So much for the past history of the United States in the Pacific. A forecast of her influence on the future of the ocean is clearly indicated by the past. The United States spread from the east of the North American continent to the west, because there is no method known to prevent the extension of a highly civilised, a young, an ardent nation at the expense of backward, effete and tired peoples. It was impossible that either the Red Indian tribes or the picturesque old settlements of the Californian Spanish should stand in the way of the American Republic stretching from ocean to ocean. Once the United States was established on the Pacific coast, it was equally inevitable that the arm of her power should stretch across the ocean. The acquisition of the Hawaiian Group was necessary for the sound defence of the coast. The American trading ships which sought the coast of Asia and found barbaric barriers against commerce being battered down by European venturers, had to do as the other White Men did. The flag thus had to follow in the wake of the trade. It was all natural, necessary and ultimately beneficial to civilisation. Equally inevitable will be the future expansion of the United States in the Pacific. The overwhelming strength of her industrial organisation will give her a first call on the neutral markets of the ocean--_i.e._ those markets to which she has the same right of access as her trade rivals. As the tendency shows for the area of those neutral markets to narrow through coming under the domination of various Powers, the United States will seek to extend her domination too. The protection of what she has will enforce the need of acquiring other strategical points. So her Pacific possessions will grow, almost unconsciously, just as the British Empire grew. CHAPTER VI GREAT BRITAIN'S ENTRY INTO THE PACIFIC Off the coast of China at a point where, in a strategical map the "spheres of influence" of Japan and the United States and Germany would impinge, is the island of Hong Kong, the Far East station of the British Empire. Further south, in the Malay Peninsula, is Singapore, standing guard over the entrance to the Indian Ocean. On these two coaling stations British naval power in the North Pacific is based. The abandonment of either of them is unthinkable to-day, yet neither was taken possession of until the nineteenth century--Singapore in 1819, Hong Kong in 1841. In the South Pacific there was shown an even stronger hesitation in acquiring territory.