Movements of the Older Nations

THIS retrospect of our own history would be incomplete without a glance at the movements of the great nations who are our competitors in the majestic march towards unassailable prosperity and power. Nothing can seriously impede the course of the Great Republic, but no progressive move by any strong people is without its effect on the movements of the rest. Standing grandly apart as we do from the whirl of European complications, there is yet no significant act or utterance of monarch, president, or statesman of position, that does not in some degree affect American sentiment. We, in our turn, can scarcely propose a policy without sending a disturbing thrill through every old-world council chamber or market-place.

The drift of latter-day diplomacy, and the commercial development of Europe, have a close bearing on the history we are going to make in the quarter-century now beginning. If geographically distant, we are vitally present in the family councils of the great nations. We have to be reckoned with in everything they undertake from now onward. We have hitherto been respected as the great power of the West; henceforth we shall be deferentially treated as a great potentiality in the East. Let us see how the new situation may affect our future. Jealousy is one of the first tributes fading pride pays to rising greatness. No lasting supremacy arrives smoothly. Our friendly neighbors may not create obstacles, but it is human to place those that exist more plainly in sight rather than remove them. The game now opening on the international chess-board will be intensely interesting in its shifting of kings and crafty strategy in checkmating.

Great Britain, our next-door European neighbor, aspires to a greater greatness. In so far as territorial aggrandizement is a sound definition, her ambition may yet overleap itself, as outlying possessions, once a certain strength is attained, obey the law by which filial ties change from obligatory to sentimental loyalty. In so far as her half-century of dazzling grandeur owed its being to England's having so long been the workshop and the bank of the world, that foundation of strength has been chipped away, stone by stone, in recent years. The nations no longer go hat in hand to ask the favor of her goods or gold. The aforetime underrated Colonies of America now single-handed outstrip her in inventing, in making and in selling a score of her staples, of which she used to hold almost the monopoly.

The generally cordial feelings between the American and English peoples have been ruffled over minor interests. Under stress of the conditions indicated, it may be that friction will come more frequently and perhaps more irritatingly, not from one, but from several points of the compass. Tariff skirmishes and bounty fights may precede conflicts on a larger scale. If subjugation of civilized peoples and confiscation of rich territory owned by original settlers are to be accepted as signs of grace, then deeper significance attaches to the diplomatic difficulty over the boundary line between the American and Canadian gold area in Alaska. The total product of gold of all the mines from 1890 to 1900 has amounted to nearly $20,000,000. The disputed territory comprises about 30,000 square miles in southeast Alaska, in which is a gold mine valued at $I3,000,000. The Yukon district is Canadian, with Dawson as its center.

Canada proper is divided over the policy of commercial union, a fair is not free trade arrangement with the Republic. Events not far off are likely to work a radical change in the attitude of Great Britain towards the United States. The outcome cannot be foreseen, so strangely do modern conditions modify the purposes of the strongest powers. Whether England's destiny is fixed to be that of a world-wide ocean-sundered empire, or the return of an era of compact nationality, freed from the perils of innumerable responsibilities, her influence on the future of the Great Republic cannot but be as profound as it has been and is now.

The German empire is a creation of yesterday. With boundless ambition for glory and power it is following in the wake of Great Britain, seeking to found colonies, turning from pastoral life at home to factory-work and world trade. The unification of small principalities into an imperial power was the life-work of the last of the great, strong, wise master-statesmen of the period. Whether the tie will hold or some day yield is a secret of the future. The prime fact for the American people to ponder is that the imperial bond is so far working well for the growing commercial power of Germany. Her rural districts may be deserted and her agricultural industry may languish more and more, but the cities and towns grow rapidly, mills multiply, her highly educated ambassadors of commerce have won a firm footing in every market in the world. German manufacturers have, in certain lines, cut down British exports by one-half, even in British colonial markets. If the German empire acquires a first-class navy and a gateway on the seashore, and unlikelier things happen every year, American captains of commerce will not lack opportunities to show their ingenuity and pluck.