There will be held this year (1912) at Washington a Pan-American Conference on trade, organised by the Bureau, "to awaken the commercial organisations, representative business men, and the general public of both North and South America to an appreciation of the possibilities of Pan-American commerce, and the necessity of preparing for the opening of the Panama Canal." "The Conference," says the official announcement, "will have a novel feature in that it will consider the exchange of trade--imports as well as exports--and the opportunities not only of the United States to extend the sale of her products in Latin America, but of Latin America to sell her products in the United States, for only upon the basis of reciprocal exchange of trade can a permanent large commerce and lasting good relations be built up between the United States and her twenty sister American Republics. Heretofore all discussions and meetings have considered only the export field, with a corresponding unfortunate effect on public opinion in Latin America, and her attitude towards the efforts of the United States to increase her commerce with that important part of the world. Another special feature will be a careful consideration, from the standpoint of the business interests of all the American countries interested in the Panama Canal, of what should be done to get ready for greater exchange of trade through that waterway, and to gain practical advantages to their commerce from the day it is opened." The policy of Pan-America may one day come into effect, and the United States Power command the resources of all America except Canada. (That Canada will ever willingly come under her suzerainty seems now little likely.) But from Cape Horn to the Gulf of St Lawrence is an Empire of mighty resources, great enough to sate the ambition of any Power, but yet not forbidding the ambition to make it the base for further conquests. Yet, withal, the United States cannot rely confidently on an unchecked career of prosperity. She may have her troubles. Indeed, she has her troubles. No American of to-day professes to know a solution of the negro problem. "There are two ways out of the difficulty," said one American grimly; "to kill all the negroes, and to deport all the negroes; and neither is humanly possible." To allow them to be absorbed by intermarriage with the White population is unthinkable, and would, in a generation or two, drag the United States down to the level of a larger Hayti. A settlement of the black question will one day, sooner or later, absorb the American mind for some time to the exclusion of all else. Neither the acquisition of territories with great coloured populations, nor the extension of suzerainty over half-breed countries will do anything to simplify that problem.