Thus, the obvious application of the term is geographical. Yet Americans of authority are fully aware of the need of reservation in this geographical application. In 1909, the Director of the Pan-American Union pointed out, with some mortification, that on the occasion of the Pan-American Congress at Buenos Aires, most of the delegates from the north found that the easiest route from the chief city of North America to the chief city of South America lay through Europe. And an eminent American economist[6] has lately uttered a warning against geographical misapprehensions, explaining that, whereas the Panamá Canal makes the west coast of South America an extension of the east coast of the United States, nevertheless the bulk of the South American population lives upon the Atlantic coast and prefers its traditional, customary and natural intercourse with Europe. But in considering the meaning of an incipient and growing force, it would be a mistake to dwell on possible limitations and difficulties; and it would be pedantic and unpractical to demand precise consistency or exact definition. We are rather concerned with aspirations, tendencies and formative ideas. Indeed, it might fairly be argued that these limitations, which are fully realised and avowed in North America, are no argument against the Pan-American movement, but rather an argument in support of it, as being a prudent and wholesome effort to overcome existing obstacles and promote a better understanding between neighbours. Pan-Americanism may be described as the movement which aims at uniting all the American republics:--one cannot say all the American countries; for in the map printed on the cover of the Pan-American Bulletin, Canada is left blank, as not forming part of "Pan-America." This omission alone is enough to prove, if proof were needed, that there is something artificial about Pan-Americanism: for obviously a New Yorker is more at home in Toronto or Halifax than in Rio or Buenos Aires; and there is a closer political similarity as well as a closer political bond between Washington and Ottawa than between Washington and Caracas. But, after all, most political combinations are largely artificial: they are products of statesmanship rather than of nature, or at all events they are products of nature assisted by statesmanship. And Pan-Americanism need not be less real or less valuable for being a construction deliberately planned instead of a spontaneous organism. But since the Pan-American movement is artificial, and a matter of policy and management, still rather formless, Americans of both continents differ considerably both as to its meaning and its usefulness, some declaring that it means nothing and is useless or even mischievous, while others regard it as a kind of perfect circle embracing all the future.