Mr von Schierbrand ignores the underlying spiritual differences that separate the Oriental from the European, differences that will always be the cause of hostility, open or veiled, between them. After all it is not so important who is to get the trade of the East but what are the ideals that are finally to prevail there—the Christian ideals or Oriental fatalism. It could be wished that the author felt more interest in such discussions. One is tempted to quote against him his own words in another connection: “Beside the mad passion for gain there is no charm in rest, lettered ease, travel, still less in labor for the general good—charity, education, the state; the ruling passion must rage on, business must be expanded regardless of profit and with eyes closed to impending loss. Instead of making ourselves more homes and more beautiful things and cultured people in them, we cherish the tenement house and the narrow life, and go on piling up and shoving out what we are pleased to call goods, goods, goods.” It is well enough to chasten ourselves with such reflections as we go on with the author to weigh the claim of the United States to the lion’s share in the trade of the Pacific. The author bases our claim on the strategic advantage which the Panama Canal is to give us, and this part of the book is unquestionably most interesting to the South. The relation of the richest granary in the world, the Mississippi Valley, to the Canal will rid it of the need of railways. The canal will bring New York closer to the west coast of South America than San Francisco, and New Orleans will be seven hundred miles nearer still. The commercial availability of Southern coal and iron will be immensely increased and the harbors of the South will assume an importance long withheld from them as ports of call. The book as a whole is well written, and the last chapters, which summarize the author’s conclusions, especially so. What he has to say about public opinion and of the force, more universal still, the primary need of the human race of food, which together share the sovereignty of the modern world, is well said and more philosophical by far than is usual with the books of the imperialists. L. THE COLOR LINE. By WILLIAM BENJAMIN SMITH. McClure, Phillips and Co., New York.