Once more, China, with its population of 400,000,000, is a close neighbour to Australia with its 4,000,000. Only narrow seas separate them. The decisive objection felt in every part of Australia to the immigration {202} of Chinese, and the steps taken to prevent it, point to relations which might easily lead to serious rupture between the two countries. I have heard sober-minded Australians, including cabinet ministers, affirm that for a long time to come Australia of itself would be absolutely powerless to offer any adequate resistance to an irritated China if she used her considerable fleet for the annoyance of Australian commerce, or if she chose to flood with a Mongolian population the vast unoccupied areas of the North and West coasts of the continent, which are incapable of defence by land forces from the colonies. The idea is sometimes brought forward in Australia that England's desire to keep on good terms with China and Australia's resolution to prevent a large Chinese immigration, bring Imperial and colonial interests into hopeless conflict on a fundamental point of policy. On the other hand it may be fairly questioned whether Australia, without the weight of British influence and the strength of British ironclads behind her, would have escaped serious consequences through her impulsive action in denying international rights to Chinamen. But leaving aside this question, it is still clear that so long as China is a naval power of considerable strength in seas frequented by Australian commerce, so long Australia cannot forget her existence and neighbourhood. An independent Australia would be compelled at once to develop a navy equal at least to that which she meets in those seas, otherwise she would have no means of {203} checking or chastising the insolence of the meanest Chinese junk which interfered with Australian trade or attacked an Australian ship. It is manifest, then, that Australia's position is far from being one of isolation. Conditions more different from those under which the United States started upon their career of independence it is difficult to imagine. Almost the last act of Britain before the Revolution was to crush the only other European power which had a footing in America, and might prove a menace to the colonies. Wolfe won at Quebec in 1759--and Independence was declared in 1776. From 1789 till 1815 the whole of Europe was plunged, in strife so desperate that the United States were left free to work out their own development as no nation had ever been left to do so before. Nevertheless the short war of 1812 ruined American commerce, paralyzed industry, and closed by far the larger number of American business houses. It showed that isolation and an ability to ward off actual invasion did not give immunity from the calamities of war.