“France, England, Holland, Russia, and the United States, have a great commercial interest in the establishment of a communication between the two oceans; but England has more than the other powers a political interest in the execution of this project. England will see with pleasure Central America become a flourishing and powerful state, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a great feeling of nationality and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachment from the north. England will witness with satisfaction the opening of a route which will enable her to communicate more speedily with Oregon, China, and her possessions in New Holland. She will find, in a word, that the advancement of Central America will renovate the declining commerce of Jamaica and the other English island in the Antilles, the progressive decay of which will be thereby stopped. It is a happy coincidence that the political and commercial prosperity of the state of Nicaragua is closely connected with the policy of that nation which has the greatest preponderance on the sea.” Footnote 15: “The total length of the canal from sea to sea would be little short of 200 miles, viz., 15½ miles from the Pacific to the lake, 56½ across the lake, and 119 to the Atlantic; total, 191 miles; and the Lake of Nicaragua is navigable for ships of the largest class down to the mouth of the river San Juan” (C. B. Pin’s “The Gate of the Pacific,” p. 133). Footnote 16: Prof. Seeley’s “Expansion of England,” p. 87. Footnote 17: “The negotiations with the Imperial Government for the establishment of a permanent line of first-class steamships, suitable for service as armed cruisers in case of need, resulted in an official notification that Her Majesty’s Government had decided to grant a subsidy of £60,000 per annum for a monthly service between Vancouver and Hong Kong, _viâ_ Yokohama” (“Canada, Statistical Abstract and Record for the Year 1887,” p. 306). Footnote 18: “China is a storehouse of men and means; its outer door has scarcely yet been opened” (R. E. Webster’s “The Trade of the World,” p. 317). Footnote 19: Sir H. Parkes, late Minister of England in Japan, said: “The statement of the national liabilities this year (1878), shows that Japan has kept faith with her foreign creditors, the interest on her foreign debt and the sum requisite for the payment of the amount of capital redeemed during the year having been duly provided. There is no reason to doubt that care will be taken to ensure punctual payment in future on this account until the entire extinction of this debt in 1895.” Japan has never failed to pay her foreign debts. Footnote 20: There is also a Maritime Insurance Company. Footnote 21: Light-houses—fifty-seven in number and some of them are very powerful. Footnote 22: