandingly that the nation has vital politicalinterests beyond the sea is probably true; still more likely is itthat they are not tracing any connection between them and thereconstruction of the navy. Yet the interests exist, and the navy isgrowing; and in the latter fact is the best surety that no breach ofpeace will ensue from the maintenance of the former. 

It is, not, then the indication of a formal political purpose, farless of anything like a threat, that is, from my point of view, to berecognized in the recent development of the navy. Nations, as a rule, do not move with the foresight and the fixed plan which distinguish avery few individuals of the human race. They do not practise on thepistol-range before sending a challenge; if they did, wars would befewer, as is proved by the present long-continued armed peace inEurope. Gradually and imperceptibly the popular feeling, whichunderlies most lasting national movements, is aroused and swayed byincidents, often trivial, but of the same general type, whoserecurrence gradually moulds public opinion and evokes national action, until at last there issues that settled public conviction which alone, in a free state, deserves the name of national policy. What the originof those particular events whose interaction establishes a strongpolitical current in a particular direction, it is perhapsunprofitable to inquire. Some will see in the chain of cause andeffect only a chapter of accidents, presenting an interestingphilosophical study, and nothing more; others, equally persuaded thatnations do not effectively shape their mission in the world, will findin them the ordering of a Divine ruler, who does not permit theindividual or the nation to escape its due share of the world'sburdens. But, however explained, it is a common experience of historythat in the gradual ripening of events there comes often suddenly andunexpectedly the emergency, the call for action, to maintain thenation's contention. That there is an increased disposition on thepart of civilized countries to deal with such cases by ordinarydiplomatic discussion and mutual concession can be gratefullyacknowledged; but that such dispositions are not always sufficient toreach a peaceable solution is equally an indisputable teaching of therecent past. Popular emotion, once fairly roused, sweeps away thebarriers of calm deliberation, and is deaf to the voice of reason. That the consideration of relative power enters for much in thediplomatic settlement of international difficulties is also certain, just as that it goes for much in the ordering of individual careers. "Can, " as well as "will, " plays a large share in the decisions oflife. 

Like each man and woman, no state lives to itself alone, in apolitical seclusion resembling the physical isolation which so longwas the ideal of China and Japan. All, whether they will or no, aremembers of a community, larger or, smaller; and more and more those ofthe European family to which we racially belong are touching eachother throughout the world, with consequent friction of varyingdegree. That the greater rapidity of communication afforded by steamhas wrought, in the influence of sea power over the face of the globe, an extension that is multiplying the points of contact and emphasizingthe importance of navies, is a fact, the intelligent appreciation ofwhich is daily more and more manifest in the periodical literature ofEurope, and is further shown by the growing stress laid upon that armof military strength by foreign governments; while the mutualpreparation of the armies on the European continent, and the fairlysettled territorial conditions, make each state yearly more wary ofinitiating a contest, and thus entail a political quiescence there, except in the internal affairs of each country. The field of externalaction for the great European states is now the world, and it ishardly doubtful that their struggles, unaccompanied as yet by actualclash of arms, are even under that condition drawing nearer toourselves. Coincidently with our own extension to the Pacific Ocean, which for so long had a good international claim to its name, that seahas become more and more the scene of political development, ofcommercial activities and rivalries, in which all the great powers, ourselves included, have a share. Through these causes Central andCaribbean America, now intrinsically unimportant, are brought in turninto great prominence, as constituting the gateway between theAtlantic and Pacific when the Isthmian canal shall have been made, andas guarding the approaches to it. The appearance of Japan as a strongambitious state, resting on solid political and military foundations, but which scarcely has reached yet a condition of equilibrium ininternational standing, has fairly startled the world; and it is astriking illustration of the somewhat sudden nearness and unforeseenrelations into which modern states are brought, that the HawaiianIslands, so interesting from the international point of view to thecountries of European civilization, are occupied largely by Japaneseand Chinese. 

In all these questions we have a stake, reluctantly it may be, butnecessarily, for our evident interests are involved, in some instancesdirectly, in others by very probable implication. Under existingconditions, the opinion that we can keep clear indefinitely ofembarrassing problems is hardly tenable; while war between two foreignstates, which in the uncertainties of the international situationthroughout the world may break out at any time, will increase greatlythe occasions of possible collision with the belligerent countries, and the consequent perplexities of our statesmen seeking to avoidentanglement and to maintain neutrality. 

Although peace is not only the avowed but for the most part the actualdesire of European governments, they profess no such aversion todistant political enterprises and colonial acquisitions as we bytradition have learned to do. On the contrary, their committal to suchdivergent enlargements of the national activities and influence is oneof the most pregnant facts of our time, the more so that their courseis marked in the case of each state by a persistence of the samenational traits that characterized the great era of colonization, which followed the termination of the religious wars in Europe, andled to the world-wide contests of the eighteenth century. In onenation the action is mainly political, --that of a government pushed, by long-standing tradition and by its passion for administration, toextend the sphere of its operations so as to acquire a greater fieldin which to organize and dominate, somewhat regardless of economicaladvantage. In another the impulse comes from the restless, ubiquitousenergy of the individual citizens, singly or in companies, movedprimarily by the desire of gain, but carrying ever with them, subordinate only to the commercial aim, the irresistible tendency ofthe race to rule as well as to trade, and dragging the home governmentto recognize and to assume the consequences of their enterprise. Yetagain there is the movement whose motive is throughout mainly privateand mercantile, in which the individual seeks wealth only, with littleor no political ambition, and where the government intervenes chieflythat it may retain control of its subjects in regions where but forsuch intervention they would become estranged from it. But, howeverdiverse the modes of operation, all have a common characteristic, inthat they bear the stamp of the national genius, --a proof that thevarious impulses are not artificial, but natural, and that theytherefore will continue until an adjustment is reached. 

What the process will be, and what the conclusion, it is impossible toforesee; but that friction at times has been very great, and mattersdangerously near passing from the communications of cabinets to thetempers of the peoples, is sufficiently known. If, on the one hand, some look upon this as a lesson to us to keep clear of similaradventures, on the other hand it gives a warning that not only docauses of offence exist which may result at an unforeseen moment in arupture extending to many parts of the world, but also that there is aspirit abroad which yet may challenge our claim to exclude its actionand interference in any quarter, unless it finds us prepared there inadequate strength to forbid it, or to exercise our own. More and morecivilized man is needing and seeking ground to occupy, room over whichto expand and in which to live. Like all natural forces, the impulsetakes the direction of least resistance, but when in its course itcomes upon some region rich in possibilities, but unfruitful throughthe incapacity or negligence of those who dwell therein, theincompetent race or system will go down, as the inferior race ever hasfallen back and disappeared before the persistent impact of thesuperior. The recent and familiar instance of Egypt is entirely inpoint. The continuance of the existing system--if it can be calledsuch--had become impossible, not because of the native Egyptians, whohad endured the like for ages, but because there were involved thereinthe interests of several European states, of which two principallywere concerned by present material interest and traditional rivalry. Of these one, and that the one most directly affected, refused to takepart in the proposed interference, with the result that this was notabandoned, but carried out solely by the other, which remains inpolitical and administrative control of the country. Whether theoriginal enterprise or the continued presence of Great Britain inEgypt is entirely clear of technical wrongs, open to the criticism ofthe pure moralist, is as little to the point as the morality of anearthquake; the general action was justified by broad considerationsof moral expediency, being to the benefit of the world at large, andof the people of Egypt in particular--however they might have voted inthe matter. 

But what is chiefly instructive in this occurrence is theinevitableness, which it shares in common with the great majority ofcases where civilized and highly organized peoples have trespassedupon the technical rights of possession of the previous occupants ofthe land--of which our own dealings with the American Indian affordanother example. The inalienable rights of the individual are entitledto a respect which they unfortunately do not always get; but there isno inalienable right in any community to control the use of a regionwhen it does so to the detriment of the world at large, of itsneighbors in particular, or even at times of its own subjects. Witness, for example, the present angry resistance of the Arabs atJiddah to the remedying of a condition of things which threatens topropagate a deadly disease far and wide, beyond the locality by whichit is engendered; or consider the horrible conditions under which theArmenian subjects of Turkey have lived and are living. When suchconditions obtain, they can be prolonged only by the generalindifference or mutual jealousies of the other peoples concerned--asin the instance of Turkey--or because there is sufficient force toperpetuate the misrule, in which case the right is inalienable onlyuntil its misuse brings ruin, or until a stronger force appears todispossess it. It is because so much of the world still remains in thepossession of the savage, or of states whose imperfect development, political or economical, does not enable them to realize for thegeneral use nearly the result of which the territory is capable, whileat the same time the redundant energies of civilized states, bothgovernment and peoples, are finding lack of openings and scantiness oflivelihood at home, that there now obtains a condition of aggressiverestlessness with which all have to reckon. 

That the United States does not now share this tendency is entirelyevident. Neither her government nor her people are affected by it toany great extent. But the force of circumstances has imposed upon herthe necessity, recognized with practical unanimity by her people, ofinsuring to the weaker states of America, although of racial andpolitical antecedents different from her own, freedom to developpolitically along their own lines and according to their owncapacities, without interference in that respect from governmentsforeign to these continents. The duty is self-assumed; and resting, asit does, not upon political philanthropy, but simply upon our ownproximate interests as affected by such foreign interference, hastowards others rather the nature of a right than a duty. But, fromeither point of view, the facility with which the claim has beenallowed heretofore by the great powers has been due partly to the lackof pressing importance in the questions that have arisen, and partlyto the great latent strength of our nation, which was an argument morethan adequate to support contentions involving matters of no greaterimmediate moment, for example, than that of the Honduras Bay Islandsor of the Mosquito Coast. Great Britain there yielded, it is true, though reluctantly and slowly; and it is also true that, so far asorganized force is concerned, she could have destroyed our navy thenexisting and otherwise have injured us greatly; but the substantialimportance of the question, though real, was remote in the future, and, as it was, she made a political bargain which was more to heradvantage than ours. But while our claim thus far has received a tacitacquiescence, it remains to be seen whether it will continue tocommand the same if the states whose political freedom of action weassert make no more decided advance towards political stability thanseveral of them have done yet, and if our own organized naval forceremains as slender, comparatively, as it once was, and even yet is. Itis probably safe to say that an undertaking like that of Great Britainin Egypt, if attempted in this hemisphere by a non-American state, would not be tolerated by us if able to prevent it; but it isconceivable that the moral force of our contention might be weakened, in the view of an opponent, by attendant circumstances, in which caseour physical power to support it should be open to no doubt. 

That we shall seek to secure the peaceable solution of each difficultyas it arises is attested by our whole history, and by the dispositionof our people; but to do so, whatever the steps taken in anyparticular case, will bring us into new political relations and mayentail serious disputes with other states. In maintaining the justestpolicy, the most reasonable influence, one of the political elements, long dominant, and still one of the most essential, is militarystrength--in the broad sense of the word "military, " which includesnaval as well--not merely potential, which our own is, but organizedand developed, which our own as yet is not. We wisely quoteWashington's warning against entangling alliances, but too readilyforget his teaching about preparation for war. The progress of theworld from age to age, in its ever-changing manifestations, is a greatpolitical drama, possessing a unity, doubtless, in its generaldevelopment, but in which, as act follows act, one situation alone canengage, at one time, the attention of the actors. Of this drama war issimply a violent and tumultuous political incident. A navy, therefore, whose primary sphere of action is war, is, in the last analysis andfrom the least misleading point of view, a political factor of theutmost importance in international affairs, one more often deterrentthan irritant. It is in that light, according to the conditions of theage and of the nation, that it asks and deserves the appreciation ofthe state, and that it should be developed in proportion to thereasonable possibilities of the political future. 

PREPAREDNESS FOR NAVAL WAR. 

_December, 1896. _

The problem of preparation for war in modern times is both extensiveand complicated. As in the construction of the individual ship, wherethe attempt to reconcile conflicting requirements has resulted, according to a common expression, in a compromise, the most dubious ofall military solutions, --giving something to all, and all to none, --sopreparation for war involves many conditions, often contradictory oneto another, at times almost irreconcilable. To satisfy all of thesepasses the ingenuity of the national Treasury, powerless to give thewhole of what is demanded by the representatives of the differentelements, which, in duly ordered proportion, constitute a completescheme of national military policy, whether for offence or defence. Unable to satisfy all, and too often equally unable to say, frankly, "This one is chief; to it you others must yield, except so far as youcontribute to its greatest efficiency, " either the pendulum of thegovernment's will swings from one extreme to the other, or, in theattempt to be fair all round, all alike receive less than they ask, and for their theoretical completeness require. In other words, thecontents of the national purse are distributed, instead of beingconcentrated upon a leading conception, adopted after duedeliberation, and maintained with conviction. 

The creation of material for war, under modern conditions, requires alength of time which does not permit the postponement of it to thehour of impending hostilities. To put into the water a first-classbattle-ship, fully armored, within a year after the laying of herkeel, as has been done latterly in England, is justly considered anextraordinary exhibition of the nation's resources for navalshipbuilding; and there yet remained to be done the placing of herbattery, and many other matters of principal detail essential to herreadiness for sea. This time certainly would not be less forourselves, doing our utmost. 

War is simply a political movement, though violent and exceptional inits character. However sudden the occasion from which it arises, itresults from antecedent conditions, the general tendency of whichshould be manifest long before to the statesmen of a nation, and to atleast the reflective portion of the people. In such anticipation, suchforethought, as in the affairs of common life, lies the best hope ofthe best solution, --peace by ordinary diplomatic action; peace bytimely agreement, while men's heads are cool, and the crisis of feverhas not been reached by the inflammatory utterances of an unscrupulouspress, to which agitated public apprehension means increase ofcirculation. But while the maintenance of peace by sagacious previsionis the laurel of the statesman, which, in failing to achieve except byforce, he takes from his own brow and gives to the warrior, it is nonethe less a necessary part of his official competence to recognize thatin public disputes, as in private, there is not uncommonly on bothsides an element of right, real or really believed, which preventseither party from yielding, and that it is better for men to fightthan, for the sake of peace, to refuse to support their convictions ofjustice. How deplorable the war between the North and South! but moredeplorable by far had it been that either had flinched from themaintenance of what it believed to be fundamental right. On questionsof merely material interest men may yield; on matters of principlethey may be honestly in the wrong; but a conviction of right, eventhough mistaken, if yielded without contention, entails adeterioration of character, except in the presence of forcedemonstrably irresistible--and sometimes even then. Death beforedishonor is a phrase which at times has been abused infamously, but itnone the less contains a vital truth. 

To provide a force adequate to maintain the nation's cause, and toinsure its readiness for immediate action in case of necessity, arethe responsibility of the government of a state, in its legislativeand executive functions. Such a force is a necessary outcome of thepolitical conditions which affect, or, as can be foreseen, probablymay affect, the international relations of the country. Its existenceat all and its size are, or should be, the reflection of the nationalconsciousness that in this, that, or the other direction lie clearnational interests--for which each generation is responsible tofuturity--or national duties, equally clear from the mere fact thatthe matter lies at the door, like Lazarus at the rich man's gate. Thequestion of when or how action shall be taken which may result inhostilities, is indeed a momentous one, having regard to the direevils of war; but it is the question of a moment, of the last momentto which can be postponed a final determination of such tremendousconsequence. To this determination preparation for war has only thisrelation: that it should be adequate to the utmost demand that thencan be made upon it, and, if possible, so imposing that it willprevent war ensuing, upon the firm presentation of demands which thenation believes to be just. Such a conception, so stated, implies nomore than defence, --defence of the nation's rights or of the nation'sduties, although such defence may take the shape of aggressive action, the only safe course in war. 

Logically, therefore, a nation which proposes to provide itself with anaval or military organization adequate to its needs, must begin byconsidering, not what is the largest army or navy in the world, withthe view of rivalling it, but what there is in the political status ofthe world, including not only the material interests but the temper ofnations, which involves a reasonable, even though remote, prospect ofdifficulties which may prove insoluble except by war. The matter, primarily, is political in character. It is not until this politicaldetermination has been reached that the data for even stating themilitary problem are in hand; for here, as always, the military armwaits upon and is subservient to the political interests and civilpower of the state. 

It is not the most probable of dangers, but the most formidable, thatmust be selected as measuring the degree of military precaution to beembodied in the military preparations thenceforth to be maintained. The lesser is contained in the greater; if equal to the most that canbe apprehended reasonably, the country can view with quiet eye theexistence of more imminent, but less dangerous complications. Norshould it be denied that in estimating danger there should be acertain sobriety of imagination, equally removed from undue confidenceand from exaggerated fears. Napoleon's caution to his marshals not tomake a picture to themselves--not to give too loose rein to fancy asto what the enemy might do, regardless of the limitations to whichmilitary movements are subject--applies to antecedent calculations, like those which we are considering now, as really as to theoperations of the campaign. When British writers, realizing theabsolute dependence of their own country upon the sea, insist that theBritish navy must exceed the two most formidable of its possibleopponents, they advance an argument which is worthy at least ofserious debate; but when the two is raised to three, they assumeconditions which are barely possible, but lie too far without thelimits of probability to affect practical action. 

In like manner, the United States, in estimating her need of militarypreparation of whatever kind, is justified in considering, not merelythe utmost force which might be brought against her by a possibleenemy, under the political circumstances most favorable to the latter, but the limitations imposed upon an opponent's action by well-knownconditions of a permanent nature. Our only rivals in potentialmilitary strength are the great powers of Europe. These, however, while they have interests in the western hemisphere, --to which acertain solidarity is imparted by their instinctive and avowedopposition to a policy to which the United States, by an inwardcompulsion apparently irresistible, becomes more and morecommitted, --have elsewhere yet wider and more onerous demands upontheir attention. Since 1884 Great Britain, France, and Germany haveeach acquired colonial possessions, varying in extent from one millionto two and a half million square miles, --chiefly in Africa. Thismeans, as is generally understood, not merely the acquisition of somuch new territory, but the perpetuation of national rivalries andsuspicions, maintaining in full vigor, in this age, the traditions ofpast animosities. It means uncertainties about boundaries--that mostfruitful source of disputes when running through unexploredwildernesses--jealousy of influence over native occupants of the soil, fear of encroachment, unperceived till too late, and so a constant, ifsilent, strife to insure national preponderance in these newly openedregions. The colonial expansion of the seventeenth and eighteenthcenturies is being resumed under our eyes, bringing with it the sametrain of ambitions and feelings that were exhibited then, though theseare qualified by the more orderly methods of modern days and by awell-defined mutual apprehension, --the result of a universalpreparedness for war, the distinctive feature of our own time whichmost guarantees peace. 

All this reacts evidently upon Europe, the common mother-country ofthese various foreign enterprises, in whose seas and lands must befought out any struggle springing from these remote causes, and uponwhose inhabitants chiefly must fall both the expense and the bloodshedthence arising. To these distant burdens of disquietude--in theassuming of which, though to an extent self-imposed, the presentwriter recognizes the prevision of civilization, instinctive ratherthan conscious, against the perils of the future--is to be added theproximate and unavoidable anxiety dependent upon the conditions ofTurkey and its provinces, the logical outcome of centuries of Turkishmisrule. Deplorable as have been, and to some extent still are, political conditions on the American continents, the New World, in thematter of political distribution of territory and fixity of tenure, ispermanence itself, as compared with the stormy prospect confrontingthe Old in its questions which will not down. 

In these controversies, which range themselves under the broad headsof colonial expansion and the Eastern question, all the larger powersof Europe, the powers that maintain considerable armies or navies, orboth, are directly and deeply interested--except Spain. The lattermanifests no solicitude concerning the settlement of affairs in theeast of Europe, nor is she engaged in increasing her stillconsiderable colonial dominion. This preoccupation of the greatpowers, being not factitious, but necessary, --a thing that cannot bedismissed by an effort of the national will, because its existencedepends upon the nature of things, --is a legitimate element in themilitary calculations of the United States. It cannot enter into herdiplomatic considerations, for it is her pride not to seek, from theembarrassments of other states, advantages or concessions which shecannot base upon the substantial justice of her demands. But, whilethis is true, the United States has had in the past abundantexperience of disputes, in which, though she believed herself right, even to the point of having a just _casus belli_, the other party hasnot seemed to share the same conviction. These difficulties, chiefly, though not solely, territorial in character, have been the naturalbequest of the colonial condition through which this hemisphere passedon its way to its present political status. Her own view of right, even when conceded in the end, has not approved itself at first to theother party to the dispute. Fortunately these differences have beenmainly with Great Britain, the great and beneficent colonizer, a statebetween which and ourselves a sympathy, deeper than both parties havebeen ready always to admit, has continued to exist, because foundedupon common fundamental ideas of law and justice. Of this the happytermination of the Venezuelan question is the most recent but not theonly instance. 

It is sometimes said that Great Britain is the most unpopular state inEurope. If this be so, --and many of her own people seem to accept thefact of her political isolation, though with more or less ofregret, --is there nothing significant to us in that our attitudetowards her in the Venezuelan matter has not commanded the sympathy ofEurope, but rather the reverse? Our claim to enter, as of right, intoa dispute not originally our own, and concerning us only as one of theAmerican group of nations, has been rejected in no doubtful tones byorgans of public opinion which have no fondness for Great Britain. Whether any foreign government has taken the same attitude is notknown, --probably there has been no official protest against theapparent admission of a principle which binds nobody but the partiesto it. Do we ourselves realize that, happy as the issue of ourintervention has been, it may entail upon us greater responsibilities, more serious action, than we have assumed before? that it amounts infact--if one may use a military metaphor--to occupying an advancedposition, the logical result very likely of other steps in the past, but which nevertheless implies necessarily such organization ofstrength as will enable us to hold it?

Without making a picture to ourselves, without conjuring upextravagant contingencies, it is not difficult to detect the existenceof conditions, in which are latent elements of future disputes, identical in principle with those through which we have passedheretofore. Can we expect that, if unprovided with adequate militarypreparation, we shall receive from other states, not imbued with ourtraditional habits of political thought, and therefore less patient ofour point of view, the recognition of its essential reasonablenesswhich has been conceded by the government of Great Britain? The latterhas found capacity for sympathy with our attitude, --not only by longand close contact and interlacing of interests between the twopeoples, nor yet only in a fundamental similarity of character andinstitutions. Besides these, useful as they are to mutualunderstanding, that government has an extensive and varied experience, extending over centuries, of the vital importance of distant regionsto its own interests, to the interests of its people and its commerce, or to its political prestige. It can understand and allow for adetermination not to acquiesce in the beginning or continuance of astate of things, the tendency of which is to induce futureembarrassments, --to complicate or to endanger essential welfare. Anation situated as Great Britain is in India and Egypt scarcely canfail to appreciate our own sensitiveness regarding the CentralAmerican isthmus, and the Pacific, on which we have such extensiveterritory; nor is it a long step from concern about the Mediterranean, and anxious watchfulness over the progressive occupation of itssouthern shores, to an understanding of our reluctance to see theambitions and conflicts of another hemisphere approach, even remotelyand indirectly, the comparatively peaceful neighborhoods surroundingthe Caribbean Sea, bearing a threat of disturbance to the politicaldistribution of power or of territorial occupation now existing. Whatever our interests may demand in the future may be a matter ofdoubt, but it is hard to see how there can be any doubt in the mind ofa British statesman that it is our clear interest now, when all isquiet, to see removed possibilities of trouble which might break outat a less propitious season. 

Such facility for reaching an understanding, due to experience ofdifficulties, is supported strongly by a hearty desire for peace, traditional with a commercial people who have not to reproachthemselves with any lack of resolution or tenacity in assuming andbearing the burden of war when forced upon them. "Militarism" is not apreponderant spirit in either Great Britain or the United States;their commercial tendencies and their isolation concur to exempt themfrom its predominance. Pugnacious, and even warlike, when aroused, theidea of war in the abstract is abhorrent to them, because itinterferes with their leading occupations, and its demands are aliento their habits of thought. To say that either lacks sensitiveness tothe point of honor would be to wrong them; but the point must be madeclear to them, and it will not be found in the refusal of reasonabledemands, because they involve the abandonment of positions hastily orignorantly assumed, nor in the mere attitude of adhering to a positionlest there may be an appearance of receding under compulsion. NapoleonI. Phrased the extreme position of militarism in the words, "If theBritish ministry should intimate that there was anything the FirstConsul had not done, _because he was prevented from doing it_, thatinstant he would do it. "

Now the United States, speaking by various organs, has said, inlanguage scarcely to be misunderstood, that she is resolved to resortto force, if necessary, to prevent the territorial or politicalextension of European power beyond its present geographical limits inthe American continents. In the question of a disputed boundary shehas held that this resolve--dependent upon what she conceives herreasonable policy--required her to insist that the matter should besubmitted to arbitration. If Great Britain should see in thispolitical stand the expression of a reasonable national policy, she isable, by the training and habit of her leaders, to accept it as such, without greatly troubling over the effect upon men's opinions that maybe produced by the additional announcement that the policy is worthfighting for, and will be fought for if necessary. It would be amatter of course for her to fight for her just interests, if need be, and why should not another state say the same? The point--of honor, ifyou like--is not whether a nation will fight, but whether its claim isjust. Such an attitude, however, is not the spirit of "militarism, "nor accordant with it; and in nations saturated with the militaryspirit, the intimation that a policy will be supported by force raisesthat sort of point of honor behind which the reasonableness of thepolicy is lost to sight. It can no longer be viewed dispassionately;it is prejudged by the threat, however mildly that be expressed. Andthis is but a logical development of their institutions. The soldier, or the state much of whose policy depends upon organized force, cannotbut resent the implication that he or it is unable or unwilling tomeet force with force. The life of soldiers and of armies is theirspirit, and that spirit receives a serious wound when it seems--evensuperficially--to recoil before a threat; while with the weakening ofthe military body falls an element of political strength which has noanalogue in Great Britain or the United States, the chief militarypower of which must lie ever in navies, never an aggressive factorsuch as armies have been. 

Now, the United States has made an announcement that she will supportby force a policy which may bring her into collision with states ofmilitary antecedents, indisposed by their interests to acquiesce inour position, and still less willing to accept it under appearance ofthreat. What preparation is necessary in case such a one is asdetermined to fight against our demands as we to fight for them?

Preparation for war, rightly understood, falls under twoheads, --preparation and preparedness. The one is a question mainly ofmaterial, and is constant in its action. The second involves an ideaof completeness. When, at a particular moment, preparations arecompleted, one is prepared--not otherwise. There may have been made agreat deal of very necessary preparation for war without beingprepared. Every constituent of preparation may be behindhand, or someelements may be perfectly ready, while others are not. In neither casecan a state be said to be prepared. 

In the matter of preparation for war, one clear idea should beabsorbed first by every one who, recognizing that war is still apossibility, desires to see his country ready. This idea is that, however defensive in origin or in political character a war may be, the assumption of a simple defensive in war is ruin. War, oncedeclared, must be waged offensively, aggressively. The enemy must notbe fended off, but smitten down. You may then spare him everyexaction, relinquish every gain; but till down he must be struckincessantly and remorselessly. 

Preparation, like most other things, is a question both of kind and ofdegree, of quality and of quantity. As regards degree, the generallines upon which it is determined have been indicated broadly in thepreceding part of this article. The measure of degree is the estimatedforce which the strongest _probable_ enemy can bring against you, allowance being made for clear drawbacks upon his total force, imposedby his own embarrassments and responsibilities in other parts of theworld. The calculation is partly military, partly political, thelatter, however, being the dominant factor in the premises. 

In kind, preparation is twofold, --defensive and offensive. The formerexists chiefly for the sake of the latter, in order that offence, thedetermining factor in war, may put forth its full power, unhampered byconcern for the protection of the national interests or for its ownresources. In naval war, coast defence is the defensive factor, thenavy the offensive. Coast defence, when adequate, assures the navalcommander-in-chief that his base of operations--the dock-yards andcoal depots--is secure. It also relieves him and his government, bythe protection afforded to the chief commercial centres, from thenecessity of considering them, and so leaves the offensive armperfectly free. 

Coast defence implies coast attack. To what attacks are coasts liable?Two, principally, --blockade and bombardment. The latter, being themore difficult, includes the former, as the greater does the lesser. Afleet that can bombard can still more easily blockade. Againstbombardment the necessary precaution is gun-fire, of such power andrange that a fleet cannot lie within bombarding distance. Thiscondition is obtained, where surroundings permit, by advancing theline of guns so far from the city involved that bombarding distancecan be reached only by coming under their fire. But it has beendemonstrated, and is accepted, that, owing to their rapidity ofmovement, --like a flock of birds on the wing, --a fleet of ships can, without disabling loss, pass by guns before which they could not lie. Hence arises the necessity of arresting or delaying their progress byblocking channels, which in modern practice is done by lines oftorpedoes. The mere moral effect of the latter is a deterrent to adash past, --by which, if successful, a fleet reaches the rear of thedefences, and appears immediately before the city, which then lies atits mercy. 

Coast defence, then, implies gun-power and torpedo lines placed asdescribed. Be it said in passing that only places of decisiveimportance, commercially or militarily, need such defences. Modernfleets cannot afford to waste ammunition in bombarding unimportanttowns, --at least when so far from their own base as they would be onour coast. It is not so much a question of money as of fritteringtheir fighting strength. It would not pay. 

Even coast defence, however, although essentially passive, should havean element of offensive force, local in character, distinct from theoffensive navy, of which nevertheless it forms a part. To take theoffensive against a floating force it must itself be afloat--naval. This offensive element of coast defence is to be found in thetorpedo-boat, in its various developments. It must be kept distinct inidea from the sea-going fleet, although it is, of course, possiblethat the two may act in concert. The war very well may take such aturn that the sea-going navy will find its best preparation forinitiating an offensive movement to be by concentrating in a principalseaport. Failing such a contingency, however, and in and for coastdefence in its narrower sense, there should be a local flotilla ofsmall torpedo-vessels, which by their activity should make life aburden to an outside enemy. A distinguished British admiral, now dead, has said that he believed half the captains of a blockading fleetwould break down--"go crazy" were the words repeated to me--under thestrain of modern conditions. The expression, of course, was intendedsimply to convey a sense of the immensity of suspense to be endured. In such a flotilla, owing to the smallness of its components, and tothe simplicity of their organization and functions, is to be found thebest sphere for naval volunteers; the duties could be learned withcomparative ease, and the whole system is susceptible of rapiddevelopment. Be it remembered, however, that it is essentiallydefensive, only incidentally offensive, in character. 

Such are the main elements of coast defence--guns, lines of torpedoes, torpedo-boats. Of these none can be extemporized, with the possibleexception of the last, and that would be only a makeshift. To go intodetails would exceed the limits of an article, --require a brieftreatise. Suffice it to say, without the first two, coast cities areopen to bombardment; without the last, they can be blockaded freely, unless relieved by the sea-going navy. Bombardment and blockade arerecognized modes of warfare, subject only to reasonablenotification, --a concession rather to humanity and equity than tostrict law. Bombardment and blockade directed against great nationalcentres, in the close and complicated network of national andcommercial interests as they exist in modern times, strike not onlythe point affected, but every corner of the land. 

The offensive in naval war, as has been said, is the function of thesea-going navy--of the battle-ships, and of the cruisers of varioussizes and purposes, including sea-going torpedo-vessels capable ofaccompanying a fleet, without impeding its movements by their loss ofspeed or unseaworthiness. Seaworthiness, and reasonable speed underall weather conditions, are qualities necessary to every constituentof a fleet; but, over and above these, the backbone and real power ofany navy are the vessels which, by due proportion of defensive andoffensive powers, are capable of taking and giving hard knocks. Allothers are but subservient to these, and exist only for them. 

What is that strength to be? Ships answering to this description arethe _kind_ which make naval strength; what is to be its _degree_? Whattheir number? The answer--a broad formula--is that it must be greatenough to take the sea, and to fight, with reasonable chances ofsuccess, the largest force likely to be brought against it, as shownby calculations which have been indicated previously. Being, as weclaim, and as our past history justifies us in claiming, a nationindisposed to aggression, unwilling to extend our possessions or ourinterests by war, the measure of strength we set ourselves depends, necessarily, not upon our projects of aggrandizement, but upon thedisposition of others to thwart what we consider our reasonablepolicy, which they may not so consider. When they resist, what forcecan they bring against us? That force must be naval; we have noexposed point upon which land operations, decisive in character, canbe directed. This is the kind of the hostile force to be apprehended. What may its size be? There is the measure of our needed strength. Thecalculation may be intricate, the conclusion only approximate andprobable, but it is the nearest reply we can reach. So many ships ofsuch and such sizes, so many guns, so much ammunition--in short, somuch naval material. In the material provisions that have beensummarized under the two chief heads of defence and offence--in coastdefence under its three principal requirements, guns, lines ofstationary torpedoes, and torpedo-boats, and in a navy able to keepthe sea in the presence of a probable enemy--consist what may becalled most accurately preparations for war. In so far as the UnitedStates is short in them, she is at the mercy of an enemy whose navalstrength is greater than that of her own available navy. If her navycannot keep the enemy off the coast, blockade at least is possible. If, in addition, there are no harbor torpedo-boats, blockade is easy. If, further, guns and torpedo lines are deficient, bombardment comeswithin the range of possibility, and may reach even the point ofentire feasibility. There will be no time for preparation after warbegins. 

It is not in the preparation of material that states generally fallmost short of being ready for war at brief notice; for suchpreparation is chiefly a question of money and of manufacture, --not somuch of preservation after creation. If money enough is forthcoming, amoderate degree of foresight can insure that the amount of materialdeemed necessary shall be on hand at a given future moment; and asimilar condition can be maintained steadily. Losses by deteriorationor expenditure, or demand for further increase if such appeardesirable, can all be forecast with reasonable calculations, andrequirements thence arising can be made good. This is comparativelyeasy, because mere material, once wrought into shape for war, does notdeteriorate from its utility to the nation because not usedimmediately. It can be stored and cared for at a relatively smallexpense, and with proper oversight will remain just as good and justas ready for use as at its first production. There are certaindeductions, a certain percentage of impairment to be allowed for, butthe general statement holds. 

A very different question is confronted in the problem how to be readyat equally short notice to use this material, --to provide insufficient numbers, upon a sudden call, the living agents, withoutwhom the material is worthless. Such men in our day must be especiallytrained; and not only so, but while training once acquired will not beforgot wholly--stays by a man for a certain time--it neverthelesstends constantly to drop off from him. Like all habits, it requirescontinued practice. Moreover, it takes quite a long time to form, in anew recruit, not merely familiarity with the use of a particularweapon, but also the habit and working of the military organization ofwhich he is an individual member. It is not enough that he learn justthat one part of the whole machinery which falls to him to handle; hemust be acquainted with the mutual relations of the other parts to hisown and to the whole, at least in great measure. Such knowledge isessential even to the full and intelligent discharge of his own duty, not to speak of the fact that in battle every man should be ready tosupply the place of another of his own class and grade who has beendisabled. Unless this be so, the ship will be very far short of herbest efficiency. 

Now, to possess such proficiency in the handling of naval material forwar, and in playing an intelligent part in the general functioning ofa ship in action, much time is required. Time is required to obtainit, further time is needed in order to retain it; and such time, be itmore or less, is time lost for other purposes, --lost both to theindividual and to the community. When you have your thoroughlyefficient man-of-war's man, you cannot store him as you do your gunsand ammunition, or lay him up as you may your ships, without hisdeteriorating at a rate to which material presents no parallel. On theother hand, if he be retained, voluntarily or otherwise, in the navalservice, there ensues the economical loss--the loss of productivepower--which constitutes the great argument against large standingarmies and enforced military service, advanced by those to whom theproductive energies of a country outweigh all other considerations. 

It is this difficulty which is felt most by those responsible for themilitary readiness of European states, and which therefore has engagedtheir most anxious attention. The providing of material of war is anonerous money question; but it is simple, and has some compensationfor the expense in the resulting employment of labor for itsproduction. It is quite another matter to have ready the number of menneeded, --to train them, and to keep them so trained as to be availableimmediately. 

The solution is sought in a tax upon time--Upon the time of thenation, economically lost to production, and upon the time of theindividual, lost out of his life. Like other taxes, the tendency onall sides is to reduce this as far as possible, --to compromise betweenideal proficiency for probable contingencies, and the actual demandsof the existing and usual conditions of peace. Although inevitable, the compromise is unsatisfactory, and yields but partial results ineither direction. The economist still deplores and resists the loss ofproducers, --the military authorities insist that the country is shortof its necessary force. To obviate the difficulty as far as possible, to meet both of the opposing demands, resort is had to the system ofreserves, into which men pass after serving in the active force for aperiod, which is reduced to, and often below, the shortest compatiblewith instruction in their duties, and with the maintenance of theactive forces at a fixed minimum. This instruction acquired, therecipient passes into the reserve, leaves the life of the soldier orseaman for that of the citizen, devoting a comparatively brief time inevery year to brushing up the knowledge formerly acquired. Such asystem, under some form, is found in services both voluntary andcompulsory. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that such a method would never beconsidered satisfactory in any of the occupations of ordinary life. Aman who learns his profession or trade, but never practises it, willnot long be considered fit for employment. No kind of practicalpreparation, in the way of systematic instruction, equals thepractical knowledge imbibed in the common course of life. This is justas true of the military professions--the naval especially--as it is ofcivil callings; perhaps even more so, because the former are a moreunnatural, and therefore, when attained, a more highly specialized, form of human activity. For the very reason that war is in the main anevil, an unnatural state, but yet at times unavoidable, the demandsupon warriors, when average men, are exceptionally exacting. 

Preparedness for naval war therefore consists not so much in thebuilding of ships and guns as it does in the possession of trained menin adequate numbers, fit to go on board at once and use the material, the provision of which is merely one of the essential preparations forwar. The word "fit" includes fairly all that detail of organizationcommonly called mobilization, by which the movements of the individualmen are combined and directed. But mobilization, although the subjectsof it are men, is itself a piece of mental machinery. Once devised, itmay be susceptible of improvement, but it will not become inefficientbecause filed away in a pigeon-hole, any more than guns andprojectiles become worthless by being stored in their parks ormagazines. Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care ofthemselves. Provide your fit men, --fit by their familiarity not onlywith special instruments, but with a manner of life, --and yourmobilization is reduced to a slip of paper telling each one where heis to go. He will get there. 

That a navy, especially a large navy, can be kept fully manned inpeace--manned up to the requirements of war--must be dismissed asimpracticable. If greatly superior to a probable enemy, it will beunnecessary; if more nearly equal, then the aim can only be to besuperior in the number of men immediately available, and fit accordingto the standard of fitness here generalized. The place of a reserve inany system of preparation for war must be admitted, becauseinevitable. The question, of the proportion and character of thereserve, relatively to the active force of peace, is the crux of thematter. This is essentially the question between long-service andshort-service systems. With long service the reserves will be fewer, and for the first few years of retirement much more efficient, forthey have acquired, not knowledge only, but a habit of life. Withshort service, more men are shoved through the mill of thetraining-school. Consequently they pass more rapidly into the reserve, are less efficient when they get there, and lose more rapidly, becausethey have acquired less thoroughly; on the other hand, they will bedecidedly more numerous, on paper at least, than the entire trainedforce of a long-service system. The pessimists on either side willexpound the dangers--the one, of short numbers; the others, ofinadequate training. 

Long service must be logically the desire, and the result, ofvoluntary systems of recruiting the strength of a military force. Where enrolment is a matter of individual choice, there is a betterchance of entrance resulting in the adoption of the life as a callingto be followed; and this disposition can be encouraged by the offeringof suitable inducements. Where service is compulsory, that fact alonetends to make it abhorrent, and voluntary persistence, after time hasbeen served, rare. But, on the other hand, as the necessity fornumbers in war is as real as the necessity of fitness, a body wherelong service and small reserves obtain should in peace be morenumerous than one where the reserves are larger. To long service andsmall reserves a large standing force is the natural corollary. It maybe added that it is more consonant to the necessities of warfare, andmore consistent with the idea of the word "reserve, " as elsewhere usedin war. The reserve in battle is that portion of the force which iswithheld from engagement, awaiting the unforeseen developments of thefight; but no general would think of carrying on a pitched battle withthe smaller part of his force, keeping the larger part in reserve. Rapid concentration of effort, anticipating that of the enemy, is theideal of tactics and of strategy, --of the battle-field and of thecampaign. It is that, likewise, of the science of mobilization, in itsmodern development. The reserve is but the margin of safety, tocompensate for defects in conception or execution, to which allenterprises are liable; and it may be added that it is as applicableto the material force--the ships, guns, etc. --as it is to the men. 

The United States, like Great Britain, depends wholly upon voluntaryenlistments; and both nations, with unconscious logic, have laid greatstress upon continuous service, and comparatively little uponreserves. When seamen have served the period which entitles them tothe rewards of continuous service, without further enlistment, theyare, though still in the prime of life, approaching the period whenfitness, in the private seaman or soldier, depends upon ingrainedhabit--perfect practical familiarity with the life which has beentheir one calling--rather than upon that elastic vigor which is theprivilege of youth. Should they elect to continue in the service, there still remain some years in which they are an invaluable leaven, by character and tradition. If they depart, they are for a few years areserve for war--if they choose to come forward; but it is manifestthat such a reserve can be but small, when compared with a systemwhich in three or five years passes men through the active force intothe reserve. The latter, however, is far less valuable, man for man. Of course, a reserve which has not even three years' service is lessvaluable still. 

The United States is to all intents an insular power, like GreatBritain. We have but two land frontiers, Canada and Mexico. The latteris hopelessly inferior to us in all the elements of military strength. As regards Canada, Great Britain maintains a standing army; but, likeour own, its numbers indicate clearly that aggression will never beher policy, except in those distant regions whither the great armiesof the world cannot act against her, unless they first wrench from herthe control of the sea. No modern state has long maintained asupremacy by land and by sea, --one or the other has been held fromtime to time by this or that country, but not both. Great Britainwisely has chosen naval power; and, independent of her reluctance tobreak with the United States for other reasons, she certainly wouldregret to devote to the invasion of a nation of seventy millions thesmall disposable force which she maintains in excess of the constantrequirements of her colonial interests. We are, it may be repeated, aninsular power, dependent therefore upon a navy. 

Durable naval power, besides, depends ultimately upon extensivecommercial relations; consequently, and especially in an insularstate, it is rarely aggressive, in the military sense. Its instinctsare naturally for peace, because it has so much at stake outside itsshores. Historically, this has been the case with the conspicuousexample of sea power, Great Britain, since she became such; and itincreasingly tends to be so. It is also our own case, and to a yetgreater degree, because, with an immense compact territory, there hasnot been the disposition to external effort which has carried theBritish flag all over the globe, seeking to earn by foreign commerceand distant settlement that abundance of resource which to us has beenthe free gift of nature--or of Providence. By her very success, however, Great Britain, in the vast increase and dispersion of herexternal interests, has given hostages to fortune, which for meredefence impose upon her a great navy. Our career has been different, our conditions now are not identical, yet our geographical positionand political convictions have created for us also external interestsand external responsibilities, which are likewise our hostages tofortune. It is not necessary to roam afar in search of adventures;popular feeling and the deliberate judgment of statesmen alike haveasserted that, from conditions we neither made nor control, interestsbeyond the sea exist, have sprung up of themselves, which demandprotection. "Beyond the sea"--that means a navy. Of invasion, in anyreal sense of the word, we run no risk, and if we did, it must be bysea; and there, at sea, must be met primarily, and ought to be metdecisively, any attempt at invasion of our interests, either indistant lands, or at home by blockade or by bombardment. Yet the forceof men in the navy is smaller, by more than half, than that in thearmy. 

The necessary complement of those admirable measures which have beenemployed now for over a decade in the creation of naval material isthe preparation of an adequate force of trained men to use thismaterial when completed. Take an entirely fresh man: a battleship canbe built and put in commission before he becomes a trainedman-of-war's man, and a torpedo-boat can be built and ready forservice before, to use the old sea phrase, "the hay seed is out of hishair. " Further, in a voluntary service, you cannot keep your trainedmen as you can your completed ship or gun. The inevitable inference isthat the standing force must be large, because you can neither createit hastily nor maintain it by compulsion. Having fixed the amount ofmaterial, --the numbers and character of the fleet, --from this followseasily the number of men necessary to man it. This aggregate force canthen be distributed, upon some accepted idea, between the standingnavy and the reserve. Without fixing a proportion between the two, thepresent writer is convinced that the reserve should be but a smallpercentage of the whole, and that in a small navy, as ours, relatively, long will be, this is doubly imperative; for the smallerthe navy, the greater the need for constant efficiency to actpromptly, and the smaller the expense of maintenance. In fact, wherequantity--number--is small, quality should be all the more high. Thequality of the whole is a question of _personnel_ even more than ofmaterial; and the quality of the _personnel_ can be maintained only byhigh individual fitness in the force, undiluted by dependence upon alarge, only partly efficient, reserve element. 

 "One foot on sea and one on shore, to one thing constant never, "

will not man the fleet. It can be but an imperfect palliative, and canbe absorbed effectually by the main body only in small proportions. Itis in torpedo-boats for coast defence, and in commerce-destroying fordeep-sea warfare, that the true sphere for naval reserves will befound; for the duties in both cases are comparatively simple, and theorganization can be the same. 

Every danger of a military character to which the United Statesis exposed can be met best outside her own territory--at sea. Preparedness for naval war--preparedness against naval attack and fornaval offence--is preparedness for anything that is likely to occur. 

A TWENTIETH-CENTURY OUTLOOK. 

_May, 1897. _

Finality, the close of a life, of a relationship, of an era, eventhough this be a purely artificial creation of human arrangement, inall cases appeals powerfully to the imagination, and especially tothat of a generation self-conscious as ours, a generation which hascoined for itself the phrase _fin de siècle_ to express its belief, however superficial and mistaken, that it knows its own exponents andits own tendencies; that, amid the din of its own progress sounding inits ears, it knows not only whence it comes but whither it goes. Thenineteenth century is about to die, only to rise again in thetwentieth. Whence did it come? How far has it gone? Whither is itgoing?

A full reply to such queries would presume an abridged universalhistory of the expiring century such as a magazine article, or seriesof articles, could not contemplate for a moment. The scope proposed tohimself by the present writer, itself almost unmanageable within thenecessary limits, looks not to the internal conditions of states, tothose economical and social tendencies which occupy so large a part ofcontemporary attention, seeming to many the sole subjects that deserveattention, and that from the most purely material and fleshly point ofview. Important as these things are, it may be affirmed at least thatthey are not everything; and that, great as has been the materialprogress of the century, the changes in international relations andrelative importance, not merely in states of the European family, butamong the peoples of the world at large, have been no less striking. It is from this direction that the writer wishes to approach hissubject, which, if applied to any particular country, might be said tobe that of its external relations; but which, in the broader view thatit will be sought to attain, regards rather the general future of theworld as indicated by movements already begun and in progress, as wellas by tendencies now dimly discernible, which, if not counteracted, are pregnant of further momentous shifting of the political balances, profoundly affecting the welfare of mankind. 

It appears a convenient, though doubtless very rough, way of prefacingthis subject to say that the huge colonizing movements of theeighteenth century were brought to a pause by the American Revolution, which deprived Great Britain of her richest colonies, succeeded, asthat almost immediately was, by the French Revolution and thedevastating wars of the republic and of Napoleon, which forced theattention of Europe to withdraw from external allurements and toconcentrate upon its own internal affairs. The purchase of Louisianaby the United States at the opening of the current century emphasizedthis conclusion; for it practically eliminated the continent of NorthAmerica from the catalogue of wild territories available for foreignsettlement. Within a decade this was succeeded by the revolt of theSpanish colonies, followed later by the pronouncements of PresidentMonroe and of Mr. Canning, which assured their independence bypreventing European interference. The firmness with which the positionof the former statesman has been maintained ever since by the greatbody of the people of the United States, and the developments hisdoctrine afterwards received, have removed the Spanish-Americancountries equally from all probable chance of further Europeancolonization, in the political sense of the word. 

Thus the century opened. Men's energies still sought scope beyond thesea, doubtless; not, however, in the main, for the founding of newcolonies, but for utilizing ground already in political occupation. Even this, however, was subsidiary. The great work of the nineteenthcentury, from nearly its beginning to nearly its close, has been inthe recognition and study of the forces of nature, and the applicationof them to the purposes of mechanical and economical advance. Themeans thus placed in men's hands, so startling when first invented, sofamiliar for the most part to us now, were devoted necessarily, first, to the development of the resources of each country. Everywhere therewas a fresh field; for hitherto it had been nowhere possible to manfully to utilize the gifts of nature. Energies everywhere turnedinward, for there, in every region, was more than enough to do. Naturally, therefore, such a period has been in the main one of peace. There have been great wars, certainly; but, nevertheless, externalpeace has been the general characteristic of that period ofdevelopment, during which men have been occupied in revolutionizingthe face of their own countries by means of the new powers at theirdisposal. 

All such phases pass, however, as does every human thing. Increase ofproduction--the idol of the economist--sought fresh markets, as mighthave been predicted. The increase of home consumption, throughincreased ease of living, increased wealth, increased population, didnot keep up with the increase of forth-putting and the facility ofdistribution afforded by steam. In the middle of the century China andJapan were forced out of the seclusion of ages, and were compelled, for commercial purposes at least, to enter into relations with theEuropean communities, to buy and to sell with them. Serious attempts, on any extensive scale, to acquire new political possessions abroadlargely ceased. Commerce only sought new footholds, sure that, giventhe inch, she in the end would have the ell. Moreover, the growth ofthe United States in population and resources, and the development ofthe British Australian colonies, contributed to meet the demand, ofwhich the opening of China and Japan was only a single indication. That opening, therefore, was rather an incident of the generalindustrial development which followed upon the improvement ofmechanical processes and the multiplication of communications. 

Thus the century passed its meridian, and began to decline towards itsclose. There were wars and there were rumors of wars in the countriesof European civilization. Dynasties rose and fell, and nations shiftedtheir places in the scale of political importance, as old-time boys inschool went up and down; but, withal, the main characteristic abode, and has become more and more the dominant prepossession of thestatesmen who reached their prime at or soon after the times when thecentury itself culminated. The maintenance of a _status quo_, forpurely utilitarian reasons of an economical character, has graduallybecome an ideal--the _quieta non movere_ of Sir Robert Walpole. Theideal is respectable, certainly; in view of the concert of the powers, in the interest of their own repose, to coerce Greece and the Cretans, we may perhaps refrain from calling it noble. The question remains, how long can it continue respectable in the sense of being practicableof realization, --a rational possibility, not an idle dream? Many arenow found to say--and among them some of the most bitter of theadvocates of universal peace, who are among the bitterest of moderndisputants--that when the Czar Nicholas proposed to move the quietthings, half a century ago, and to reconstruct the political map ofsoutheastern Europe in the interest of well-founded quiet, it was hethat showed the idealism of rational statesmanship, --the only trulypractical statesmanship, --while the defenders of the _status quo_evinced the crude instincts of the mere time-serving politician. Thatthe latter did not insure quiet, even the quiet of desolation, inthose unhappy regions, we have yearly evidence. How far is it now apracticable object, among the nations of the European family, tocontinue indefinitely the present realization of peace and plenty, --inthemselves good things, but which are advocated largely on the groundthat man lives by bread alone, --in view of the changed conditions ofthe world which the departing nineteenth century leaves with us as itsbequest? Is the outlook such that our present civilization, with itsbenefits, is most likely to be insured by universal disarmament, theclamor for which rises ominously--the word is used advisedly--amongour latter-day cries? None shares more heartily than the writer theaspiration for the day when nations shall beat their swords intoploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks; but is Europeancivilization, including America, so situated that it can afford torelax into an artificial peace, resting not upon the working ofnational consciences, as questions arise, but upon a PermanentTribunal, --an external, if self-imposed authority, --the realization inmodern policy of the ideal of the mediæval Papacy?

The outlook--the signs of the times, what are they? It is not given tohuman vision, peering into the future, to see more than as through aglass, darkly; men as trees walking, one cannot say certainly whither. Yet signs may be noted even if they cannot be fully or preciselyinterpreted; and among them I should certainly say is to be observedthe general outward impulse of all the civilized nations of the firstorder of greatness--except our own. Bound and swathed in thetraditions of our own eighteenth century, when we were as trulyexternal to the European world as we are now a part of it, we, underthe specious plea of peace and plenty--fulness of bread--hug an idealof isolation, and refuse to recognize the solidarity of interest withwhich the world of European civilization must not only look forwardto, but go out to meet, the future that, whether near or remote, seemsto await it. I say _we_ do so; I should more surely express my thoughtby saying that the outward impulse already is in the majority of thenation, as shown when particular occasions arouse their attention, butthat it is as yet retarded, and may be retarded perilously long, bythose whose views of national policy are governed by maxims framed inthe infancy of the Republic. 

This outward impulse of the European nations, resumed on a large scaleafter nearly a century of intermission, is not a mere suddenappearance, sporadic, and unrelated to the past. The signs of itscoming, though unnoted, were visible soon after the century reachedits half-way stage, as was also its great correlative, equallyunappreciated then, though obvious enough now, the stirring of thenations of Oriental civilization. It is a curious reminiscence of myown that when in Yokohama, Japan, in 1868, I was asked to translate aSpanish letter from Honolulu, relative to a ship-load of Japanesecoolies to be imported into Hawaii. I knew the person engaged to go asphysician to the ship, and, unless my memory greatly deceives me, hesailed in this employment while I was still in the port. Similarly, when my service on the station was ended, I went from Yokohama toHong-kong, prior to returning home by way of Suez. Among myfellow-passengers was an ex-Confederate naval officer, whose businesswas to negotiate for an immigration of Chinese into, I think, theSouthern States--in momentary despair, perhaps, of black labor--butcertainly into the United States. We all know what has come in our owncountry of undertakings which then had attracted little attention. 

It is odd to watch the unconscious, resistless movements of nations, and at the same time read the crushing characterization by ourteachers of the press of those who, by personal characteristics or byaccident, happen to be thrust into the position of leaders, when atthe most they only guide to the least harm forces which can no more beresisted permanently than can gravitation. Such would have been therôle of Nicholas, guiding to a timely end the irresistible course ofevents in the Balkans, which his opponents sought to withstand, butsucceeded only in prolonging and aggravating. He is honored now bythose who see folly in the imperial aspirations of Mr. JosephChamberlain, and piracy in Mr. Cecil Rhodes; yet, after all, in hisday, what right had he, by the code of strict constructionists ofnational legal rights, to put Turkey to death because she was sick?Was not Turkey in occupation? Had she not, by strict law, a right toher possessions, and to live; yea, and to administer what sheconsidered justice to those who were legally her subjects? But men aretoo apt to forget that law is the servant of equity, and that whilethe world is in its present stage of development equity which cannotbe 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;" thepleasant function discharged by Siam between Great Britain and France. Though not strictly analogous, the term conveys an idea of therelations that have hitherto obtained between Eastern and Westerncivilizations. They have existed apart, each a world of itself; butthey are approaching not only in geographical propinquity, arecognized source of danger, but, what is more important, in commonideas of material advantage, without a corresponding sympathy inspiritual ideas. It is not merely that the two are in different stagesof development from a common source, as are Russia and Great Britain. They are running as yet on wholly different lines, springing fromconceptions radically different. To bring them into correspondence inthat, the most important realm of ideas, there is needed on the oneside--or on the other--not growth, but conversion. However far it haswandered, and however short of its pattern it has come, thecivilization of modern Europe grew up under the shadow of the Cross, and what is best in it still breathes the spirit of the Crucified. Itis to be feared that Eastern thinkers consider it rather an advantagethan a detriment that they are appropriating the material progress ofEurope unfettered by Christian traditions, --as agnostic countries. But, for the present at least, agnosticism with Christian ages behindit is a very different thing from agnosticism which has never knownChristianity. 

What will be in the future the dominant spiritual ideas of thosenations which hitherto have been known as Christian, is scarcely aquestion of the twentieth century. Whatever variations of faith, indirection or in degree, the close of that century may show, it is notprobable that so short a period will reveal the full change ofstandards and of practice which necessarily must follow ultimatelyupon a radical change of belief. That the impress of Christianity willremain throughout the coming century is reasonably as certain as thatit took centuries of nominal faith to lift Christian standards andpractice even to the point they now have reached. Decline, as well asrise, must be gradual; and gradual likewise, granting the utmostpossible spread of Christian beliefs among them, will be theapproximation of the Eastern nations, as nations, to the principleswhich powerfully modify, though they cannot control wholly even now, the merely natural impulses of Western peoples. And if, as many nowsay, faith has departed from among ourselves, and still more willdepart in the coming years; if we have no higher sanction to proposefor self-restraint and righteousness than enlightened self-interestand the absurdity of war, war--violence--will be absurd just so longas the balance of interest is on that side, and no longer. Those whowant will take, if they can, not merely from motives of high policyand as legal opportunity offers, but for the simple reasons that theyhave not, that they desire, and that they are able. The European worldhas known that stage already; it has escaped from it only partially bythe gradual hallowing of public opinion and its growing weight in thepolitical scale. The Eastern world knows not the same motives, but itis rapidly appreciating the material advantages and the politicaltraditions which have united to confer power upon the West; and withthe appreciation desire has arisen. 

Coincident with the long pause which the French Revolution imposedupon the process of external colonial expansion which was so marked afeature of the eighteenth century, there occurred another singularmanifestation of national energies, in the creation of the greatstanding armies of modern days, themselves the outcome of the _levéeen masse_, and of the general conscription, which the Revolutionbequeathed to us along with its expositions of the Rights of Man. Beginning with the birth of the century, perfected during itscontinuance, its close finds them in full maturity and power, with adevelopment in numbers, in reserve force, in organization, and inmaterial for war, over which the economist perpetually wails, whoseexistence he denounces, and whose abolition he demands. As freedom hasgrown and strengthened, so have they grown and strengthened. Is thissingular product of a century whose gains for political liberty areundeniable, a mere gross perversion of human activities, as is soconfidently claimed on many sides? or is there possibly in it also asign of the times to come, to be studied in connection with othersigns, some of which we have noted?

What has been the effect of these great armies? Manifold, doubtless. On the economical side there is the diminution of production, the taxupon men's time and lives, the disadvantages or evils so dinned dailyinto our ears that there is no need of repeating them here. But isthere nothing to the credit side of the account, even perhaps abalance in their favor? Is it nothing, in an age when authority isweakening and restraints are loosening, that the youth of a nationpasses through a school in which order, obedience, and reverence arelearned, where the body is systematically developed, where ideals ofself-surrender, of courage, of manhood, are inculcated, necessarily, because fundamental conditions of military success? Is it nothing thatmasses of youths out of the fields and the streets are broughttogether, mingled with others of higher intellectual antecedents, taught to work and to act together, mind in contact with mind, andcarrying back into civil life that respect for constituted authoritywhich is urgently needed in these days when lawlessness is erectedinto a religion? It is a suggestive lesson to watch the expression andmovements of a number of rustic conscripts undergoing their firstdrills, and to contrast them with the finished result as seen in thefaces and bearing of the soldiers that throng the streets. A militarytraining is not the worst preparation for an active life, any morethan the years spent at college are time lost, as another school ofutilitarians insists. Is it nothing that wars are less frequent, peacebetter secured, by the mutual respect of nations for each other'sstrength; and that, when a convulsion does come, it passes rapidly, leaving the ordinary course of events to resume sooner, and thereforemore easily? War now not only occurs more rarely, but has rather thecharacter of an occasional excess, from which recovery is easy. Acentury or more ago it was a chronic disease. And withal, the militaryspirit, the preparedness--not merely the willingness, which is adifferent thing--to fight in a good cause, which is a distinct good, is more widely diffused and more thoroughly possessed than ever it waswhen the soldier was merely the paid man. It is the nations now thatare in arms, and not simply the servants of the king. 

In forecasting the future, then, it is upon these particular signs ofthe times that I dwell: the arrest of the forward impulse towardspolitical colonization which coincided with the decade immediatelypreceding the French Revolution; the absorption of the Europeannations, for the following quarter of a century, with the universalwars, involving questions chiefly political and European; thebeginning of the great era of coal and iron, of mechanical andindustrial development, which succeeded the peace, and during which itwas not aggressive colonization, but the development of coloniesalready held and of new commercial centres, notably in China andJapan, that was the most prominent feature; finally, we have, resumedat the end of the century, the forward movement of politicalcolonization by the mother countries, powerfully incited thereto, doubtless, by the citizens of the old colonies in different parts ofthe world. The restlessness of Australia and the Cape Colony hasdoubtless counted for much in British advances in those regions. Contemporary with all these movements, from the first to the last, hasbeen the development of great standing armies, or rather of armednations, in Europe; and, lastly, the stirring of the East, itsentrance into the field of Western interests, not merely as a passivesomething to be impinged upon, but with a vitality of its own, formless yet, but significant, inasmuch as where before there wastorpor, if not death, now there is indisputable movement and life. Never again, probably, can there of it be said, "It heard the legions thunder past, Then plunged in thought again. "

Of this the astonishing development of Japan is the most obviousevidence; but in India, though there be no probability of the oldmutinies reviving, there are signs enough of the awaking of politicalintelligence, restlessness under foreign subjection, howeverbeneficent, desire for greater play for its own individualities; amovement which, because intellectual and appreciative of theadvantages of Western material and political civilization, is lessimmediately threatening than the former revolt, but much more ominousof great future changes. 

Of China we know less; but many observers testify to the immenselatent force of the Chinese character. It has shown itself hithertochiefly in the strength with which it has adhered to stereotypedtradition. But stereotyped traditions have been overthrown alreadymore than once even in this unprogressive people, whose conservatism, due largely to ignorance of better conditions existing in other lands, is closely allied also to the unusual staying powers of the race, tothe persistence of purpose, the endurance, and the vitalitycharacteristic of its units. To ambition for individual materialimprovement they are not insensible. The collapse of the Chineseorganization in all its branches during the late war with Japan, though greater than was expected, was not unforeseen. It has notaltered the fact that the raw material so miserably utilized is, inpoint of strength, of the best; that it is abundant, raciallyhomogeneous, and is multiplying rapidly. Nor, with the recentresuscitation of the Turkish army before men's eyes, can it be thoughtunlikely that the Chinese may yet obtain the organization by whichalone potential force receives adequate military development, the mosteasily conferred because the simplest in conception. The Japanese haveshown great capacity, but they met little resistance; and it is easierby far to move and to control an island kingdom of forty millions thana vast continental territory containing near tenfold that number ofinhabitants. Comparative slowness of evolution may be predicated, butthat which for so long has kept China one, amid many diversities, maybe counted upon in the future to insure a substantial unity of impulsewhich, combined with its mass, will give tremendous import to anymovement common to the whole. 

To assert that a few selected characteristics, such as the above, summarize the entire tendency of a century of teeming human life, andstand alone among the signs that are chiefly to be considered inlooking to the future, would be to take an untenable position. It maybe said safely, however, that these factors, because the future towhich they point is more remote, are less regarded than others whichare less important; and further, that those among them which mark ourown day are also the factors whose very existence is speciallyresented, criticised, and condemned by that school of politicalthought which assumes for itself the title of economical, whichattained its maturity, and still lives, amid the ideas of that stageof industrial progress coincident with the middle of the century, andwhich sees all things from the point of view of production and ofinternal development. Powerfully exerted throughout the world, nowhereis the influence of this school so unchecked and so injurious as inthe United States, because, having no near neighbors to compete withus in point of power, military necessities have been to us notimminent, so that, like all distant dangers, they have received littleregard; and also because, with our great resources only partiallydeveloped, the instinct to external activities has remained dormant. At the same period and from the same causes that the European worldturned its eyes inward from the seaboard, instead of outward, thepeople of the United States were similarly diverted from the externalactivities in which at the beginning of the century they had theirwealth. This tendency, emphasized on the political side by the civilwar, was reinforced and has been prolonged by well-known naturalconditions. A territory much larger, far less redeemed from itsoriginal wildness, and with perhaps even ampler proportionateresources than the continent of Europe, contained a much smallernumber of inhabitants. Hence, despite an immense immigration, we havelagged far behind in the work of completing our internal development, and for that reason have not yet felt the outward impulse that nowmarkedly characterizes the European peoples. That we stand far apartfrom the general movement of our race calls of itself forconsideration. 

For the reasons mentioned it has been an easy but a short-sightedpolicy, wherever it has been found among statesmen or amongjournalists, to fasten attention purely on internal and economicalquestions, and to reject, if not to resent, propositions lookingtowards the organization and maintenance of military force, orcontemplating the extension of our national influence beyond our ownborders, on the plea that we have enough to do at home, --forgetfulthat no nation, as no man, can live to itself or die to itself. It isa policy in which we are behind our predecessors of two generationsago, men who had not felt the deadening influence of merely economicalideas, because they reached manhood before these attained thepreponderance they achieved under politicians of the Manchesterschool; a preponderance which they still retain because the youths ofthat time, who grew up under them, have not yet quite passed off thestage. It is the lot of each generation, salutary no doubt, to beruled by men whose ideas are essentially those of a former day. Breaches of continuity in national action are thus moderated oravoided; but, on the other hand, the tendency of such a condition isto blind men to the spirit of the existing generation, because itsrulers have the tone of their own past, and direct affairs inaccordance with it. On the very day of this writing there appears inan American journal a slashing contrast between the action of LordSalisbury in the Cretan business and the spirited letter of Mr. Gladstone upon the failure of the Concert. As a matter of fact, however, both those British statesmen, while belonging to partiestraditionally opposed, are imbued above all with the ideas of themiddle of the century, and, governed by them, consider the disturbanceof quiet the greatest of all evils. It is difficult to believe that ifMr. Gladstone were now in his prime, and in power, any object wouldpossess in his eyes an importance at all comparable to that of keepingthe peace. He would feel for the Greeks, doubtless, as Lord Salisburydoubtless does; but he would maintain the Concert as long as hebelieved that alone would avoid war. When men in sympathy with theideas now arising among Englishmen come on the stage, we shall see achange--not before. 

The same spirit has dominated in our own country ever since the civilwar--a far more real "revolution" in its consequences than thestruggle of the thirteen colonies against Great Britain, which in ournational speech has received the name--forced our people, both Northand South, to withdraw their eyes from external problems, and toconcentrate heart and mind with passionate fervor upon an internalstrife, in which one party was animated by the inspiring hope ofindependence, while before the other was exalted the noble ideal ofunion. That war, however, was directed, on the civil side, by men whobelonged to a generation even then passing away. The influence oftheir own youth reverted with the return of peace, and was to be seenin the ejection--by threat of force--of the third Napoleon fromMexico, in the acquisition of Alaska, and in the negotiations for thepurchase of the Danish islands and of Samana Bay. Whatever may havebeen the wisdom of these latter attempts, --and the writer, whilesympathizing with the spirit that suggested them, questions it from amilitary, or rather naval, stand-point, --they are particularlyinteresting as indicating the survival in elderly men of thetraditions accepted in their youth, but foreign to the generation thenrapidly coming into power, which rejected and frustrated them. 

The latter in turn is now disappearing, and its successors, coming andto come, are crowding into its places. Is there any indication of theideas these bring with them, in their own utterances, or in the spiritof the world at large, which they must needs reflect; or, moreimportant perhaps still, is there any indication in the conditions ofthe outside world itself which they should heed, and the influence ofwhich they should admit, in modifying and shaping their policies, before these have become hardened into fixed lines, directive for manyyears of the future welfare of their people?

To all these questions the writer, as one of the departing generation, would answer yes; but it is to the last that his attention, possiblyby constitutional bias, is more naturally directed. It appears to himthat in the ebb and flow of human affairs, under those mysteriousimpulses the origin of which is sought by some in a personalProvidence, by some in laws not yet fully understood, we stand at theopening of a period when the question is to be settled decisively, though the issue may be long delayed, whether Eastern or Westerncivilization is to dominate throughout the earth and to control itsfuture. The great task now before the world of civilized Christianity, its great mission, which it must fulfil or perish, is to receive intoits own bosom and raise to its own ideals those ancient and differentcivilizations by which it is surrounded and outnumbered, --thecivilizations at the head of which stand China, India, and Japan. This, to cite the most striking of the many forms in which it ispresented to us, is surely the mission which Great Britain, sword everat hand, has been discharging towards India; but that stands notalone. The history of the present century has been that of a constantincreasing pressure of our own civilization upon these older ones, till now, as we cast our eyes in any direction, there is everywhere astirring, a rousing from sleep, drowsy for the most part, but real, unorganized as yet, but conscious that that which rudely interruptstheir dream of centuries possesses over them at least twoadvantages, --power and material prosperity, --the things whichunspiritual humanity, the world over, most craves. 

What the ultimate result will be it would be vain to prophesy, --thedata for a guess even are not at hand; but it is not equallyimpossible to note present conditions, and to suggest presentconsiderations, which may shape proximate action, and tend to favorthe preponderance of that form of civilization which we cannot butdeem the most promising for the future, not of our race only, but ofthe world at large. We are not living in a perfect world, and we maynot expect to deal with imperfect conditions by methods ideallyperfect. Time and staying power must be secured for ourselves by thatrude and imperfect, but not ignoble, arbiter, force, --force potentialand force organized, --which so far has won, and still secures, thegreatest triumphs of good in the checkered history of mankind. Ourmaterial advantages, once noted, will be recognized readily andappropriated with avidity; while the spiritual ideas which dominateour thoughts, and are weighty in their influence over action, evenwith those among us who do not accept historic Christianity or theordinary creeds of Christendom, will be rejected for long. The eternallaw, first that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual, will obtain here, as in the individual, and in the long history of ourown civilization. Between the two there is an interval, in which forcemust be ready to redress any threatened disturbance of an equalbalance between those who stand on divergent planes of thought, without common standards. 

And yet more is this true if, as is commonly said, faith is failingamong ourselves, if the progress of our own civilization is towardsthe loss of those spiritual convictions upon which it was founded, andwhich in early days were mighty indeed towards the overthrowing ofstrongholds of evil. What, in such a case, shall play the tremendouspart which the Church of the Middle Ages, with all its defects andwith all the shortcomings of its ministers, played amid the ruin ofthe Roman Empire and the flood of the barbarians? If our owncivilization is becoming material only, a thing limited in hope andlove to this world, I know not what we have to offer to save ourselvesor others; but in either event, whether to go down finally under aflood of outside invasion, or whether to succeed, by our own livingfaith, in converting to our ideal civilization those who shall thuspress upon us, --in either event we need time, and time can be gainedonly by organized material force. 

Nor is this view advanced in any spirit of unfriendliness to the otherancient civilizations, whose genius admittedly has been and is foreignto our own. One who believes that God has made of one blood allnations of men who dwell on the face of the whole earth cannot butcheck and repress, if he ever feels, any movement of aversion tomankind outside his own race. But it is not necessary to hate Carthagein order to admit that it was well for mankind that Rome triumphed;and we at this day, and men to all time, may be thankful that a fewdecades after the Punic Wars the genius of Cæsar so expanded thebounds of the dominions of Rome, so extended, settled, and solidifiedthe outworks of her civilization and polity, that when the fated daycame that her power in turn should reel under the shock of conquest, with which she had remodelled the world, and she should go downherself, the time of the final fall was protracted for centuries bythese exterior defences. They who began the assault as barbariansentered upon the imperial heritage no longer aliens and foreigners, but impregnated already with the best of Roman ideas, converts toRoman law and to Christian faith. 

"When the course of history, " says Mommsen, "turns from the miserablemonotony of the political selfishness which fought its battles in theSenate House and in the streets of Rome, we may be allowed--on thethreshold of an event the effects of which still at the present dayinfluence the destinies of the world--to look round us for a moment, and to indicate the point of view under which the conquest of what isnow France by the Romans, and their first contact with the inhabitantsof Germany and of Great Britain, are to be regarded in connection withthe general history of the world. .. . The fact that the great Celticpeople were ruined by the transalpine wars of Cæsar was not the mostimportant result of that grand enterprise, --far more momentous thanthe negative was the positive result. It hardly admits of a doubt thatif the rule of the Senate had prolonged its semblance of life for somegenerations longer, the migration of the peoples, as it is called, would have occurred four hundred years sooner than it did, and wouldhave occurred at a time when the Italian civilization had not becomenaturalized either in Gaul or on the Danube or in Africa and Spain. Inasmuch as Cæsar with sure glance perceived in the German tribes therival antagonists of the Romano-Greek world, inasmuch as with firmhand he established the new system of aggressive defence down even toits details, and taught men to protect the frontiers of the empire byrivers or artificial ramparts, to colonize the nearest barbariantribes along the frontier with the view of warding off the moreremote, and to recruit the Roman army by enlistment from the enemy'scountry, he gained for the Hellenic-Italian culture the intervalnecessary to civilize the West, just as it had already civilized theEast. .. . Centuries elapsed before men understood that Alexander hadnot merely erected an ephemeral kingdom in the East, but had carriedHellenism to Asia; centuries again elapsed before men understood thatCæsar had not merely conquered a new province for the Romans, but hadlaid the foundation for the Romanizing of the regions of the West. Itwas only a late posterity that perceived the meaning of thoseexpeditions to England and Germany, so inconsiderate in a militarypoint of view, and so barren of immediate result. .. . That there is abridge connecting the past glory of Hellas and Rome with the prouderfabric of modern history; that western Europe is Romanic, and GermanicEurope classic; that the names of Themistocles and Scipio have to us avery different sound from those of Asoka and Salmanassar; that Homerand Sophocles are not merely like the Vedas and Kalidasa, attractiveto the literary botanist, but bloom for us in our own garden, --allthis is the work of Cæsar. "

History at times reveals her foresight concrete in the action of agreat individuality like Cæsar's. More often her profounder movementsproceed from impulses whose origin and motives cannot be traced, although a succession of steps may be discerned and their resultsstated. A few names, for instance, emerge amid the obscure movementsof the peoples which precipitated the outer peoples upon the RomanEmpire, but, with rare exceptions, they are simply exponents, pushedforward and upward by the torrent; at the utmost guides, notcontrollers, of those whom they represent but do not govern. It ismuch the same now. The peoples of European civilization, after aperiod of comparative repose, are again advancing all along the line, to occupy not only the desert places of the earth, but the debatablegrounds, the buffer territories, which hitherto have separated themfrom those ancient nations, with whom they now soon must stand face toface and border to border. But who will say that this vast generalmovement represents the thought, even the unconscious thought, of anyone man, as Cæsar, or of any few men? To whatever cause we may assignit, whether to the simple conception of a personal Divine Monarchythat shapes our ends, or to more complicated ultimate causes, theresponsibility rests upon the shoulders of no individual men. Necessity is laid upon the peoples, and they move, like the lemmingsof Scandinavia; but to man, being not without understanding like thebeasts that perish, it is permitted to ask, "Whither?" and "What shallbe the end hereof?" Does this tend to universal peace, generaldisarmament, and treaties of permanent arbitration? Is it theharbinger of ready mutual understanding, of quick acceptance of, anddelight in, opposing traditions and habits of life and thought? Issuch quick acceptance found now where Easterns and Westerns impinge?Does contact forebode the speedy disappearance of great armies andnavies, and dictate the wisdom of dispensing with that form oforganized force which at present is embodied in them?

What, then, will be the actual conditions when these civilizations, ofdiverse origin and radically distinct, --because the evolution ofracial characteristics radically different, --confront each otherwithout the interposition of any neutral belt, by the intervention ofwhich the contrasts, being more remote, are less apparent, and withinwhich distinctions shade one into the other?

There will be seen, on the one hand, a vast preponderance of numbers, and those numbers, however incoherent now in mass, composed of unitswhich in their individual capacity have in no small degree the greatelements of strength whereby man prevails over man and the fittestsurvives. Deficient, apparently, in aptitude for political and socialorganization, they have failed to evolve the aggregate power andintellectual scope of which as communities they are otherwise capable. This lesson too they may learn, as they already have learned from usmuch that they have failed themselves to originate; but to the lack ofit is chiefly due the inferiority of material development under which, as compared to ourselves, they now labor. But men do not covet lessthe prosperity which they themselves cannot or do not create, --a traitwherein lies the strength of communism as an aggressive social force. Communities which want and cannot have, except by force, will take byforce, unless they are restrained by force; nor will it beunprecedented in the history of the world that the flood of numbersshould pour over and sweep away the barriers which intelligentforesight, like Cæsar's, may have erected against them. Still morewill this be so if the barriers have ceased to be manned--forsaken orneglected by men in whom the proud combative spirit of their ancestorshas given way to the cry for the abandonment of military preparationand to the decay of warlike habits. 

Nevertheless, even under such conditions, --which obtained increasinglyduring the decline of the Roman Empire, --positions suitably chosen, frontiers suitably advanced, will do much to retard and, by gainingtime, to modify the disaster to the one party, and to convert thegeneral issue to the benefit of the world. Hence the immenseimportance of discerning betimes what the real value of positions is, and where occupation should betimes begin. Here, in part at least, isthe significance of the great outward movement of the European nationsto-day. Consciously or unconsciously, they are advancing the outpostsof our civilization, and accumulating the line of defences which willpermit it to survive, or at the least will insure that it shall not godown till it has leavened the character of the world for a futurebrighter even than its past, just as the Roman civilization inspiredand exalted its Teutonic conquerors, and continues to bless them tothis day. 

Such is the tendency of movement in that which we in common parlancecall the Old World. As the nineteenth century closes, the tide hasalready turned and the current is flowing strongly. It is not toosoon, for vast is the work before it. Contrasted to the outside worldin extent and population, the civilization of the European group offamilies, to which our interests and anxieties, our hopes and fears, are so largely confined, has been as an oasis in a desert. The seatand scene of the loftiest culture, of the highest intellectualactivities, it is not in them so much that it has exceeded the rest ofthe world as in the political development and material prosperitywhich it has owed to the virile energies of its sons, alike incommerce and in war. To these energies the mechanical and scientificacquirements of the past half-century or more have extended meanswhereby prosperity has increased manifold, as have the inequalities inmaterial well-being existing between those within its borders andthose without, who have not had the opportunity or the wit to use thesame advantages. And along with this preeminence in wealth arises thecry to disarm, as though the race, not of Europe only, but of theworld, were already run, and the goal of universal peace not onlyreached but secured. Yet are conditions such, even within our favoredborders, that we are ready to disband the particular organizedmanifestation of physical force which we call the police?

Despite internal jealousies and friction on the continent of Europe, perhaps even because of them, the solidarity of the European familytherein contained is shown in this great common movement, the ultimatebeneficence of which is beyond all doubt, as evidenced by the Britishdomination in India and Egypt, and to which the habit of arms not onlycontributes, but is essential. India and Egypt are at present the twomost conspicuous, though they are not the sole, illustrations ofbenefits innumerable and lasting, which rest upon the power of thesword in the hands of enlightenment and justice. It is possible, ofcourse, to confuse this conclusion, to obscure the real issue, bydwelling upon details of wrongs at times inflicted, of blunders oftenmade. Any episode in the struggling progress of humanity may be thusperplexed; but looking at the broad result, it is indisputable thatthe vast gains to humanity made in the regions named not only onceoriginated, but still rest, upon the exertion and continuedmaintenance of organized physical force. 

The same general solidarity as against the outside world, which isunconsciously manifested in the general resumption of colonizingmovements, receives particular conscious expression in the idea ofimperial federation, which, amid the many buffets and reverses commonto all successful movements, has gained such notable ground in thesentiment of the British people and of their colonists. That immensepractical difficulties have to be overcome, in order to realize theends towards which such sentiments point, is but a commonplace ofhuman experience in all ages and countries. They give rise to theready sneer of impossible, just as any project of extending the sphereof the United States, by annexation or otherwise, is met by theconstitutional lion in the path, which the unwilling or theapprehensive is ever sure to find; yet, to use words of one who neverlightly admitted impossibilities, "If a thing is necessary to be done, the more difficulties, the more necessary to try to remove them. " Assentiment strengthens, it undermines obstacles, and they crumblebefore it. 

The same tendency is shown in the undeniable disposition of theBritish people and of British, statesmen to cultivate the good-will ofthe United States, and to draw closer the relations between the twocountries. For the disposition underlying such a tendency Mr. Balfourhas used an expression, "race patriotism, "--a phrase which finds itsfirst approximation, doubtless, in the English-speaking family, butwhich may well extend its embrace, in a time yet distant, to all thosewho have drawn their present civilization from the same remotesources. The phrase is so pregnant of solution for the problems of thefuture, as conceived by the writer, that he hopes to see it obtain thecurrency due to the value of the idea which it formulates. That thisdisposition on the part of Great Britain, towards her colonies andtowards the United States, shows sound policy as well as sentiment, may be granted readily; but why should sound policy, the seeking ofone's own advantage, if by open and honest means, be imputed as acrime? In democracies, however, policy cannot long dispute the sceptrewith sentiment. That there is lukewarm response in the United Statesis due to that narrow conception which grew up with the middle of thecentury, whose analogue in Great Britain is the Little England party, and which in our own country would turn all eyes inward, and see noduty save to ourselves. How shall two walk together except they beagreed? How shall there be true sympathy between a nation whosepolitical activities are world-wide, and one that eats out its heartin merely internal political strife? When we begin really to lookabroad, and to busy ourselves with our duties to the world at large inour generation--and not before--we shall stretch out our hands toGreat Britain, realizing that in unity of heart among theEnglish-speaking races lies the best hope of humanity in the doubtfuldays ahead. 

In the determination of the duties of nations, nearness is the mostconspicuous and the most general indication. Considering the Americanstates as members of the European family, as they are by traditions, institutions, and languages, it is in the Pacific, where the westwardcourse of empire again meets the East, that their relations to thefuture of the world become most apparent. The Atlantic, bordered oneither shore by the European family in the strongest and most advancedtypes of its political development, no longer severs, but bindstogether, by all the facilities and abundance of water communications, the once divided children of the same mother; the inheritors of Greeceand Rome, and of the Teutonic conquerors of the latter. A limitedexpress or a flying freight may carry a few passengers or a small bulkoverland from the Atlantic to the Pacific more rapidly than modernsteamers can cross the former ocean, but for the vast amounts innumbers or in quantity which are required for the full fruition ofcommunication, it is the land that divides, and not the sea. On thePacific coast, severed from their brethren by desert and mountainrange, are found the outposts, the exposed pioneers of Europeancivilization, whom it is one of the first duties of the Europeanfamily to bind more closely to the main body, and to protect, by dueforesight over the approaches to them on either side. 

It is in this political fact, and not in the weighing of merelycommercial advantages, that is to be found the great significance ofthe future canal across the Central American isthmus, as well as theimportance of the Caribbean Sea; for the latter is inseparablyintwined with all international consideration of the isthmus problem. Wherever situated, whether at Panama or at Nicaragua, the fundamentalmeaning of the canal will be that it advances by thousands of milesthe frontiers of European civilization in general, and of the UnitedStates in particular; that it knits together the whole system ofAmerican states enjoying that civilization as in no other way they canbe bound. In the Caribbean Archipelago--the very domain of sea power, if ever region could be called so--are the natural home and centre ofthose influences by which such a maritime highway as a canal must becontrolled, even as the control of the Suez Canal rests in theMediterranean. Hawaii, too, is an outpost of the canal, as surely asAden or Malta is of Suez; or as Malta was of India in the days longbefore the canal, when Nelson proclaimed that in that point of viewchiefly was it important to Great Britain. In the cluster of islandfortresses of the Caribbean is one of the greatest of the nervecentres of the whole body of European civilization; and it is to beregretted that so serious a portion of them now is in hands which notonly never have given, but to all appearances never can give, thedevelopment which is required by the general interest. 

For what awaits us in the future, in common with the states of Europe, is not a mere question of advantage or disadvantage--of more or less. Issues of vital moment are involved. A present generation is trusteefor its successors, and may be faithless to its charge quite as trulyby inaction as by action, by omission as by commission. Failure toimprove opportunity, where just occasion arises, may entail uponposterity problems and difficulties which, if overcome at all--it maythen be too late--will be so at the cost of blood and tears thattimely foresight might have spared. Such preventive measures, iftaken, are in no true sense offensive but defensive. Decadentconditions, such as we observe in Turkey--and not in Turkeyalone--cannot be indefinitely prolonged by opportunist counsels ortimid procrastination. A time comes in human affairs, as in physicalailments, when heroic measures must be used to save the life of apatient or the welfare of a community; and if that time is allowed topass, as many now think that it was at the time of the Crimean war, the last state is worse than the first, --an opinion which thesepassing days of the hesitancy of the Concert and the anguish ofGreece, not to speak of the Armenian outrages, surely indorse. Europe, advancing in distant regions, still allows to exist in her own side, unexcised, a sore that may yet drain her life-blood; still leaves inrecognized dominion, over fair regions of great future import, asystem whose hopelessness of political and social improvement thelapse of time renders continually more certain, --an evil augury forthe future, if a turning tide shall find it unchanged, an outpost ofbarbarism ready for alien occupation. 

It is essential to our own good, it is yet more essential as part ofour duty to the commonwealth of peoples to which we racially belong, that we look with clear, dispassionate, but resolute eyes upon thefact that civilizations on different planes of material prosperity andprogress, with different spiritual ideals, and with very differentpolitical capacities, are fast closing together. It is a condition notunprecedented in the history of the world. When it befell a greatunited empire, enervated by long years of unwarlike habits among itschief citizens, it entailed ruin, but ruin deferred through centuries, thanks to the provision made beforehand by a great general andstatesman. The Saracenic and Turkish invasions, on the contrary, aftergenerations of advance, were first checked, and then rolled back; forthey fell upon peoples, disunited indeed by internal discords andstrife, like the nations of Europe to-day, but still nations ofwarriors, ready by training and habit to strike for their rights, and, if need were, to die for them. In the providence of God, along withthe immense increase of prosperity, of physical and mental luxury, brought by this century, there has grown up also that counterpoisestigmatized as "militarism, " which has converted Europe into a greatcamp of soldiers prepared for war. The ill-timed cry for disarmament, heedless of the menacing possibilities of the future, breaks idlyagainst a great fact, which finds its sufficient justification inpresent conditions, but which is, above all, an unconsciouspreparation for something as yet noted but by few. 

On the side of the land, these great armies, and the blind outwardimpulse of the European peoples, are the assurance that generationsmust elapse ere the barriers can be overcome behind which rests thecitadel of Christian civilization. On the side of the sea there is nostate charged with weightier responsibilities than the United States. In the Caribbean, the sensitive resentment by our people of anysupposed fresh encroachment by another state of the European familyhas been manifested too plainly and too recently to admit of dispute. Such an attitude of itself demands of us to be ready to support it byorganized force, exactly as the mutual jealousy of states within theEuropean Continent imposes upon them the maintenance of their greatarmies--destined, we believe, in the future, to fulfil a noblermission. Where we thus exclude others, we accept for ourselves theresponsibility for that which is due to the general family of ourcivilization; and the Caribbean Sea, with its isthmus, is the nexuswhere will meet the chords binding the East to the West, the Atlanticto the Pacific. 

The Isthmus, with all that depends upon it, --its canal and itsapproaches on either hand, --will link the eastern side of the Americancontinent to the western as no network of land communications evercan. In it the United States has asserted a special interest. In thepresent she can maintain her claim, and in the future perform herduty, only by the creation of that sea power upon which predominancein the Caribbean must ever depend. In short, as the internaljealousies of Europe, and the purely democratic institution of the_levée en masse_--the general enforcement of military training--haveprepared the way for great national armies, whose mission seems yetobscure, so the gradual broadening and tightening hold upon thesentiment of American democracy of that conviction looselycharacterized as the Monroe doctrine finds its logical and inevitableoutcome in a great sea power, the correlative, in connection with thatof Great Britain, of those armies which continue to flourish under themost popular institutions, despite the wails of economists and thelamentations of those who wish peace without paying the one pricewhich alone has ever insured peace, --readiness for war. 

Thus it was, while readiness for war lasted, that the Teuton was heldback until he became civilized, humanized, after the standard of thatage; till the root of the matter was in him, sure to bear fruit in dueseason. He was held back by organized armed force--by armies. Will itbe said that that was in a past barbaric age? Barbarism, however, isnot in more or less material prosperity, or even politicaldevelopment, but in the inner man, in the spiritual ideal; and thematerial, which comes first and has in itself no salt of life to savefrom corruption, must be controlled by other material forces, untilthe spiritual can find room and time to germinate. We need not fearbut that that which appeals to the senses in our civilization will beappropriated, even though it be necessary to destroy us, if disarmed, in order to obtain it. Our own civilization less its spiritual elementis barbarism; and barbarism will be the civilization of those whoassimilate its material progress without imbibing the indwellingspirit. 

Let us worship peace, indeed, as the goal at which humanity must hopeto arrive; but let us not fancy that peace is to be had as a boywrenches an unripe fruit from a tree. Nor will peace be reached byignoring the conditions that confront us, or by exaggerating thecharms of quiet, of prosperity, of ease, and by contrasting theseexclusively with the alarms and horrors of war. Merely utilitarianarguments have never convinced nor converted mankind, and they neverwill; for mankind knows that there is something better. Its homagewill never be commanded by peace, presented as the tutelary deity ofthe stock-market. 

Nothing is more ominous for the future of our race than that tendency, vociferous at present, which refuses to recognize in the profession ofarms, in war, that something which inspired Wordsworth's "HappyWarrior, " which soothed the dying hours of Henry Lawrence, who framedthe ideals of his career on the poet's conception, and so noblyillustrated it in his self-sacrifice; that something which has madethe soldier to all ages the type of heroism and of self-denial. Whenthe religion of Christ, of Him who was led as a lamb to the slaughter, seeks to raise before its followers the image of self-control, and ofresistance to evil, it is the soldier whom it presents. He Himself, ifby office King of Peace, is, first of all, in the essence of HisBeing, King of Righteousness, without which true peace cannot be. 

Conflict is the condition of all life, material and spiritual; and itis to the soldier's experience that the spiritual life goes for itsmost vivid metaphors and its loftiest inspirations. Whatever else thetwentieth century may bring us, it will not, from anything now currentin the thought of the nineteenth, receive a nobler ideal. 

[Illustration: THE GULF OF MEXICO AND THE CARIBBEAN SEA]

THE STRATEGIC FEATURES OF THE GULF OF MEXICO AND THE CARIBBEAN SEA. 

_June, 1897. _

The importance, absolute and relative, of portions of the earth'ssurface, and their consequent interest to mankind, vary from time totime. The Mediterranean was for many ages the centre round whichgathered all the influences and developments of those earliercivilizations from which our own, mediately or immediately, derives. During the chaotic period of struggle that intervened between theirfall and the dawn of our modern conditions, the Inland Sea, throughits hold upon the traditions and culture of antiquity, still retaineda general ascendency, although at length its political predominancewas challenged, and finally overcome, by the younger, more virile, andmore warlike nationalities that had been forming gradually beyond theAlps, and on the shores of the Atlantic and Northern oceans. It was, until the close of the Middle Ages, the one route by which the Eastand the West maintained commercial relations; for, although the tradeeastward from the Levant was by long and painful land journeys, overmountain range and desert plain, water communication, in part and upto that point, was afforded by the Mediterranean, and by it alone. With the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope thisadvantage departed, while at the same instant the discovery of a NewWorld opened out to the Old new elements of luxury and a new sphere ofambition. Then the Mediterranean, thrown upon its own productiveresources alone, swayed in the East by the hopeless barbarism of theTurk, in the West by the decadent despotism of Spain, and, between thetwo, divided among a number of petty states, incapable of united andconsequently of potent action, sank into a factor of relatively smallconsequence to the onward progress of the world. During the wars ofthe French Revolution, when the life of Great Britain, andconsequently the issue of the strife, depended upon the vigor ofBritish commerce, British merchant shipping was nearly driven fromthat sea; and but two per cent of a trade that was increasing mightilyall the time was thence derived. How the Suez Canal and the growth ofthe Eastern Question, in its modern form, have changed all that, it isneedless to say. Yet, through all the period of relativeinsignificance, the relations of the Mediterranean to the East and tothe West, in the broad sense of those expressions, preserved to it apolitical importance to the world at large which rendered itcontinuously a scene of great political ambitions and militaryenterprise. Since Great Britain first actively intervened in thosewaters, two centuries ago, she at no time has surrendered willinglyher pretensions to be a leading Mediterranean Power, although herpossessions there are of purely military, or rather naval, value. 

The Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, taken together, form aninland sea and an archipelago. They too have known those mutabilitiesof fortune which receive illustration alike in the history ofcountries and in the lives of individuals. The first scene ofdiscovery and of conquest in the New World, these twin sheets ofwater, with their islands and their mainlands, became for manygenerations, and nearly to our own time, a veritable El Dorado, --aland where the least of labor, on the part of its new possessors, rendered the largest and richest returns. The bounty of nature, andthe ease with which climatic conditions, aided by the unwarlikecharacter of most of the natives, adapted themselves to theinstitution of slavery, insured the cheap and abundant production ofarticles which, when once enjoyed, men found indispensable, as theyalready had the silks and spices of the East. In Mexico and in Peruwere realized also, in degree, the actual gold-mine sought by theavarice of the earlier Spanish explorers; while a short thoughdifficult tropical journey brought the treasures of the west coastacross the Isthmus to the shores of the broad ocean, nature's greathighway, which washed at once the shores of Old and of New Spain. Fromthe Caribbean, Great Britain, although her rivals had anticipated herin the possession of the largest and richest districts, derived nearlytwenty-five per cent of her commerce, during the strenuous period whenthe Mediterranean contributed but two per cent. 

But over these fair regions too passed the blight, not of despotismmerely, for despotism was characteristic of the times, but of adespotism which found no counteractive, no element of futuredeliverance, in the temperament or in the political capacities of thepeople over whom it ruled. Elizabeth, as far as she dared, was adespot; Philip II. Was a despot; but there was already manifest in hersubjects, while there was not in his, a will and a power not merely toresist oppression, but to organize freedom. This will and this power, after gaining many partial victories by the way, culminated once forall in the American Revolution. Great Britain has never forgotten thelesson then taught; for it was one she herself had been teaching forcenturies, and her people and statesmen were therefore easy learners. A century and a quarter has passed since that warning was given, notto Great Britain only, but to the world; and we to-day see, in thecontrasted colonial systems of the two states, the results, on the onehand of political aptitude, on the other of political obtuseness andbackwardness, which cannot struggle from the past into the presentuntil the present in turn has become the past--irreclaimable. 

Causes superficially very diverse but essentially the same, in thatthey arose from and still depend upon a lack of local politicalcapacity, have brought the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, in our owntime, to similar conditions, regarded as quantities of interest in thesphere of international relations. Whatever the intrinsic value of thetwo bodies of water, in themselves or in their surroundings, whatevertheir present contributions to the prosperity or to the culture ofmankind, their conspicuous characteristics now are their political andmilitary importance, in the broadest sense, as concerning not only thecountries that border them, but the world at large. Both are land-girtseas; both are links in a chain of communication between an East and aWest; in both the chain is broken by an isthmus; both are ofcontracted extent when compared with great oceans, and, in consequenceof these common features, both present in an intensified form theadvantages and the limitations, political and military, whichcondition the influence of sea power. This conclusion is notably trueof the Mediterranean, as is shown by its history. It is even moreforcibly true of the Caribbean, partly because the contour of itsshores does not, as in the Mediterranean peninsulas, thrust the powerof the land so far and so sustainedly into the sea; partly because, from historical antecedents already alluded to, in the character ofthe first colonists, and from the shortness of the time the ground hasbeen in civilized occupation, there does not exist in the Caribbean orin the Gulf of Mexico--apart from the United States--any land power atall comparable with those great Continental states of Europe whosestrength lies in their armies far more than in their navies. So far asnational inclinations, as distinct from the cautious actions ofstatesmen, can be discerned, in the Mediterranean at present the SeaPowers, Great Britain, France, and Italy, are opposed to the LandPowers, Germany, Austria, and Russia; and the latter dominate action. It cannot be so, in any near future, in the Caribbean. As affirmed ina previous paper, the Caribbean is pre-eminently the domain of seapower. It is in this point of view--the military or naval--that it isnow to be considered. Its political importance will be assumed, asrecognized by our forefathers, and enforced upon our own attention bythe sudden apprehensions awakened within the last two years. 

It may be well, though possibly needless, to ask readers to keepclearly in mind that the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, whileknit together like the Siamese twins, are distinct geographicalentities. A leading British periodical once accused the writer ofcalling the Gulf of Mexico the Caribbean Sea, because of hisunwillingness to admit the name of any other state in connection witha body of water over which his own country claimed predominance. TheGulf of Mexico is very clearly defined by the projection, from thenorth, of the peninsula of Florida, and from the south, of that ofYucatan. Between the two the island of Cuba interposes for a distanceof two hundred miles, leaving on one side a passage of nearly ahundred miles wide--the Strait of Florida--into the Atlantic, while onthe other, the Yucatan Channel, somewhat broader, leads into theCaribbean Sea. It may be mentioned here, as an important militaryconsideration, that from the mouth of the Mississippi westward to CapeCatoche--the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula--there is no harbor that canbe considered at all satisfactory for ships of war of the largerclasses. The existence of many such harbors in other parts of theregions now under consideration practically eliminates this longstretch of coast, regarded as a factor of military importance in theproblem before us. 

In each of these sheets of water, the Gulf of Mexico and theCaribbean, there is one position of pre-eminent commercial importance. In the Gulf the mouth of the Mississippi is the point where meet allthe exports and imports, by water, of the Mississippi Valley. Howeverdiverse the directions from which they come, or the destinations towhich they proceed, all come together here as at a great crossroads, or as the highways of an empire converge on the metropolis. Whatevervalue the Mississippi and the myriad miles of its subsidiarywater-courses represent to the United States, as a facile means ofcommunication from the remote interior to the ocean highways of theworld, all centres here at the mouth of the river. The existence ofthe smaller though important cities of the Gulf coast--Mobile, Galveston, or the Mexican ports--does not diminish, but ratheremphasizes by contrast, the importance of the Mississippi entrance. They all share its fortunes, in that all alike communicate with theoutside world through the Strait of Florida or the Yucatan Channel. 

In the Caribbean, likewise, the existence of numerous important ports, and a busy traffic in tropical produce grown within the region itself, do but make more striking the predominance in interest of that oneposition known comprehensively, but up to the present somewhatindeterminately, as the Isthmus. Here again the element of decisivevalue is the crossing of the roads, the meeting of the ways, which, whether imposed by nature itself, as in the cases before us, orinduced, as sometimes happens, in a less degree, by simple humandispositions, are prime factors in mercantile or strategicconsequence. For these reasons the Isthmus, even under thedisadvantages of land carriage and transshipment of goods, has everbeen an important link in the communications from East to West, fromthe days of the first discoverers and throughout all subsequentcenturies, though fluctuating in degree from age to age; but when itshall be pierced by a canal, it will present a maritime centreanalogous to the mouth of the Mississippi. They will differ in this, that in the latter case the converging water routes on one side areinterior to a great state whose resources they bear, whereas the roadswhich on either side converge upon the Isthmus lie wholly upon theocean, the common possession of all nations. Control of the latter, therefore, rests either upon local control of the Isthmus itself, or, indirectly, upon control of its approaches, or upon a distinctlypreponderant navy. In naval questions the latter is always thedominant factor, exactly as on land the mobile army--the army in thefield--must dominate the question of fortresses, unless war is to beimpotent. 

We have thus the two centres round which revolve all the military studyof the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The two sheets of water, taken together, control or affect the approaches on one side to thesetwo supreme centres of commercial, and therefore of political andmilitary, interest. The approaches on the other side--the interiorcommunications of the Mississippi, that is, or the maritime routesin the Pacific converging upon the Isthmus--do not here concern us. These approaches, in terms of military art, are known as the"communications. " Communications are probably the most vital anddetermining element in strategy, military or naval. They are literallythe most radical; for all military operations depend upon communications, as the fruit of a plant depends upon communication with its root. Wedraw therefore upon the map the chief lines by which communicationexists between these two centres and the outside world. Such linesrepresent the mutual dependence of the centres and the exterior, bywhich each ministers to the others, and by severance of which eitherbecomes useless to the others. It is from their potential effect uponthese lines of communication that all positions in the Gulf or theCaribbean derive their military value, or want of value. 

It is impossible to precede or to accompany a discussion of this sortwith a technical exposition of naval strategy. Such definitions of theart as may be needed must be given _in loco_, cursorily anddogmatically. Therefore it will be said here briefly that thestrategic value of any position, be it body of land large or small, ora seaport, or a strait, depends, 1, upon situation (with referencechiefly to communications), 2, upon its strength (inherent oracquired), and, 3, upon its resources (natural or stored). As strengthand resources are matters which man can accumulate where suitablesituation offers, whereas he cannot change the location of a place initself otherwise advantageous, it is upon situation that attentionmust primarily be fixed. Strength and resources may be artificiallysupplied or increased, but it passes the power of man to move a portwhich lies outside the limits of strategic effect. Gibraltar inmid-ocean might have fourfold its present power, yet would bevalueless in a military sense. 

The positions which are indicated on the map by the dark squares havebeen selected, therefore, upon these considerations, after a carefulstudy of the inherent advantages of the various ports and coast-linesof the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf. It is by no means meant that thereare not others which possess merits of various kinds; or that thoseindicated, and to be named, exhaust the strategic possibilities of theregion under examination. But there are qualifying circumstances ofdegree in particular cases; and a certain regard must be had topolitical conditions, which may be said to a great extent toneutralize some positions. Some, too, are excluded becauseovershadowed by others so near and so strong as practically to embracethem, when under the same political tenure. Moreover, it is acommonplace of strategy that passive positions, fortified places, however strong, although indispensable as supports to militaryoperations, should not be held in great number. To do so wastes force. Similarly, in the study of a field of maritime operations, the numberof available positions, whose relative and combined influence upon thewhole is to be considered, should be narrowed, by a process of gradualelimination, to those clearly essential and representative. To embracemore confuses the attention, wastes mental force, and is a hindranceto correct appreciation. The rejection of details, where permissible, and understandingly done, facilitates comprehension, which is baffledby a multiplication of minutiae, just as the impression of a work ofart, or of a story, is lost amid a multiplicity of figures or ofactors. The investigation precedent to formulation of ideas must beclose and minute, but that done, the unbiassed selection of the mostimportant, expressed graphically by a few lines and a few dots, leadsmost certainly to the comprehension of decisive relations in amilitary field of action. 

In the United States, Pensacola and the Mississippi River have beenrivals for the possession of a navy-yard. The recent decision of aspecially appointed board in favor of the latter, while it commandsthe full assent of the writer, by no means eliminates the usefulnessof the former. Taken together, they fulfil a fair requirement ofstrategy, sea and land, that operations based upon a nationalfrontier, which a coast-line is, should not depend upon a single placeonly. They are closer together than ideal perfection would wish; tooeasily, therefore, to be watched by an enemy without great dispersalof his force, which Norfolk and New York, for instance, are not; butstill, conjointly, they are the best we can do on that line, havingregard to the draught of water for heavy ships. Key West, an islandlying off the end of the Florida Peninsula, has long been recognizedas the chief, and almost the only, good and defensible anchorage uponthe Strait of Florida, reasonable control of which is indispensable towater communication between our Atlantic and Gulf seaboards in time ofwar. In case of war in the direction of the Caribbean, Key West is theextreme point now in our possession upon which, granting adequatefortification, our fleets could rely; and, so used, it wouldeffectually divert an enemy's force from Pensacola and theMississippi. It can never be the ultimate base of operations, asPensacola or New Orleans can, because it is an island, a small island, and has no resources--not even water; but for the daily needs of afleet--coal, ammunition, etc. --it can be made most effective. Sixtymiles west of it stands an antiquated fortress on the Dry Tortugas. These are capable of being made a useful adjunct to Key West, but atpresent they scarcely can be so considered. Key West is 550 milesdistant from the mouth of the Mississippi, and 1200 from the Isthmus. 

The islands of Santa Lucia and of Martinique have been selectedbecause they represent the chief positions of, respectively, GreatBritain and France on the outer limits of the general field underconsideration. For the reasons already stated, Grenada, Barbadoes, Dominica, and the other near British islands are not taken intoaccount, or rather are considered to be embraced in Santa Lucia, whichadequately represents them. If a secondary position on that line wererequired, it would be at Antigua, which would play to Santa Lucia thepart which Pensacola does to the Mississippi. In like manner theFrench Guadeloupe merges in Martinique. The intrinsic importance ofthese positions consists in the fact that, being otherwise suitableand properly defended, they are the nearest to the mother-countries, between whom and themselves there lies no point of danger near whichit is necessary to pass. They have the disadvantage of being verysmall islands, consequently without adequate natural resources, andeasy to be blockaded on all sides. They are therefore essentiallydependent for their usefulness in war upon control of the sea, whichneither Pensacola nor New Orleans is, having the continent at theirbacks. 

It is in this respect that the pre-eminent intrinsic advantages ofCuba, or rather of Spain in Cuba, are to be seen; and also, but inmuch less degree, those of Great Britain in Jamaica. Cuba, thoughnarrow throughout, is over six hundred miles long, from Cape SanAntonio to Cape Maysi. It is, in short, not so much an island as acontinent, susceptible, under proper development, of greatresources--of self-sufficingness. In area it is half as large again asIreland, but, owing to its peculiar form, is much more than twice aslong. Marine distances, therefore, are drawn out to an extreme degree. Its many natural harbors concentrate themselves, to a militaryexamination, into three principal groups, whose representatives are, in the west, Havana; in the east, Santiago; while near midway of thesouthern shore lies Cienfuegos. The shortest water distance separatingany two of these is 335 miles, from Santiago to Cienfuegos. To getfrom Cienfuegos to Havana 450 miles of water must be traversed and thewestern point of the island doubled; yet the two ports are distant byland only a little more than a hundred miles of fairly easy country. Regarded, therefore, as a base of naval operations, as a source ofsupplies to a fleet, Cuba presents a condition wholly unique among theislands of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; to both which it, and it alone of all the archipelago, belongs. It is unique in itssize, which should render it largely self-supporting, either by itsown products, or by the accumulation of foreign necessaries whichnaturally obtains in a large and prosperous maritime community; and itis unique in that such supplies can be conveyed from one point to theother, according to the needs of a fleet, by interior lines, notexposed to risks of maritime capture. The extent of the coast-line, the numerous harbors, and the many directions from which approach canbe made, minimize the dangers of total blockade, to which all islandsare subject. Such conditions are in themselves advantageous, but theyare especially so to a navy inferior to its adversary, for they conveythe power--subject, of course, to conditions of skill--of shiftingoperations from side to side, and finding refuge and supplies ineither direction. 

Jamaica, being but one-tenth the size of Cuba, and one-fifth of itslength, does not present the intrinsic advantages of the latterisland, regarded either as a source of supplies or as a centre fromwhich to direct effort; but when in the hands of a power supreme atsea, as at the present Great Britain is, the questions of supplies, ofblockade, and of facility in direction of effort diminish inimportance. That which in the one case is a matter of life and death, becomes now only an embarrassing problem, necessitating watchfulnessand precaution, but by no means insoluble. No advantages of positioncan counterbalance, in the long-run, decisive inferiority in organizedmobile force, --inferiority in troops in the field, and yet much morein ships on the sea. If Spain should become involved in war with GreatBritain, as she so often before has been, the advantage she would havein Cuba as against Jamaica would be that her communications with theUnited States, especially with the Gulf ports, would be well undercover. By this is not meant that vessels bound to Cuba by such routeswould be in unassailable security; no communications, maritime orterrestrial, can be so against raiding. What is meant is that they canbe protected with much less effort than they can be attacked; that theraiders--the offence--must be much more numerous and active than thedefence, because much farther from their base; and that the questionof such raiding would depend consequently upon the force Great Britaincould spare from other scenes of war, for it is not likely that Spainwould fight her single-handed. It is quite possible that under suchconditions advantage of position would more than counterbalance a_small_ disadvantage in local force. "War, " said Napoleon, "is abusiness of positions;" by which that master of lightning-likerapidity of movement assuredly did not mean that it was a business ofgetting into a position and sticking there. It is in the utilizationof position by mobile force that war is determined, just as the effectof a chessman depends upon both its individual value _and_ itsrelative position. While, therefore, in the combination of the twofactors, force and position, force is intrinsically the more valuable, it is always possible that great advantage of position may outweighsmall advantage of force, as 1 + 5 is greater than 2 + 3. Thepositional value of Cuba is extremely great. 

Regarded solely as a naval position, without reference to the forcethereon based, Jamaica is greatly inferior to Cuba in a question ofgeneral war, notwithstanding the fact that in Kingston it possesses anexcellent harbor and naval station. It is only with direct referenceto the Isthmus, and therefore to the local question of the Caribbeanas the main scene of hostilities, that it possesses a certainsuperiority which will be touched on later. It is advisable first tocomplete the list, and so far as necessary to account for theselection, of the other points indicated by the squares. 

Of these, three are so nearly together at the Isthmus that, accordingto the rule before adopted, they might be reduced very properly to asingle representative position. Being, however, so close to the greatcentre of interest in the Caribbean, and having different specificreasons constituting their importance, it is essential to a fullstatement of strategic conditions in that sea to mention briefly eachand all. They are, the harbor and town of Colon, sometimes calledAspinwall; the harbor and city of Cartagena, 300 miles to the eastwardof Colon; and the Chiriqui Lagoon, 150 miles west of Colon, a vastenclosed bay with many islands, giving excellent and diversifiedanchorage, the shores of which are nearly uninhabited. Colon is theCaribbean terminus of the Panama Railroad, and is also that of thecanal projected, and partly dug, under the De Lesseps scheme. Theharbor being good, though open to some winds, it is naturallyindicated as a point where Isthmian transit may begin or end. As thereis no intention of entering into the controversy about the relativemerits of the Panama and Nicaragua canal schemes, it will besufficient here to say that, if the former be carried through, Colonis its inevitable issue on one side. The city of Cartagena is thelargest and most flourishing in the neighborhood of the Isthmus, andhas a good harbor. With these conditions obtaining, its advantagerests upon the axiomatic principle that, other things being nearlyequal, a place where commerce centres is a better strategic positionthan one which it neglects. The latter is the condition of theChiriqui Lagoon. This truly noble sheet of water, which was visited byColumbus himself, and bears record of the fact in the name of one ofits basins, --the Bay of the Admiral, --has every natural adaptation fora purely naval base, but has not drawn to itself the operations ofcommerce. Everything would need there to be created, and to bemaintained continuously. It lies midway between Colon and the mouth ofthe river San Juan, where is Greytown, which has been selected as theissue of the projected Nicaragua Canal; and therefore, in a peculiarway, Chiriqui symbolizes the present indeterminate phase of theIsthmian problem. With all its latent possibilities, however, littlecan be said now of Chiriqui, except that a rough appreciation of itsexistence and character is essential to an adequate understanding ofIsthmian conditions. 

The Dutch island of Curaçao has been marked, chiefly because, with itsnatural characteristics, it cannot be passed over; but it now is, andit may be hoped will remain indefinitely, among the positions of whichit has been said that they are neutralized by political circumstances. Curaçao possesses a fine harbor, which may be made impregnable, and itlies unavoidably near the route of any vessel bound to the Isthmus andpassing eastward of Jamaica. Such conditions constitute undeniablemilitary importance; but Holland is a small state, unlikely to joinagain in a general war. There is, indeed, a floating apprehension thatthe German Empire, in its present desires of colonial extension, maybe willing to absorb Holland, for the sake of her still extensivecolonial possessions. Improbable as this may seem, it is scarcely moreincomprehensible than the recent mysterious movements upon theEuropean chess-board, attributed by common rumor to the dominatinginfluence of the Emperor of Germany, which we puzzled Americans formonths past have sought in vain to understand. 

The same probable neutrality must be admitted for the remainingpositions that have been distinguished: Mujeres Island, Samana Bay, and the island of St. Thomas. The first of these, at the extremity ofthe Yucatan Peninsula, belongs to Mexico, a country whose interest inthe Isthmian question is very real; for, like the United States, shehas an extensive seaboard both upon the Pacific and--in the Gulf ofMexico--upon the Atlantic Ocean. Mujeres Island, however, has nothingto offer but situation, being upon the Yucatan Passage, the one roadfrom all the Gulf ports to the Caribbean and the Isthmus. Theanchorage is barely tolerable, the resources _nil_, and defensivestrength could be imparted only by an expense quite disproportionateto the result obtained. The consideration of the island as a possiblemilitary situation does but emphasize the fact, salient to the mostsuperficial glance, that, so far as position goes, Cuba has nopossible rival in her command of the Yucatan Passage, just as she hasno competitor, in point of natural strength and resources, for thecontrol of the Florida Strait, which connects the Gulf of Mexico withthe Atlantic. 

Samana Bay, at the northeast corner of Santo Domingo, is but one ofseveral fine anchorages in that great island, whose territory is nowdivided between two negro republics--French and Spanish in tongue. Itsselection to figure in our study, to the exclusion of the others, isdetermined by its situation, and by the fact that we are seeking totake a comprehensive glance of the Caribbean as a whole, and notmerely of particular districts. For instance, it might be urgedforcibly, in view of the existence of two great naval ports likeSantiago de Cuba and Port Royal in Jamaica, close to the WindwardPassage, through which lies the direct route from the Atlanticseaboard to the Isthmus, that St. Nicholas Mole, immediately on thePassage, offers the natural position for checking the others in caseof need. The reply is that we are not seeking to check anything oranybody, but simply examining in the large the natural strategicfeatures, and incidentally thereto noting the political conditions, ofa maritime region in which the United States is particularlyinterested; political conditions, as has been remarked, having anunavoidable effect upon military values. 

The inquiry being thus broad, Samana Bay and the island of St. Thomasare entitled to the pre-eminence here given to them, because theyrepresent, efficiently and better than any other positions, thecontrol of two principal passages into the Caribbean Sea from theAtlantic. The Mona Passage, on which Samana lies, between SantoDomingo and Puerto Rico, is particularly suited to sailing-vesselsfrom the northward, because free from dangers to navigation. This, ofcourse, in these days of steam, is a small matter militarily; in thelatter sense the Mona Passage is valuable because it is an alternativeto the Windward Passage, or to those to the eastward, in case ofhostile predominance in one quarter or the other. St. Thomas is on theAnegada Passage, actually much used, and which better than any otherrepresents the course from Europe to the Isthmus, just as the WindwardPassage does that from the North American Atlantic ports. Neither ofthese places can boast of great natural strength nor of resources; St. Thomas, because it is a small island with the inherent weaknessesattending all such, which have been mentioned; Samana Bay, because, although the island on which it is is large and productive, it has notnow, and gives no hope of having, that political stability andcommercial prosperity which bring resources and power in their train. Both places would need also considerable development of defensiveworks to meet the requirements of a naval port. Despite these defects, their situations on the passages named entitle them to paramountconsideration in a general study of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf ofMexico. Potentially, though not actually, they lend control of theMona and Anegada Passages, exactly as Kingston and Santiago do of theWindward. 

For, granting that the Isthmus is in the Caribbean the predominantinterest, commercial, and therefore concerning the whole world, butalso military, and so far possessing peculiar concern for thosenations whose territories lie on both oceans, which it now severs andwill one day unite--of which nations the United States is the mostprominent--granting this, and it follows that entrance to theCaribbean, and transit across the Caribbean to the Isthmus, are twoprime essentials to the enjoyment of the advantages of the latter. Therefore, in case of war, control of these two things becomes amilitary object not second to the Isthmus itself, access to whichdepends upon them; and in their bearing upon these two things thevarious positions that are passed under consideration must beviewed--individually first, and afterwards collectively. 

The first process of individual consideration the writer has asked thereader to take on faith; neither time nor space permits itselaboration here; but the reasons for choosing those that have beennamed have been given as briefly as possible. Let us now look at themap, and regard as a collective whole the picture there graphicallypresented. 

Putting to one side, for the moment at least, the Isthmian points, asindicating the end rather than the precedent means, we see at thepresent time that the positions at the extremes of the field underexamination are held by Powers of the first rank, --Martinique andSanta Lucia by France and Great Britain, Pensacola and the Mississippiby the United States. 

Further, there are held by these same states of the first order twoadvanced positions, widely separated from the first bases of theirpower; namely, Key West, which is 460 miles from Pensacola, andJamaica, which is 930 miles from Santa Lucia. From the Isthmus, KeyWest is distant 1200 miles; Jamaica, 500 miles. 

Between and separating these two groups, of primary bases and advancedposts, extends the chain of positions from Yucatan to St. Thomas. Asfar as is possible to position, apart from mobile force, theserepresent control over the northern entrances--the most importantentrances--into the Caribbean Sea. No one of this chain belongs to anyof the Powers commonly reckoned as being of the first order ofstrength. 

The entrances on the north of the sea, as far as, but not including, the Anegada Passage, are called the most important, because they areso few in number, --a circumstance which always increases value;because they are so much nearer to the Isthmus; and, very especiallyto the United States, because they are the ones by which, and by whichalone, --except at the cost of a wide circuit, --she communicates withthe Isthmus, and, generally, with all the region lying within theborders of the Caribbean. 

In a very literal sense the Caribbean is a mediterranean sea; butthe adjective must be qualified when comparison is made with theMediterranean of the Old World or with the Gulf of Mexico. Thelast-named bodies of water communicate with the outer oceans by passagesso contracted as to be easily watched from near-by positions, and forboth there exist such positions of exceptional strength, --Gibraltarand some others in the former case, Havana and no other in the latter. The Caribbean, on the contrary, is enclosed on its eastern side bya chain of small islands, the passages between which, althoughpractically not wider than the Strait of Gibraltar, are so numerousthat entrance to the sea on that side may be said correctly to extendover a stretch of near 400 miles. The islands, it is true, are so manypositions, some better, some worse, from which military effort tocontrol entrance can be exerted; but their number prevents thatconcentration and that certainty of effect which are possible toadequate force resting upon Gibraltar or Havana. 

On the northern side of the sea the case is quite different. From thewestern end of Cuba to the eastern end of Puerto Rico extends abarrier of land for 1200 miles--as against 400 on the east--brokenonly by two straits, each fifty miles wide, from side to side of whicha steamer of but moderate power can pass in three or four hours. Thesenatural conditions, governing the approach to the Isthmus, reproduceas nearly as possible the strategic effect of Ireland upon GreatBritain. There a land barrier of 300 miles, midway between thePentland Firth and the English Channel--centrally situated, that is, with reference to all the Atlantic approaches to Great Britain--givesto an adequate navy a unique power to flank and harass either the oneor the other, or both. Existing political conditions and othercircumstances unquestionably modify the importance of these twobarriers, relatively to the countries affected by them. Opencommunication with the Atlantic is vital to Great Britain, which theIsthmus, up to the present time, is not to the United States. Thereare, however, varying degrees of importance below that which is vital. Taking into consideration that of the 1200-mile barrier to theCaribbean 600 miles is solid in Cuba, that after the 50-mile gap ofthe Windward Passage there succeeds 300 miles more of Haiti before theMona Passage is reached, it is indisputable that a superior navy, resting on Santiago de Cuba or Jamaica, could very seriously incommodeall access of the United States to the Caribbean mainland, andespecially to the Isthmus. 

In connection with this should be considered also the influence uponour mercantile and naval communication between the Atlantic and theGulf coasts exercised by the peninsula of Florida, and by thenarrowness of the channels separating the latter from the Bahama Banksand from Cuba. The effect of this long and not very broad strip ofland upon our maritime interests can be realized best by imagining itwholly removed, or else turned into an island by a practicable channelcrossing its neck. In the latter case the two entrances to the channelwould have indeed to be assured; but our shipping would not be forcedto pass through a long, narrow waterway, bordered throughout on oneside by foreign and possibly hostile territories. In case of war witheither Great Britain or Spain, this channel would be likely to beinfested by hostile cruisers, close to their own base, the very bestcondition for a commerce-destroying war; and its protection by usunder present circumstances will exact a much greater effort than withthe supposed channel, or than if the Florida Peninsula did not exist. The effect of the peninsula is to thrust our route from the Atlanticto the Gulf 300 miles to the southward, and to make imperative a basefor control of the strait; while the case is made worse by an almosttotal lack of useful harbors. On the Atlantic, the most exposed side, there is none; and on the Gulf none nearer to Key West than 175miles, [2] where we find Tampa Bay. There is, indeed, nothing that canbe said about the interests of the United States in an Isthmian canalthat does not apply now with equal force to the Strait of Florida. Theone links the Atlantic to the Gulf, as the other would the Atlantic tothe Pacific. It may be added here that the phenomenon of the long, narrow peninsula of Florida, with its strait, is reproducedsuccessively in Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, with the passagesdividing them. The whole together forms one long barrier, thestrategic significance of which cannot be overlooked in its effectupon the Caribbean; while the Gulf of Mexico is assigned to absoluteseclusion by it, if the passages are in hostile control. 

 [2] There is Charlotte Harbor, at 120 miles, but it can be used only by medium-sized vessels. 

The relations of the island of Jamaica to the great barrier formed byCuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico are such as to constitute it the naturalstepping-stone by which to pass from the consideration of entranceinto the Caribbean, which has been engaging our attention, to that ofthe transit across, from entrance to the Isthmus, which we must nextundertake. 

In the matters of entrance to the Caribbean, and of general interiorcontrol of that sea, Jamaica has a singularly central position. It isequidistant (500 miles) from Colon, from the Yucatan Channel, and fromthe Mona Passage; it is even closer (450 miles) to the nearestmainland of South America at Point Gallinas, and of Central America atCape Gracias-á-Dios; while it lies so immediately in rear of theWindward Passage that its command of the latter can scarcely beconsidered less than that of Santiago. The analogy of its situation, as a station for a great fleet, to that for an army covering afrontier which is passable at but a few points, will scarcely escape amilitary reader. A comparatively short chain of swift lookoutsteamers, in each direction, can give timely notice of any approach byeither of the three passages named; while, if entrance be gained atany other point, the arms stretched out towards Gallinas andGracias-á-Dios will give warning of transit before the purposes ofsuch transit can be accomplished undisturbed. 

With such advantages of situation, and with a harbor susceptible ofsatisfactory development as a naval station for a great fleet, Jamaicais certainly the most important single position in the Caribbean Sea. When one recalls that it passed into the hands of Great Britain, inthe days of Cromwell, by accidental conquest, the expedition havingbeen intended primarily against Santo Domingo; that in the twocenturies and a half which have since intervened it has played no partadequate to its advantages, such as now looms before it; that, by allthe probabilities, it should have been reconquered and retained bySpain in the war of the American Revolution; and when, again, it isrecalled that a like accident and a like subsequent uncertaintyattended the conquest and retention of the decisive Mediterraneanpositions of Gibraltar and Malta, one marvels whether incidents sowidely separated in time and place, all tending towards one end--themaritime predominance of Great Britain--can be accidents, or aresimply the exhibition of a Personal Will, acting through all time, with purpose deliberate and consecutive, to ends not yet discerned. 

Nevertheless, when compared to Cuba, Jamaica cannot be considered thepreponderant position of the Caribbean. The military question ofposition is quantitative as well as qualitative; and situation, however excellent, can rarely, by itself alone, make full amends fordefect in the power and resources which are the natural property ofsize--of mass. Gibraltar, the synonym of intrinsic strength, is anillustration in point; its smallness, its isolation, and itsbarrenness of resource constitute limits to its offensive power, andeven to its impregnability, which are well understood by military men. Jamaica, by its situation, flanks the route from Cuba to the Isthmus, as indeed it does all routes from the Atlantic and the Gulf to thatpoint; but, as a military entity, it is completely overshadowed by thelarger island, which it so conspicuously confronts. If, as has justbeen said, it by situation intercepts the access of Cuba to theIsthmus, it is itself cut off by its huge neighbor from securecommunication with the North American Continent, now as always thechief natural source of supplies for the West Indies, which do notproduce the great staples of life. With the United States friendly orneutral, in a case of war, there can be no comparison between theadvantages of Cuba, conferred by its situation and its size, and thoseof Jamaica, which, by these qualities of its rival, is effectually cutoff from that source of supplies. Nor is the disadvantage of Jamaicaless marked with reference to communication with other quarters thanthe United States--with Halifax, with Bermuda, with Europe. Itsdistance from these points, and from Santa Lucia, where the resourcesof Europe may be said to focus for it, makes its situation one ofextreme isolation; a condition emphasized by the fact that bothBermuda and Santa Lucia are themselves dependent upon outside sourcesfor anything they may send to Jamaica. At all these points, coal, thegreat factor of modern naval war, must be stored and the supplymaintained. They do not produce it. The mere size of Cuba, the amountof population which it has, or ought to have, the number of itsseaports, the extent of the industries possible to it, tend naturallyto an accumulation of resources such as great mercantile communitiesalways entail. These, combined with its nearness to the United States, and its other advantages of situation, make Cuba a position that canhave no military rival among the islands of the world, except Ireland. With a friendly United States, isolation is impossible to Cuba. 

The aim of any discussion such as this should be to narrow down, by agradual elimination, the various factors to be considered, in orderthat the decisive ones, remaining, may become conspicuously visible. The trees being thus thinned out, the features of the strategiclandscape can appear. The primary processes in the present case havebeen carried out before seeking the attention of the reader, to whomthe first approximations have been presented under three heads. First, the two decisive centres, the mouth of the Mississippi and theIsthmus. Second, the four principal routes, connecting these twopoints with others, have been specified; these routes being, 1, between the Isthmus and the Mississippi themselves; 2, from theIsthmus to the North American coast, by the Windward Passage; 3, fromthe Gulf of Mexico to the North American coast, by the Strait ofFlorida; and, 4, from the Isthmus to Europe, by the Anegada Passage. Third, the principal military positions throughout the region inquestion have been laid down, and their individual and relativeimportance indicated. 

From the subsequent discussion it seems evident that, as"communications" are so leading an element in strategy, the positionor positions which decisively affect the greatest number or extent ofthe communications will be the most important, so far as situationgoes. Of the four principal lines named, three pass close to, and areessentially controlled by, the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, namely, from the Mississippi to the Isthmus by the Yucatan Channel, from theMississippi to the Atlantic coast of America by the Strait of Florida, and from the Isthmus to the Atlantic coast by the Windward Passage. The fourth route, which represents those from the Isthmus to Europe, passes nearer to Jamaica than to Cuba; but those two islands exerciseover it more control than does any other one of the archipelago, forthe reason that any other can be avoided more easily, and by a widerinterval, than either Jamaica or Cuba. 

Regarded as positions, therefore, these two islands are the realrivals for control of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; and itmay be added that the strategic centre of interest for both Gulf andCaribbean is to be found in the Windward Passage, because it furnishesthe ultimate test of the relative power of the two islands to controlthe Caribbean. For, as has been said before, and cannot be repeatedtoo often, it is not position only, nor chiefly, but mobile force, that is decisive in war. In the combination of these two elementsrests the full statement of any case. The question of position hasbeen adjudged in favor of Cuba, for reasons which have been given. Inthe case of a conflict between the powers holding the two islands, thequestion of controlling the Windward Passage would be the test ofrelative mobile strength; because that channel is the shortest andbest line of communications for Jamaica with the American coast, withHalifax, and with Bermuda, and as such it must be kept open. If thepower of Jamaica is not great enough to hold the passage open byforce, she is thrown upon evasion--upon furtive measures--to maintainessential supplies; for, if she cannot assert her strength so far inthat direction, she cannot, from her nearness, go beyond Cuba's reachin any direction. Abandonment of the best road in this case meansisolation; and to that condition, if prolonged, there is but oneissue. 

The final result, therefore, may be stated in this way: The advantagesof situation, strength, and resources are greatly and decisively infavor of Cuba. To bring Jamaica to a condition of equality, orsuperiority, is needed a mobile force capable of keeping the WindwardPassage continuously open, not only for a moment, nor for anymeasurable time, but throughout the war. Under the present conditionsof political tenure, in case of a war involving only the two statesconcerned, such a question could admit of no doubt; but in a war atall general, involving several naval powers, the issue would be lesscertain. In the war of 1778 the tenure, not of the Windward Passagemerely, but of Jamaica itself, was looked upon by a large party inGreat Britain as nearly hopeless; and it is true that only a happyconcurrence of blundering and bad luck on the part of its foes thensaved the island. It is conceivable that odds which have happened oncemay happen again. 

THE END.