Again, let us look at the recent history of European politics. Do we not find that a more extensive seaboard is the ruling passion of such nations as Germany and Russia, whose outlets are few and inconvenient? The half-suspected designs of Germany upon Holland, and of Russia upon Turkish and Chinese territory, have been mainly ascribed to this ambition. To obtain such an outlet for the Asiatic part of her dominions, Russia is at the present moment laying down a railway across Siberia, which will give her a closer connection with China than the Chinese seem to care for, and is likely, in the opinion of some shrewd politicians, to eventuate in her obtaining possession of a large slice of the Celestial Empire. The neutralisation of certain prominent waterways is, moreover, regarded as a matter of so much importance, that costly and protracted wars have been undertaken with a view to that end, nor would it be difficult to trace a connection between the passion for more ports and the costly armaments which have now for many years threatened the peace and impoverished the resources of Europe. Nevertheless, with a command of the sea that makes us at once the envy and the despair of rival nations, and has placed our shipping supremacy on such a pinnacle of power and prosperity as the world has never before been acquainted with,[14] we still require to pay more for reaching our ports, relatively to the distance traversed, than any other nation in Europe, and very much more than either the United States of North America, or our own possessions of India and Canada. It is not too much to say that if we possessed the same transportation rates as some of these countries, our trade with the rest of the world would be much greater than it is; while if we had the same distances to traverse as in these countries, at the existing railway rates of our own, competition in neutral markets with the low-rate countries of the Continent would be impossible.