Japan has not lost her originality as an Asiatic nation, because she is united to England by a treaty which assures the _status quo_ in the East. The Latin republics will not renounce their character as American nations because they may conclude understandings with the nations of the West. Already there are commercial treaties between these nations and Europe, as well as a harmony of economic and intellectual interests. Brazil and the Argentine, where British money and French ideals prevail, might themselves unite to form a vast combination of alliances with the group of European nations which conquered, civilised, and enriched America: that is, Spain, France, and England. Will not a community of interests in America give a new strength to the union of these peoples in Europe? Great political changes would result from these new influences: the American Latins, by entering into the combinations of European politics, would divide Italy, whose interests in the Argentine and Brazil are so great, from the Triple Alliance, and would strengthen the understanding between England and France against Germany, which disputes with them not only the hegemony of Europe but also the preponderance in America. Canning, who opposed the designs of the Holy Alliance, used to say a century ago that he had given the New World liberty in order to restore equilibrium to the Old World. Against the theocratic peoples who were seeking to overshadow the destinies of the earth he evoked the apparition of these free democracies destined to {394} establish the benefits of liberty on a firm footing. His hope was premature, because it was hardly possible for perfect republics to rise from the ruins of Spanish absolutism. Even to-day, after a century of attempts at constitutional government, only a few Latin American States--the Argentine, Brazil, Chili, Peru, and Bolivia--seem capable of fulfilling the desires of Canning.