competitors in Australia, and above all in New Zealand, where they will drive the English merchants from the markets. It is difficult to write, like Tarde, a "fragment of future history"; too many unknown forces intervene in the historical drama of the peoples. But no doubt, unless some extraordinary event occurs to disturb the evolution of the modern peoples, the great nations of industrial Europe and Japan, the champion of Asiatic integrity, will oppose the formidable progress of the United States. The canal sets a frontier to Yankee ambition; it is the southern line, the "South Coast Line" of which a North American politician, Jefferson, used to dream. As early as 1809 he believed that Cuba and Canada would become incorporated, as States of the Union, in the immense Confederation; anticipating the rude lyrics of Walt Whitman, he dreamed of founding "an empire of liberty so vast that the like has never been seen." Heirs to the Anglo-Saxon genius, the Americans of the North wish to form a democratic federation. They have succeeded in doing in Cuba what Japan {390} has done in Korea: first, the struggle for autonomy, then the necessary intervention, then a protectorate, and perhaps annexation. Thus the prophecy of Jefferson will be realised. Between Canada, an autonomous colony, and the United States, there are common economic interests, and commercial treaties have created such a plexus of interests that the evolution from these practical alliances to political union would seem to be a simple matter. The disintegration of the Anglo-Saxon Empire will be the work of the United States. American activities in Canada are steadily increasing; the Yankee capital employed in various Canadian industries amounts to £20,000,000. Trade is increasing, and by virtue of new conventions the United States will be even better situated than ever to dispute the Canadian markets with England. In this free colony there is a Far West which the States have peopled. The East is Anglo-Saxon, industrial, aristocratic; the West, barbarian and agrarian, desires union with the neighbouring democracy. Münsterberg reports that a Boston journal prints every day, in large letters, on the first page, that the first duty of the United States is the annexation of Canada.