Mr. Carnegie's criticism of another class of Federationists is that they have 'no business' in their programme, 'no considerations of trade,' that 'sentiment reigns supreme.' It is evident that he has not a primary conception of the main drift of federation policy. He is like many of his fellow-citizens in America, out of whom life on a broad continent appears to have driven the maritime instinct. Because external commerce or the carrying trade means little to the United States, or because his own country is so remarkably self-contained, he has no standard by which to measure the profound and practical significance which maritime position has for countries like Great Britain or Australia. In 1890 of the 3389 vessels which passed through the Suez Canal 2522 were British and three American. In the same year, out of the whole volume of American external trade itself, only 12.29 per cent., or about one-eighth was carried in American bottoms, of the remaining seven-eighths by far the larger part crossed the seas under the {257} British flag. Again, in 1890 the shipping cleared in England amounted in all to 3,316,442 tons, but of this only 38,192 tons were under the United States flag, although the trade between the two countries is one of vast proportions. These figures will serve to illustrate how difficult it must be for anyone looking at our national questions from an American point of view to understand the fundamental interests of British people, and perhaps explain the airy cheerfulness with which Mr. Carnegie suggests various processes of political evolution which involve the disintegration of the Empire. But Mr. Carnegie has other difficulties than those which arise from studying a question from an unfavourable angle. The intense occupations of business in America may well be his excuse for not keeping in touch with the movement of British politics; they can scarcely excuse him for discussing English affairs as if he were in a position to understand them. 'Britain,' he says, 'can choose whether Australia, Canada, and her other colonies, as they grow to maturity, can set up for themselves, with every feeling of filial devotion towards her, or whether every child born in these lands is to be born to regard Britain as the cruel oppressor of his country. There is no other alternative, and I beseech our friends of the Imperial Federation (League) to pause ere they involve their country and her children in the disappointment and humiliation which must come, if a serious effort is made to check the development and independent existence of the colonies, for independence {258} they must and will seek, and obtain, even by force, if necessary.' One hesitates whether to lay stress upon the ignorance or the folly of sentences like these. I use the words advisedly. Ignorance, because apparently Mr. Carnegie does not know that almost every responsible British statesman of the past half century and of