The United States, again, have been hitherto comparatively independent of external commerce. Even the carrying trade has been allowed to slip chiefly into foreign hands. Continental isolation and vast population give a sufficient range for national industry and sufficient security from hostile invasion. They enable the people to turn their attention mainly to internal development and the complex or even threatening problems involved in the assimilation and elevation of the confluent races which are taking possession of the soil. Very different is the position of British people. To them, whether at home or abroad, the steady flow of commerce is as the flow of blood through the veins; the safety of the waterways is practically a question of life or death. The very fact that Britain is not compelled to be a great military power, in the sense that European nations are military powers, adds millions to her armies of industry, increases indefinitely her producing forces and so makes more imperative the necessity for absolutely safe commercial intercourse. Britain, as the result of natural growth, now possesses the unquestionable right and the manifest opportunity, without a single stroke of aggression, to organize a naval power adequate to the protection of the chief waterways of the world, and of the enormous commerce which the industry of her people has created thereon. To any combination thus planned to guard the very life of the nation, what just or reasonable objection can be made? To any objection not just or reasonable {174} what answer must English people make? For a race of traders scattered over all quarters of the globe, peace is a supreme interest, and peace, as the world is now constituted, can only rest on organized power. For the first time in history we see a nation which unites under its flag all the comprehensiveness of a world-wide Empire and a wonderful relative compactness secured by that practical contraction of our planet which has taken place under the combined influences of steam and electricity. No other nation ever has had--it is well nigh impossible to believe that any other nation ever will have--so commanding a position for exercising the functions of what I have called an oceanic Empire, interested in developing and able to protect the commerce of the world. Such an Empire is probably the best guarantee of permanent peace the world has ever had or is likely to have this side of the millennium. Who shall question our right and duty to organize it for the great ends manifestly within our reach? But Mr. Smith questions not merely our right, but our capacity.