We must leave the probable effects of the Panama Canal on the British possessions in America to another chapter. It has not been possible to deal with prospective commercial developments in great detail. Only some general idea could be given of the vast changes and developments in progress. On the day on which I am writing the Washington correspondent of _The Times_ summarizes the meaning and effect of the Panama Canal in three rather formidable words. He says it "symbolizes commercial Pan-Americanism." The canal is going to help America to keep its trade more to itself. It represents in commerce and economics what the Monroe doctrine represents in politics. It will immensely assist the United States to become the chief industrial supplier of the great continent, with the other states mainly as agricultural or mining annexes. One incident in the furthering of this ambition was the attempt to conclude a treaty of reciprocity with Canada, the effect of which, as Mr. Taft admitted, would have been to make Canada such an "annexe" of the republic. The Canadian people, however, realizing the ulterior political and commercial effects of such a treaty, refused to ratify it. Canada, in fact, belongs to another political and economic system. She gives valuable trade-preference to the manufactures of the mother-country in the Old World, and there is happily no reason to believe that she will abandon the Imperial ideals for the objects of continental Pan-Americanism. After all, the citizens of Canada and the United States are mostly of the same stock, speaking the same language and cherishing the same great traditions. The two branches of the Anglo-Saxon family ought to be able, while each maintaining its own life and growth, to remain happily side by side, sharing in the new prosperity which the world owes to this latest achievement of the great republic. FOOTNOTES: [20] March 19, 1912. CHAPTER XVIII. THE CANAL AND THE BRITISH EMPIRE.