Are we to be discouraged by the cry that the new possessions are worthless? Not while we remember how often and under what circumstances we have heard that cry before. Half the public men of the period denounced Louisiana as worthless. Eminent statesmen made merry in Congress over the idea that Oregon or Washington could be of any use. Daniel Webster, in the most solemn and authoritative tones Massachusetts has ever employed, assured his fellow-Senators that, in his judgment, California was not worth a dollar. Is it said that the commercial opportunities in the Orient, or at least in the Philippines, are overrated? So it used to be said of the Sandwich Islands. But what does our experience show? Before their annexation even, but after we had taken this little archipelago under our protection and into our commercial system, our ocean tonnage in that trade became nearly double as heavy as with Great Britain. Why? Because, while we have lost the trade of the Atlantic, superior advantages make the Pacific ours. Is it said that elsewhere on the Pacific we can do as well without a controlling political influence as with it? Look again! Mexico buys our products at the rate of $1.95 for each inhabitant; South America at the rate of 90 cents; Great Britain at the rate of $13.42; Canada at the rate of $14; and the Hawaiian Islands at the rate of $53.35 for each inhabitant. Look at the trade of the chief city on the Pacific coast. All Mexico and Central America, all the western parts of South America and of Canada, are as near to it as is Honolulu; and comparison of the little Sandwich Islands in population with any of them would be ridiculous. Yet none of them bought as much salmon in San Francisco as Hawaii, and no countries bought more save England and Australia. No countries bought as much barley, excepting Central America; and even in the staff of life, the California flour, which all the world buys, only five countries outranked Hawaii in purchases in San Francisco.