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Title: The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future

Author: A. T. Mahan

Release Date: May 2, 2005 [EBook #15749]

Language: English

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THE INTEREST OF AMERICA

IN SEA POWER,

PRESENT AND FUTURE.



By
CAPTAIN A.T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D.
United States Navy.

Author of "The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783,"
"The Influence of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire,"
of a "Life of Farragut," and of "The Life of Nelson, The Embodiment
of the Sea Power of Great Britain."



London:
Sampson Low, Marston & Company,
_Limited._
1897.

_Copyright, 1897,_
By Alfred T. Mahan.

_Copyright, 1890, 1893,_
By Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

_Copyright, 1893,_
By The Forum Publishing Company.

_Copyright, 1894,_
By Lloyd Bryce.

_Copyright, 1895, 1897,_
By Harper and Brothers.

_All rights reserved._

University Press:
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A.




PREFACE.


Whatever interest may be possessed by a collection of detached papers,
issued at considerable intervals during a term of several years, and
written without special reference one to the other, or, at the first,
with any view to subsequent publication, depends as much upon the date
at which they were composed, and the condition of affairs then
existent, as it does upon essential unity of treatment. If such unity
perchance be found in these, it will not be due to antecedent purpose,
but to the fact that they embody the thought of an individual mind,
consecutive in the line of its main conceptions, but adjusting itself
continually to changing conditions, which the progress of events
entails.

The author, therefore, has not sought to bring these papers down to
the present date; to reconcile seeming contradictions, if such there
be; to suppress repetitions; or to weld into a consistent whole the
several parts which in their origin were independent. Such changes as
have been made extend only to phraseology, with the occasional
modification of an expression that seemed to err by excess or defect.
The dates at the head of each article show the time of its writing,
not of its publication.

The thanks of the author are expressed to the proprietors of the
"Atlantic Monthly," of the "Forum," of the "North American Review,"
and of "Harper's New Monthly Magazine," who have kindly permitted the
republication of the articles originally contributed to their pages.

A.T. MAHAN.

_November, 1897._




CONTENTS.


   I. THE UNITED STATES LOOKING OUTWARD
      From the Atlantic Monthly, December, 1890.

  II. HAWAII AND OUR FUTURE SEA POWER
      From the Forum, March, 1893.

 III. THE ISTHMUS AND SEA POWER
      From the Atlantic Monthly, September, 1893.

  IV. POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN REUNION
      From the North American Review, November, 1894.

   V. THE FUTURE IN RELATION TO AMERICAN NAVAL POWER
      Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October, 1895.

  VI. PREPAREDNESS FOR NAVAL WAR
      Harper's New Monthly Magazine, March, 1897.

 VII. A TWENTIETH-CENTURY OUTLOOK
      Harper's New Monthly Magazine, September, 1897.

VIII. STRATEGIC FEATURES OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA AND THE GULF OF MEXICO
      Harper's New Monthly Magazine, October, 1897.




MAPS.


THE PACIFIC

THE GULF AND CARIBBEAN




THE UNITED STATES LOOKING OUTWARD.

_August, 1890._


Indications are not wanting of an approaching change in the thoughts
and policy of Americans as to their relations with the world outside
their own borders. For the past quarter of a century, the predominant
idea, which has asserted itself successfully at the polls and shaped
the course of the government, has been to preserve the home market for
the home industries. The employer and the workman alike have been
taught to look at the various economical measures proposed from this
point of view, to regard with hostility any step favoring the intrusion
of the foreign producer upon their own domain, and rather to demand
increasingly rigorous measures of exclusion than to acquiesce in any
loosening of the chain that binds the consumer to them. The inevitable
consequence has followed, as in all cases when the mind or the eye is
exclusively fixed in one direction, that the danger of loss or the
prospect of advantage in another quarter has been overlooked; and
although the abounding resources of the country have maintained the
exports at a high figure, this flattering result has been due more to
the superabundant bounty of Nature than to the demand of other nations
for our protected manufactures.

For nearly the lifetime of a generation, therefore, American industries
have been thus protected, until the practice has assumed the force of a
tradition, and is clothed in the mail of conservatism. In their mutual
relations, these industries resemble the activities of a modern
ironclad that has heavy armor, but inferior engines and guns; mighty
for defence, weak for offence. Within, the home market is secured; but
outside, beyond the broad seas, there are the markets of the world,
that can be entered and controlled only by a vigorous contest, to which
the habit of trusting to protection by statute does not conduce.

At bottom, however, the temperament of the American people is
essentially alien to such a sluggish attitude. Independently of all
bias for or against protection, it is safe to predict that, when the
opportunities for gain abroad are understood, the course of American
enterprise will cleave a channel by which to reach them. Viewed
broadly, it is a most welcome as well as significant fact that a
prominent and influential advocate of protection, a leader of the party
committed to its support, a keen reader of the signs of the times and
of the drift of opinion, has identified himself with a line of policy
which looks to nothing less than such modifications of the tariff as
may expand the commerce of the United States to all quarters of the
globe. Men of all parties can unite on the words of Mr. Blaine, as
reported in a recent speech: "It is not an ambitious destiny for so
great a country as ours to manufacture only what we can consume, or
produce only what we can eat." In face of this utterance of so shrewd
and able a public man, even the extreme character of the recent tariff
legislation seems but a sign of the coming change, and brings to mind
that famous Continental System, of which our own is the analogue, to
support which Napoleon added legion to legion and enterprise to
enterprise, till the fabric of the Empire itself crashed beneath the
weight.

The interesting and significant feature of this changing attitude is
the turning of the eyes outward, instead of inward only, to seek the
welfare of the country. To affirm the importance of distant markets,
and the relation to them of our own immense powers of production,
implies logically the recognition of the link that joins the products
and the markets,--that is, the carrying trade; the three together
constituting that chain of maritime power to which Great Britain owes
her wealth and greatness. Further, is it too much to say that, as two
of these links, the shipping and the markets, are exterior to our own
borders, the acknowledgment of them carries with it a view of the
relations of the United States to the world radically distinct from the
simple idea of self-sufficingness? We shall not follow far this line of
thought before there will dawn the realization of America's unique
position, facing the older worlds of the East and West, her shores
washed by the oceans which touch the one or the other, but which are
common to her alone.

Coincident with these signs of change in our own policy there is a
restlessness in the world at large which is deeply significant, if not
ominous. It is beside our purpose to dwell upon the internal state of
Europe, whence, if disturbances arise, the effect upon us may be but
partial and indirect. But the great seaboard powers there do not stand
on guard against their continental rivals only; they cherish also
aspirations for commercial extension, for colonies, and for influence
in distant regions, which may bring, and, even under our present
contracted policy, already have brought them into collision with
ourselves. The incident of the Samoa Islands, trivial apparently, was
nevertheless eminently suggestive of European ambitions. America then
roused from sleep as to interests closely concerning her future. At
this moment internal troubles are imminent in the Sandwich Islands,
where it should be our fixed determination to allow no foreign
influence to equal our own. All over the world German commercial and
colonial push is coming into collision with other nations: witness the
affair of the Caroline Islands with Spain; the partition of New Guinea
with England; the yet more recent negotiation between these two powers
concerning their share in Africa, viewed with deep distrust and
jealousy by France; the Samoa affair; the conflict between German
control and American interests in the islands of the western Pacific;
and the alleged progress of German influence in Central and South
America. It is noteworthy that, while these various contentions are
sustained with the aggressive military spirit characteristic of the
German Empire, they are credibly said to arise from the national temper
more than from the deliberate policy of the government, which in this
matter does not lead, but follows, the feeling of the people,--a
condition much more formidable.

There is no sound reason for believing that the world has passed into a
period of assured peace outside the limits of Europe. Unsettled
political conditions, such as exist in Haiti, Central America, and many
of the Pacific islands, especially the Hawaiian group, when combined
with great military or commercial importance as is the case with most
of these positions, involve, now as always, dangerous germs of quarrel,
against which it is prudent at least to be prepared. Undoubtedly, the
general temper of nations is more averse from war than it was of old.
If no less selfish and grasping than our predecessors, we feel more
dislike to the discomforts and sufferings attendant upon a breach of
peace; but to retain that highly valued repose and the undisturbed
enjoyment of the returns of commerce, it is necessary to argue upon
somewhat equal terms of strength with an adversary. It is the
preparedness of the enemy, and not acquiescence in the existing state
of things, that now holds back the armies of Europe.

On the other hand, neither the sanctions of international law nor the
justice of a cause can be depended upon for a fair settlement of
differences, when they come into conflict with a strong political
necessity on the one side opposed to comparative weakness on the other.
In our still-pending dispute over the seal-fishing of Bering Sea,
whatever may be thought of the strength of our argument, in view of
generally admitted principles of international law, it is beyond doubt
that our contention is reasonable, just, and in the interest of the
world at large. But in the attempt to enforce it we have come into
collision not only with national susceptibilities as to the honor of
the flag, which we ourselves very strongly share, but also with a state
governed by a powerful necessity, and exceedingly strong where we are
particularly weak and exposed. Not only has Great Britain a mighty navy
and we a long defenceless seacoast, but it is a great commercial and
political advantage to her that her larger colonies, and above all
Canada, should feel that the power of the mother country is something
which they need, and upon which they can count. The dispute is between
the United States and Canada, not the United States and Great Britain;
but it has been ably used by the latter to promote the solidarity of
sympathy between herself and her colony. With the mother country alone
an equitable arrangement, conducive to well-understood mutual
interests, could be reached readily; but the purely local and
peculiarly selfish wishes of Canadian fishermen dictate the policy of
Great Britain, because Canada is the most important link uniting her to
her colonies and maritime interests in the Pacific. In case of a
European war, it is possible that the British navy will not be able to
hold open the route through the Mediterranean to the East; but having a
strong naval station at Halifax, and another at Esquimalt, on the
Pacific, the two connected by the Canadian Pacific Railroad, England
possesses an alternate line of communication far less exposed to
maritime aggression than the former, or than the third route by the
Cape of Good Hope, as well as two bases essential to the service of her
commerce, or other naval operations, in the North Atlantic and the
Pacific. Whatever arrangement of this question is finally reached, the
fruit of Lord Salisbury's attitude scarcely can fail to be a
strengthening of the sentiments of attachment to, and reliance upon,
the mother country, not only in Canada, but in the other great
colonies. These feelings of attachment and mutual dependence supply the
living spirit, without which the nascent schemes for Imperial
Federation are but dead mechanical contrivances; nor are they without
influence upon such generally unsentimental considerations as those of
buying and selling, and the course of trade.

This dispute, seemingly paltry yet really serious, sudden in its
appearance and dependent for its issue upon other considerations than
its own merits, may serve to convince us of many latent and yet
unforeseen dangers to the peace of the western hemisphere, attendant
upon the opening of a canal through the Central American Isthmus. In a
general way, it is evident enough that this canal, by modifying the
direction of trade routes, will induce a great increase of commercial
activity and carrying trade throughout the Caribbean Sea; and that this
now comparatively deserted nook of the ocean will become, like the Red
Sea, a great thoroughfare of shipping, and will attract, as never
before in our day, the interest and ambition of maritime nations. Every
position in that sea will have enhanced commercial and military value,
and the canal itself will become a strategic centre of the most vital
importance. Like the Canadian Pacific Railroad, it will be a link
between the two oceans; but, unlike it, the use, unless most carefully
guarded by treaties, will belong wholly to the belligerent which
controls the sea by its naval power. In case of war, the United States
will unquestionably command the Canadian Railroad, despite the
deterrent force of operations by the hostile navy upon our seaboard;
but no less unquestionably will she be impotent, as against any of
the great maritime powers, to control the Central American canal.
Militarily speaking, and having reference to European complications
only, the piercing of the Isthmus is nothing but a disaster to the
United States, in the present state of her military and naval
preparation. It is especially dangerous to the Pacific coast; but the
increased exposure of one part of our seaboard reacts unfavorably upon
the whole military situation.

Despite a certain great original superiority conferred by our
geographical nearness and immense resources,--due, in other words, to
our natural advantages, and not to our intelligent preparations,--the
United States is wofully unready, not only in fact but in purpose, to
assert in the Caribbean and Central America a weight of influence
proportioned to the extent of her interests. We have not the navy, and,
what is worse, we are not willing to have the navy, that will weigh
seriously in any disputes with those nations whose interests will
conflict there with our own. We have not, and we are not anxious to
provide, the defence of the seaboard which will leave the navy free for
its work at sea. We have not, but many other powers have, positions,
either within or on the borders of the Caribbean, which not only
possess great natural advantages for the control of that sea, but have
received and are receiving that artificial strength of fortification
and armament which will make them practically inexpugnable. On the
contrary, we have not on the Gulf of Mexico even the beginning of a
navy yard which could serve as the base of our operations. Let me not
be misunderstood. I am not regretting that we have not the means to
meet on terms of equality the great navies of the Old World. I
recognize, what few at least say, that, despite its great surplus
revenue, this country is poor in proportion to its length of seaboard
and its exposed points. That which I deplore, and which is a sober,
just, and reasonable cause of deep national concern, is that the nation
neither has nor cares to have its sea frontier so defended, and its
navy of such power, as shall suffice, with the advantages of our
position, to weigh seriously when inevitable discussions arise,--such
as we have recently had about Samoa and Bering Sea, and which may at
any moment come up about the Caribbean Sea or the canal. Is the United
States, for instance, prepared to allow Germany to acquire the Dutch
stronghold of Curaçao, fronting the Atlantic outlet of both the
proposed canals of Panama and Nicaragua? Is she prepared to acquiesce
in any foreign power purchasing from Haiti a naval station on the
Windward Passage, through which pass our steamer routes to the Isthmus?
Would she acquiesce in a foreign protectorate over the Sandwich
Islands, that great central station of the Pacific, equidistant from
San Francisco, Samoa, and the Marquesas, and an important post on our
lines of communication with both Australia and China? Or will it be
maintained that any one of these questions, supposing it to arise, is
so exclusively one-sided, the arguments of policy and right so
exclusively with us, that the other party will at once yield his eager
wish, and gracefully withdraw? Was it so at Samoa? Is it so as regards
Bering Sea? The motto seen on so many ancient cannon, _Ultima ratio
regum_, is not without its message to republics.

It is perfectly reasonable and legitimate, in estimating our needs of
military preparation, to take into account the remoteness of the chief
naval and military nations from our shores, and the consequent
difficulty of maintaining operations at such a distance. It is equally
proper, in framing our policy, to consider the jealousies of the
European family of states, and their consequent unwillingness to incur
the enmity of a people so strong as ourselves; their dread of our
revenge in the future, as well as their inability to detach more than a
certain part of their forces to our shores without losing much of their
own weight in the councils of Europe. In truth, a careful determination
of the force that Great Britain or France could probably spare for
operations against our coasts, if the latter were suitably defended,
without weakening their European position or unduly exposing their
colonies and commerce, is the starting-point from which to calculate
the strength of our own navy. If the latter be superior to the force
that thus can be sent against it, and the coast be so defended as to
leave the navy free to strike where it will, we can maintain our
rights; not merely the rights which international law concedes, and
which the moral sense of nations now supports, but also those equally
real rights which, though not conferred by law, depend upon a clear
preponderance of interest, upon obviously necessary policy, upon
self-preservation, either total or partial. Were we so situated now in
respect of military strength, we could secure our perfectly just claim
as to the seal fisheries; not by seizing foreign ships on the open sea,
but by the evident fact that, our cities being protected from maritime
attack, our position and superior population lay open the Canadian
Pacific, as well as the frontier of the Dominion, to do with as we
please. Diplomats do not flourish such disagreeable truths in each
other's faces; they look for a _modus vivendi_, and find it.

While, therefore, the advantages of our own position in the western
hemisphere, and the disadvantages under which the operations of a
European state would labor, are undeniable and just elements in the
calculations of the statesman, it is folly to look upon them as
sufficient alone for our security. Much more needs to be cast into the
scale that it may incline in favor of our strength. They are mere
defensive factors, and partial at that. Though distant, our shores can
be reached; being defenceless, they can detain but a short time a force
sent against them. With a probability of three months' peace in Europe,
no maritime power would fear to support its demands by a number of
ships with which it would be loath indeed to part for a year.

Yet, were our sea frontier as strong as it now is weak, passive
self-defence, whether in trade or war, would be but a poor policy, so
long as this world continues to be one of struggle and vicissitude. All
around us now is strife; "the struggle of life," "the race of life,"
are phrases so familiar that we do not feel their significance till we
stop to think about them. Everywhere nation is arrayed against nation;
our own no less than others. What is our protective system but an
organized warfare? In carrying it on, it is true, we have only to use
certain procedures which all states now concede to be a legal exercise
of the national power, even though injurious to themselves. It is
lawful, they say, to do what we will with our own. Are our people,
however, so unaggressive that they are likely not to want their own way
in matters where their interests turn on points of disputed right, or
so little sensitive as to submit quietly to encroachment by others, in
quarters where they long have considered their own influence should
prevail?

Our self-imposed isolation in the matter of markets, and the decline of
our shipping interest in the last thirty years, have coincided
singularly with an actual remoteness of this continent from the life of
the rest of the world. The writer has before him a map of the North and
South Atlantic oceans, showing the direction of the principal trade
routes and the proportion of tonnage passing over each; and it is
curious to note what deserted regions, comparatively, are the Gulf of
Mexico, the Caribbean Sea, and the adjoining countries and islands. A
broad band stretches from our northern Atlantic coast to the English
Channel; another as broad from the British Islands to the East, through
the Mediterranean and Red Sea, overflowing the borders of the latter in
order to express the volume of trade. Around either cape--Good Hope and
Horn--pass strips of about one-fourth this width, joining near the
equator, midway between Africa and South America. From the West Indies
issues a thread, indicating the present commerce of Great Britain with
a region which once, in the Napoleonic wars, embraced one-fourth of the
whole trade of the Empire. The significance is unmistakable: Europe has
now little mercantile interest in the Caribbean Sea.

When the Isthmus is pierced, this isolation will pass away, and with it
the indifference of foreign nations. From wheresoever they come and
whithersoever they afterward go, all ships that use the canal will pass
through the Caribbean. Whatever the effect produced upon the prosperity
of the adjacent continent and islands by the thousand wants attendant
upon maritime activity, around such a focus of trade will centre large
commercial and political interests. To protect and develop its own,
each nation will seek points of support and means of influence in a
quarter where the United States always has been jealously sensitive to
the intrusion of European powers. The precise value of the Monroe
doctrine is understood very loosely by most Americans, but the effect
of the familiar phrase has been to develop a national sensitiveness,
which is a more frequent cause of war than material interests; and over
disputes caused by such feelings there will preside none of the calming
influence due to the moral authority of international law, with its
recognized principles, for the points in dispute will be of policy, of
interest, not of conceded right. Already France and Great Britain are
giving to ports held by them a degree of artificial strength uncalled
for by their present importance. They look to the near future. Among
the islands and on the mainland there are many positions of great
importance, held now by weak or unstable states. Is the United States
willing to see them sold to a powerful rival? But what right will she
invoke against the transfer? She can allege but one,--that of her
reasonable policy supported by her might.

Whether they will or no, Americans must now begin to look outward. The
growing production of the country demands it. An increasing volume of
public sentiment demands it. The position of the United States, between
the two Old Worlds and the two great oceans, makes the same claim,
which will soon be strengthened by the creation of the new link joining
the Atlantic and Pacific. The tendency will be maintained and increased
by the growth of the European colonies in the Pacific, by the advancing
civilization of Japan, and by the rapid peopling of our Pacific States
with men who have all the aggressive spirit of the advanced line of
national progress. Nowhere does a vigorous foreign policy find more
favor than among the people west of the Rocky Mountains.

It has been said that, in our present state of unpreparedness, a
trans-isthmian canal will be a military disaster to the United States,
and especially to the Pacific coast. When the canal is finished, the
Atlantic seaboard will be neither more nor less exposed than it now is;
it will merely share with the country at large the increased danger of
foreign complications with inadequate means to meet them. The danger of
the Pacific coast will be greater by so much as the way between it and
Europe is shortened through a passage which the stronger maritime power
can control. The danger will lie not merely in the greater facility for
despatching a hostile squadron from Europe, but also in the fact that a
more powerful fleet than formerly can be maintained on that coast by a
European power, because it can be called home so much more promptly in
case of need. The greatest weakness of the Pacific ports, however, if
wisely met by our government, will go far to insure our naval
superiority there. The two chief centres, San Francisco and Puget
Sound, owing to the width and the great depth of the entrances, cannot
be effectively protected by torpedoes; and consequently, as fleets can
always pass batteries through an unobstructed channel, they cannot
obtain perfect security by means of fortifications only. Valuable as
such works will be to them, they must be further garrisoned by
coast-defence ships, whose part in repelling an enemy will be
co-ordinated with that of the batteries. The sphere of action of such
ships should not be permitted to extend far beyond the port to which
they are allotted, and of whose defence they form an essential part;
but within that sweep they will always be a powerful reinforcement to
the sea-going navy, when the strategic conditions of a war cause
hostilities to centre around their port. By sacrificing power to go
long distances, the coast-defence ship gains proportionate weight of
armor and guns; that is, of defensive and offensive strength. It
therefore adds an element of unique value to the fleet with which it
for a time acts. No foreign states, except Great Britain, have ports so
near our Pacific coast as to bring it within the radius of action of
their coast-defence ships; and it is very doubtful whether even Great
Britain will put such ships at Vancouver Island, the chief value of
which will be lost to her when the Canadian Pacific is severed,--a blow
always in the power of this country. It is upon our Atlantic seaboard
that the mistress of Halifax, of Bermuda, and of Jamaica will now
defend Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific. In the present state of our
seaboard defence she can do so absolutely. What is all Canada compared
with our exposed great cities? Even were the coast fortified, she still
could do so, if our navy be no stronger than is designed as yet. What
harm can we do Canada proportionate to the injury we should suffer by
the interruption of our coasting trade, and by a blockade of Boston,
New York, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake? Such a blockade Great
Britain certainly could make technically efficient, under the somewhat
loose definitions of international law. Neutrals would accept it as
such.

The military needs of the Pacific States, as well as their supreme
importance to the whole country, are yet a matter of the future, but of
a future so near that provision should begin immediately. To weigh
their importance, consider what influence in the Pacific would be
attributed to a nation comprising only the States of Washington,
Oregon, and California, when filled with such men as now people them
and still are pouring in, and which controlled such maritime centres as
San Francisco, Puget Sound, and the Columbia River. Can it be counted
less because they are bound by the ties of blood and close political
union to the great communities of the East? But such influence, to work
without jar and friction, requires underlying military readiness, like
the proverbial iron hand under the velvet glove. To provide this, three
things are needful: First, protection of the chief harbors, by
fortifications and coast-defence ships, which gives defensive strength,
provides security to the community within, and supplies the bases
necessary to all military operations. Secondly, naval force, the arm of
offensive power, which alone enables a country to extend its influence
outward. Thirdly, it should be an inviolable resolution of our national
policy, that no foreign state should henceforth acquire a coaling
position within three thousand miles of San Francisco,--a distance
which includes the Hawaiian and Galapagos islands and the coast of
Central America. For fuel is the life of modern naval war; it is the
food of the ship; without it the modern monsters of the deep die of
inanition. Around it, therefore, cluster some of the most important
considerations of naval strategy. In the Caribbean and in the Atlantic
we are confronted with many a foreign coal depot, bidding us stand to
our arms, even as Carthage bade Rome; but let us not acquiesce in an
addition to our dangers, a further diversion of our strength, by being
forestalled in the North Pacific.

In conclusion, while Great Britain is undoubtedly the most formidable
of our possible enemies, both by her great navy and by the strong
positions she holds near our coasts, it must be added that a cordial
understanding with that country is one of the first of our external
interests. Both nations doubtless, and properly, seek their own
advantage; but both, also, are controlled by a sense of law and
justice, drawn from the same sources, and deep-rooted in their
instincts. Whatever temporary aberration may occur, a return to mutual
standards of right will certainly follow. Formal alliance between the
two is out of the question, but a cordial recognition of the similarity
of character and ideas will give birth to sympathy, which in turn will
facilitate a co-operation beneficial to both; for if sentimentality is
weak, sentiment is strong.


[Illustration: THE PACIFIC OCEAN]




HAWAII AND OUR FUTURE SEA POWER.


    [The origin of the ensuing article was as follows: At the time of
    the Revolution in Hawaii, at the beginning of 1893, the author
    addressed to the "New York Times" a letter, which appeared in the
    issue of January 31. This, falling under the eye of the Editor of
    the "Forum," suggested to him to ask an article upon the general
    military--or naval--value of the Hawaiian group. The letter
    alluded to ran thus:--

    _To the Editor of the "New York Times"_:--

    There is one aspect of the recent revolution in Hawaii which seems
    to have been kept out of sight, and that is the relation of the
    islands, not merely to our own and to European countries, but to
    China. How vitally important that may become in the future is
    evident from the great number of Chinese, relatively to the whole
    population, now settled in the islands.

    It is a question for the whole civilized world and not for the
    United States only, whether the Sandwich Islands, with their
    geographical and military importance, unrivalled by that of any
    other position in the North Pacific, shall in the future be an
    outpost of European civilization, or of the comparative barbarism
    of China. It is sufficiently known, but not, perhaps, generally
    noted in our country, that many military men abroad, familiar with
    Eastern conditions and character, look with apprehension toward
    the day when the vast mass of China--now inert--may yield to one
    of those impulses which have in past ages buried civilization
    under a wave of barbaric invasion. The great armies of Europe,
    whose existence is so frequently deplored, may be providentially
    intended as a barrier to that great movement, if it come.
    Certainly, while China remains as she is, nothing more disastrous
    for the future of the world can be imagined than that general
    disarmament of Europe which is the Utopian dream of some
    philanthropists.

    China, however, may burst her barriers eastward as well as
    westward, toward the Pacific as well as toward the European
    Continent. In such a movement it would be impossible to exaggerate
    the momentous issues dependent upon a firm hold of the Sandwich
    Islands by a great, civilized, maritime power. By its nearness to
    the scene, and by the determined animosity to the Chinese movement
    which close contact seems to inspire, our own country, with its
    Pacific coast, is naturally indicated as the proper guardian for
    this most important position. To hold it, however, whether in the
    supposed case or in war with a European state, implies a great
    extension of our naval power. Are we ready to undertake this?

    A.T. MAHAN, _Captain, United States Navy_.

    NEW YORK, Jan. 30, 1893.]

The suddenness--so far, at least, as the general public is
concerned--with which the long-existing troubles in Hawaii have come to
a head, and the character of the advances reported to be addressed to
the United States by the revolutionary government, formally recognized
as _de facto_ by our representative on the spot, add another to the
many significant instances furnished by history, that, as men in the
midst of life are in death, so nations in the midst of peace find
themselves confronted with unexpected causes of dissension, conflicts
of interests, whose results may be, on the one hand, war, or, on the
other, abandonment of clear and imperative national advantage in order
to avoid an issue for which preparation has not been made. By no
premeditated contrivance of our own, by the cooperation of a series of
events which, however dependent step by step upon human action, were
not intended to prepare the present crisis, the United States finds
herself compelled to answer a question--to make a decision--not unlike
and not less momentous than that required of the Roman senate, when the
Mamertine garrison invited it to occupy Messina, and so to abandon the
hitherto traditional policy which had confined the expansion of Rome to
the Italian peninsula. For let it not be overlooked that, whether we
wish or no, we _must_ answer the question, we _must_ make the decision.
The issue cannot be dodged. Absolute inaction in such a case is a
decision as truly as the most vehement action. We can now advance, but,
the conditions of the world being what they are, if we do not advance
we recede; for there is involved not so much a particular action as a
question of principle, pregnant of great consequences in one direction
or in the other.

Occasion of serious difficulty, indeed, should not arise here. Unlike
the historical instance just cited, the two nations whose interests
have come now into contact--Great Britain and the United States--are
so alike in inherited traditions, habits of thought, and views of
right, that injury to the one need not be anticipated from the
predominance of the other in a quarter where its interests also
predominate. Despite the heterogeneous character of the immigration
which the past few years have been pouring into our country, our
political traditions and racial characteristics still continue
English--Mr. Douglas Campbell would say Dutch, but even so the stock
is the same. Though thus somewhat gorged with food not wholly to its
taste, our political digestion has contrived so far to master the
incongruous mass of materials it has been unable to reject; and if
assimilation has been at times imperfect, our political constitution
and spirit remain English in essential features. Imbued with like
ideals of liberty, of law, of right, certainly not less progressive
than our kin beyond sea, we are, in the safeguards deliberately placed
around our fundamental law, even more conservative than they. That
which we received of the true spirit of freedom we have kept--liberty
and law--not the one or the other, but both. In that spirit we not
only have occupied our original inheritance, but also, step by step,
as Rome incorporated the other nations of the peninsula, we have added
to it, spreading and perpetuating everywhere the same foundation
principles of free and good government which, to her honor be it said,
Great Britain also has maintained throughout her course. And now,
arrested on the south by the rights of a race wholly alien to us, and
on the north by a body of states of like traditions to our own, whose
freedom to choose their own affiliations we respect, we have come to
the sea. In our infancy we bordered upon the Atlantic only; our youth
carried our boundary to the Gulf of Mexico; to-day maturity sees us
upon the Pacific. Have we no right or no call to progress farther in
any direction? Are there for us beyond the sea horizon none of those
essential interests, of those evident dangers, which impose a policy
and confer rights?

This is the question that long has been looming upon the brow of a
future now rapidly passing into the present. Of it the Hawaiian
incident is a part--intrinsically, perhaps, a small part--but in its
relations to the whole so vital that, as has been said before, a wrong
decision does not stand by itself, but involves, not only in principle
but in fact, recession along the whole line. In our natural, necessary,
irrepressible expansion, we are come here into contact with the
progress of another great people, the law of whose being has impressed
upon it a principle of growth which has wrought mightily in the past,
and in the present is visible by recurring manifestations. Of this
working, Gibraltar, Malta, Cyprus, Egypt, Aden, India, in geographical
succession though not in strict order of time, show a completed chain;
forged link by link, by open force or politic bargain, but always
resulting from the steady pressure of a national instinct, so powerful
and so accurate that statesmen of every school, willing or unwilling,
have found themselves carried along by a tendency which no
individuality can resist or greatly modify. Both unsubstantial rumor
and incautious personal utterance have suggested an impatient desire
in Mr. Gladstone to be rid of the occupation of Egypt; but scarcely
has his long exclusion from office ended when the irony of events
signalizes his return thereto by an increase in the force of
occupation. Further, it may be noted profitably of the chain just
cited, that the two extremities were first possessed--first India,
then Gibraltar, far later Malta, Aden, Cyprus, Egypt--and that, with
scarce an exception, each step has been taken despite the jealous
vexation of a rival. Spain has never ceased angrily to bewail
Gibraltar. "I had rather see the English on the heights of
Montmartre," said the first Napoleon, "than in Malta." The feelings of
France about Egypt are matter of common knowledge, not even
dissembled; and, for our warning be it added, her annoyance is
increased by the bitter sense of opportunity rejected.

It is needless here to do more than refer to that other chain of
maritime possessions--Halifax, Bermuda, Santa Lucia, Jamaica--which
strengthen the British hold upon the Atlantic, the Caribbean, and the
Isthmus of Panama. In the Pacific the position is for them much less
satisfactory--nowhere, perhaps, is it less so, and from obvious natural
causes. The commercial development of the eastern Pacific has been far
later, and still is less complete, than that of its western shores. The
latter when first opened to European adventure were already the seat of
ancient economies in China and Japan, furnishing abundance of curious
and luxurious products to tempt the trader by good hopes of profit. The
western coast of America, for the most part peopled by savages, offered
little save the gold and silver of Mexico and Peru, and these were
monopolized jealously by the Spaniards--not a commercial nation--during
their long ascendency. Being so very far from England and affording so
little material for trade, Pacific America did not draw the enterprise
of a country the chief and honorable inducement of whose seamen was the
hope of gain, in pursuit of which they settled and annexed point after
point in the regions where they penetrated, and upon the routes leading
thither. The western coasts of North America, being reached only by the
long and perilous voyage around Cape Horn, or by a more toilsome and
dangerous passage across the continent, remained among the last of the
temperate productive seaboards of the earth to be possessed by white
men. The United States were already a nation, in fact as well as in
form, when Vancouver was exploring Puget Sound and passed first through
the channel separating the mainland of British America from the island
which now bears his name. Thus it has happened that, from the late
development of British Columbia in the northeastern Pacific, and of
Australia and New Zealand in the southwestern, Great Britain is found
again holding the two extremities of a line, between which she must
inevitably desire the intermediate links; nor is there any good reason
why she should not have them, except the superior, more urgent, more
vital necessities of another people--our own. Of these links the
Hawaiian group possesses unique importance--not from its intrinsic
commercial value, but from its favorable position for maritime and
military control.

The military or strategic value of a naval position depends upon its
situation, upon its strength, and upon its resources. Of the three, the
first is of most consequence, because it results from the nature of
things; whereas the two latter, when deficient, can be supplied
artificially, in whole or in part. Fortifications remedy the weaknesses
of a position, foresight accumulates beforehand the resources which
nature does not yield on the spot; but it is not within the power of
man to change the geographical situation of a point which lies outside
the limit of strategic effect. It is instructive, and yet apparent to
the most superficial reading, to notice how the first Napoleon, in
commenting upon a region likely to be the scene of war, begins by
considering the most conspicuous natural features, and then enumerates
the commanding positions, their distances from each other, the relative
directions, or, as the sea phrase is, their "bearings," and the
particular facilities each offers for operations of war. This furnishes
the ground plan, the skeleton, detached from confusing secondary
considerations, and from which a clear estimate of the decisive points
can be made. The number of such points varies greatly, according to the
character of the region. In a mountainous, broken country they may be
very many; whereas in a plain devoid of natural obstacles there may be
few, or none save those created by man. If few, the value of each is
necessarily greater than if many; and if there be but one, its
importance is not only unique, but extreme,--measured only by the size
of the field over which its unshared influence extends.

The sea, until it approaches the land, realizes the ideal of a vast
plain unbroken by obstacles. On the sea, says an eminent French
tactician, there is no field of battle, meaning that there is none of
the natural conditions which determine, and often fetter, the movements
of the general. But upon a plain, however flat and monotonous, causes,
possibly slight, determine the concentration of population into towns
and villages, and the necessary communications between the centres
create roads. Where the latter converge, or cross, tenure confers
command, depending for importance upon the number of routes thus
meeting, and upon their individual value. It is just so at sea. While
in itself the ocean opposes no obstacle to a vessel taking any one of
the numerous routes that can be traced upon the surface of the globe
between two points, conditions of distance or convenience, of traffic
or of wind, do prescribe certain usual courses. Where these pass near
an ocean position, still more where they use it, it has an influence
over them, and where several routes cross near by that influence
becomes very great,--is commanding.

Let us now apply these considerations to the Hawaiian group. To any one
viewing a map that shows the full extent of the Pacific Ocean, with its
shores on either side, two striking circumstances will be apparent
immediately. He will see at a glance that the Sandwich Islands stand by
themselves, in a state of comparative isolation, amid a vast expanse of
sea; and, again, that they form the centre of a large circle whose
radius is approximately--and very closely--the distance from Honolulu
to San Francisco. The circumference of this circle, if the trouble is
taken to describe it with compass upon the map, will be seen, on the
west and south, to pass through the outer fringe of the system of
archipelagoes which, from Australia and New Zealand, extend to the
northeast toward the American continent. Within the circle a few
scattered islets, bare and unimportant, seem only to emphasize the
failure of nature to bridge the interval separating Hawaii from her
peers of the Southern Pacific. Of these, however, it may be noted that
some, like Fanning and Christmas Islands, have within a few years been
taken into British possession. The distance from San Francisco to
Honolulu, twenty-one hundred miles--easy steaming distance--is
substantially the same as that from Honolulu to the Gilbert, Marshall,
Samoan, Society, and Marquesas groups, all under European control,
except Samoa, in which we have a part influence.

To have a central position such as this, and to be alone, having no
rival and admitting no alternative throughout an extensive tract, are
conditions that at once fix the attention of the strategist,--it may be
added, of the statesmen of commerce likewise. But to this striking
combination are to be added the remarkable relations, borne by these
singularly placed islands, to the greater commercial routes traversing
this vast expanse known to us as the Pacific,--not only, however, to
those now actually in use, important as they are, but also to those
that must be called into being necessarily by that future to which the
Hawaiian incident compels our too unwilling attention. Circumstances,
as already remarked, create centres, between which communication
necessarily follows; and in the vista of the future all discern,
however dimly, a new and great centre that must largely modify existing
sea routes, as well as bring new ones into existence. Whether the canal
of the Central American isthmus be eventually at Panama or at Nicaragua
matters little to the question now in hand, although, in common with
most Americans who have thought upon the subject, I believe it surely
will be at the latter point. Whichever it be, the convergence there of
so many ships from the Atlantic and the Pacific will constitute a
centre of commerce, interoceanic, and inferior to few, if to any, in
the world; one whose approaches will be watched jealously, and whose
relations to the other centres of the Pacific by the lines joining it
to them must be examined carefully. Such study of the commercial routes
and of their relations to the Hawaiian Islands, taken together with the
other strategic considerations previously set forth, completes the
synopsis of facts which determine the value of the group for conferring
either commercial or naval control.

Referring again to the map, it will be seen that while the shortest
routes from the Isthmus to Australia and New Zealand, as well as those
to South America, go well clear of any probable connection with or
interference from Hawaii, those directed toward China and Japan pass
either through the group or in close proximity to it. Vessels from
Central America bound to the ports of North America come, of course,
within the influence of our own coast. These circumstances, and the
existing recognized distribution of political power in the Pacific,
point naturally to an international acquiescence in certain defined
spheres of influence, for our own country and for others, such as has
been reached already between Great Britain, Germany, and Holland in the
Southwestern Pacific, to avoid conflict there between their respective
claims. Though artificial in form, such a recognition, in the case here
suggested, would depend upon perfectly natural as well as indisputable
conditions. The United States is by far the greatest, in numbers,
interests, and power, of the communities bordering upon the eastern
shores of the North Pacific; and the relations of the Hawaiian Islands
to her naturally would be, and actually are, more numerous and more
important than they can be to any other state. This is true, although,
unfortunately for the equally natural wishes of Great Britain and her
colonies, the direct routes from British Columbia to Eastern Australia
and New Zealand, which depend upon no building of a future canal, pass
as near the islands as those already mentioned. Such a fact, that this
additional great highway runs close to the group, both augments and
emphasizes their strategic importance; but it does not affect the
statement just made, that the interest of the United States in them
surpasses that of Great Britain, and dependent upon a natural cause,
nearness, which has been admitted always as a reasonable ground for
national self-assertion. It is unfortunate, doubtless, for the wishes
of British Columbia, and for the communications, commercial and
military, depending upon the Canadian Pacific Railway, that the United
States lies between them and the South Pacific, and is the state
nearest to Hawaii; but, the fact being so, the interests of our
sixty-five million people, in a position so vital to our part in the
Pacific, must be allowed to outweigh those of the six millions of
Canada.

From the foregoing considerations may be inferred the importance of the
Hawaiian Islands as a position powerfully influencing the commercial
and military control of the Pacific, and especially of the Northern
Pacific, in which the United States, geographically, has the strongest
right to assert herself. These are the main advantages, which can be
termed positive: those, namely, which directly advance commercial
security and naval control. To the negative advantages of possession,
by removing conditions which, if the islands were in the hands of any
other power, would constitute to us disadvantages and threats, allusion
only will be made. The serious menace to our Pacific coast and our
Pacific trade, if so important a position were held by a possible
enemy, has been mentioned frequently in the press, and dwelt upon in
the diplomatic papers which from time to time are given to the public.
It may be assumed that it is generally acknowledged. Upon one
particular, however, too much stress cannot be laid, one to which naval
officers cannot but be more sensitive than the general public, and that
is the immense disadvantage to us of any maritime enemy having a
coaling-station well within twenty-five hundred miles, as this is, of
every point of our coast-line from Puget Sound to Mexico. Were there
many others available, we might find it difficult to exclude from all.
There is, however, but the one. Shut out from the Sandwich Islands as a
coal base, an enemy is thrown back for supplies of fuel to distances of
thirty-five hundred or four thousand miles,--or between seven thousand
and eight thousand, going and coming,--an impediment to sustained
maritime operations well-nigh prohibitive. The coal-mines of British
Columbia constitute, of course, a qualification to this statement; but
upon them, if need arose, we might hope at least to impose some
trammels by action from the land side. It is rarely that so important a
factor in the attack or defence of a coast-line--of a sea frontier--is
concentrated in a single position; and the circumstance renders doubly
imperative upon us to secure it, if we righteously can.

It is to be hoped, also, that the opportunity thus thrust upon us may
not be viewed narrowly, as though it concerned but one section of our
country or one portion of its external trade or influence. This is no
mere question of a particular act, for which, possibly, just occasion
may not have offered yet; but of a principle, a policy, fruitful of
many future acts, to enter upon which, in the fulness of our national
progress, the time now has arrived. The principle being accepted, to be
conditioned only by a just and candid regard for the rights and
reasonable susceptibilities of other nations,--none of which is
contravened by the step here immediately under discussion,--the
annexation, even, of Hawaii would be no mere sporadic effort,
irrational because disconnected from an adequate motive, but a
first-fruit and a token that the nation in its evolution has aroused
itself to the necessity of carrying its life--that has been the
happiness of those under its influence--beyond the borders which
heretofore have sufficed for its activities. That the vaunted blessings
of our economy are not to be forced upon the unwilling may be conceded;
but the concession does not deny the right nor the wisdom of gathering
in those who wish to come. Comparative religion teaches that creeds
which reject missionary enterprise are foredoomed to decay. May it not
be so with nations? Certainly the glorious record of England is
consequent mainly upon the spirit, and traceable to the time, when she
launched out into the deep--without formulated policy, it is true, or
foreseeing the future to which her star was leading, but obeying the
instinct which in the infancy of nations anticipates the more reasoned
impulses of experience. Let us, too, learn from her experience. Not all
at once did England become the great sea power which she is, but step
by step, as opportunity offered, she has moved on to the world-wide
pre-eminence now held by English speech, and by institutions sprung
from English germs. How much poorer would the world have been, had
Englishmen heeded the cautious hesitancy that now bids us reject every
advance beyond our shore-lines! And can any one doubt that a cordial,
if unformulated, understanding between the two chief states of English
tradition, to spread freely, without mutual jealousy and in mutual
support, would increase greatly the world's sum of happiness?

But if a plea of the world's welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak for
national self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as the
adequate motive which it assuredly is. Let us not shrink from pitting a
broad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which some
would restrict us. The demands of our three great seaboards, the
Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific,--each for itself, and all for the
strength that comes from drawing closer the ties between them,--are
calling for the extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broad
sea common along which, and along which alone, in all the ages
prosperity has moved. Land carriage, always restricted and therefore
always slow, toils enviously but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking to
replace and supplant the royal highway of nature's own making.
Corporate interests, vigorous in that power of concentration which is
the strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for a
while the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimly
conscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed and
baffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelm
all that stand in the way of its necessary progress. So the Isthmian
Canal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet one
that cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policy
dependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly. But
because the precise steps that hereafter may be opportune or necessary
cannot yet be foretold certainly, is not a reason the less, but a
reason the more, for establishing a principle of action which may serve
to guide as opportunities arise. Let us start from the fundamental
truth, warranted by history, that the control of the seas, and
especially along the great lines drawn by national interest or national
commerce, is the chief among the merely material elements in the power
and prosperity of nations. It is so because the sea is the world's
great medium of circulation. From this necessarily follows the
principle that, as subsidiary to such control, it is imperative to take
possession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positions
as contribute to secure command. If this principle be adopted, there
will be no hesitation about taking the positions--and they are
many--upon the approaches to the Isthmus, whose interests incline them
to seek us. It has its application also to the present case of Hawaii.

There is, however, one caution to be given from the military point of
view, beyond the need of which the world has not yet passed. Military
positions, fortified posts, by land or by sea, however strong or
admirably situated, do not confer control by themselves alone. People
often say that such an island or harbor will give control of such a
body of water. It is an utter, deplorable, ruinous mistake. The phrase
indeed may be used by some only loosely, without forgetting other
implied conditions of adequate protection and adequate navies; but the
confidence of our own nation in its native strength, and its
indifference to the defence of its ports and the sufficiency of its
fleet, give reason to fear that the full consequences of a forward step
may not be weighed soberly. Napoleon, who knew better, once talked this
way. "The islands of San Pietro, Corfu, and Malta," he wrote, "will
make us masters of the whole Mediterranean." Vain boast! Within one
year Corfu, in two years Malta, were rent away from the state that
could not support them by its ships. Nay, more: had Bonaparte not taken
the latter stronghold out of the hands of its degenerate but innocuous
government, that citadel of the Mediterranean would perhaps--would
probably--never have passed into those of his chief enemy. There is
here also a lesson for us.

It is by no means logical to leap, from this recognition of the
necessity of adequate naval force to secure outlying dependencies, to
the conclusion that the United States would need for that object a navy
equal to the largest now existing. A nation as far removed as is our
own from the bases of foreign naval strength may reasonably reckon upon
the qualification that distance--not to speak of the complex European
interests close at hand--impresses upon the exertion of naval strength
by European powers. The mistake is when our remoteness, unsupported by
carefully calculated force, is regarded as an armor of proof, under
cover of which any amount of swagger may be indulged safely. An
estimate of what is an adequate naval force for our country may
properly take into account the happy interval which separates both our
present territory and our future aspirations from the centres of
interest really vital to European states. If to these safeguards be
added, on our part, a sober recognition of what our reasonable sphere
of influence is, and a candid justice in dealing with foreign interests
within that sphere, there will be little disposition to question our
preponderance therein.

Among all foreign states, it is especially to be hoped that each
passing year may render more cordial the relations between ourselves
and the great nation from whose loins we sprang. The radical identity
of spirit which underlies our superficial differences of polity surely
will draw us closer together, if we do not set our faces wilfully
against a tendency which would give our race the predominance over the
seas of the world. To force such a consummation is impossible, and if
possible would not be wise; but surely it would be a lofty aim, fraught
with immeasurable benefits, to desire it, and to raise no needless
impediments by advocating perfectly proper acts, demanded by our
evident interests, in offensive or arrogant terms.




THE ISTHMUS AND SEA POWER.[1]

_June, 1898._


For more than four hundred years the mind of man has been possessed
with a great idea, which, although by its wide diffusion and prophetic
nature resembling one of those fundamental instincts, whose very
existence points to a necessary fulfilment, first quickened into life
in the thought of Christopher Columbus. To him the vision, dimly seen
through the scanty and inaccurate knowledge of his age, imaged a close
and facile communication, by means of the sea, that great bond of
nations, between two ancient and diverse civilizations, which centred,
the one around the Mediterranean, the birthplace of European commerce,
refinement, and culture, the other upon the shores of that distant
Eastern Ocean which lapped the dominions of the Great Khan, and held
upon its breast the rich island of Zipangu. Hitherto an envious waste
of land, entailing years of toilsome and hazardous journey, had barred
them asunder. A rare traveller now and again might penetrate from one
to the other, but it was impossible to maintain by land the constant
exchange of influence and benefit which, though on a contracted scale,
had constituted the advantage and promoted the development of the
Mediterranean peoples. The microcosm of the land-girt sea typified
then that future greater family of nations, which one by one have been
bound since into a common tie of interest by the broad enfolding
ocean, that severs only to knit them more closely together. So with a
seer's eye, albeit as in a glass darkly; saw Columbus, and was
persuaded, and embraced the assurance. As the bold adventurer, walking
by faith and not by sight, launched his tiny squadron upon its voyage,
making the first step in the great progress which was to be, and still
is not completed, he little dreamed that the mere incident of
stumbling upon an unknown region that lay across his route should be
with posterity his chief title to fame, obscuring the true glory of
his grand conception, as well as delaying its fulfilment to a far
distant future.

    [1] The Map of the Gulf and Caribbean, p. 31, will serve
    for geographical references of this article.

The story of his actual achievement is sufficiently known to all
readers, and need not be repeated here. Amid the many disappointments
and humiliations which succeeded the brief triumphant blaze of his
first return, and clouded the latter years of his life, Columbus was
spared the pang of realizing that the problem was insoluble for the
time. Like many a prophet before him, he knew not what, nor what
manner of time, the spirit that was in him foretold, and died the
happier for his ignorance. The certainty that a wilderness, peopled by
savages and semi-barbarians, had been added to the known world, would
have been a poor awakening from the golden dreams of beneficent glory
as well as of profit which so long had beckoned him on. That the
western land he had discovered interposed a barrier to the further
progress of ships towards his longed-for goal, as inexorable as the
mountain ranges and vast steppes of Asia, was mercifully concealed
from his eyes; and the elusive "secret of the strait" through which he
to the last hoped to pass, though tantalizing in its constant evasion,
kept in tension the springs of hope and moral energy which might have
succumbed under the knowledge of the truth.

It fell to the great discoverer, in his last voyage, to approach the
continent, and to examine its shores along the region where the true
secret of the strait lay hidden,--where, if ever, it shall pass from a
dream to a reality, by the hand of man. In the autumn of 1502, after
many trials and misadventures, Columbus, having skirted the south side
of Cuba, reached the north coast of Honduras. There was little reason,
except in his own unaccountable conviction, for continuing thence in
one direction rather than in the other; but by some process of thought
he had convinced himself that the sought-for strait lay to the south
rather than to the north. He therefore turned to the eastward, though
the wind was contrary, and, after a hard buffet against it, doubled
Cape Gracias á Dios, which still retains its expressive name,
significant of his relief at finding that the trend of the beach at
last permitted him to follow his desired course with a fair wind.
During the next two months he searched the entire coast-line as far as
Porto Bello, discovering and examining several openings in the land
which since have been of historical importance, among others the mouth
of the San Juan River and the Chiriqui Lagoon, one of whose principal
divisions still recalls his visit in its name, Almirante Bay, the Bay
of the Admiral. A little beyond, to the eastward of Porto Bello, he
came to a point already known to the Spaniards, having been reached
from Trinidad. The explorer thus acquired the certainty that, from the
latter island to Yucatan, there was no break in the obdurate shore
which barred his access to Asia.

Every possible site for an interoceanic canal lies within the strip of
land thus visited by Columbus shortly before his death in 1504. How
narrow the insurmountable obstacle, and how tantalizing, in the
apparent facilities for piercing it extended by the formation of the
land, were not known until ten years later, when Balboa, led on by the
reports of the natives, reached the eminence whence he, first among
Europeans, saw the South Sea,--a name long and vaguely applied to the
Pacific, because of the direction in which it lay from its discoverer.
During these early years the history of the region we now know as
Central America was one of constant strife among the various Spanish
leaders, encouraged rather than stifled by the jealous home
government; but it was also one of unbroken and venturesome
exploration, a healthier manifestation of the same restless and daring
energy that provoked their internal collisions. In January, 1522, one
Gil Gonzalez started from Panama northward on the Pacific side, with a
few frail barks, and in March discovered Lake Nicaragua, which has its
name from the cacique, Nicaragua, or Nicarao, whose town stood upon
its shores. Five years later, another adventurer took his vessel to
pieces on the coast, transported it thus to the lake, and made the
circuit of the latter; discovering its outlet, the San Juan, just a
quarter of a century after Columbus had visited the mouth of the
river.

The conquest of Peru, and the gradual extension of Spanish domination
and settlements in Central America and along the shores of the
Pacific, soon bestowed upon the Isthmus an importance, vividly
suggestive of its rise into political prominence consequent upon the
acquisition of California by the United States, and upon the spread of
the latter along the Pacific coast. The length and severity of the
voyage round Cape Horn, then as now, impelled men to desire some
shorter and less arduous route; and, inconvenient as the land
transport with its repeated lading and unlading was, it presented
before the days of steam the better alternative, as to some extent it
still does. So the Isthmus and its adjoining regions became a great
centre of commerce, a point where many highways converged and whence
they parted; where the East and the West met in intercourse, sometimes
friendly, more often hostile. Thus was realized partially, though most
incompletely, the vision of Columbus; and thus, after many
fluctuations, and despite the immense expansion of these latter days,
partial and incomplete his great conception yet remains. The secret of
the strait is still the problem and the reproach of mankind.

By whatever causes produced, where such a centre of commerce exists,
there always will be found a point of general interest to mankind,--to
all, at least, of those peoples who, whether directly commercial or
not, share in the wide-spreading benefits and inconveniences arising
from the fluctuations of trade. But enterprising commercial countries
are not content to be mere passive recipients of these diverse
influences. By the very characteristics which make them what they are,
they are led perforce to desire, and to aim at, control of these
decisive regions; for their tenure, like the key of a military
position, exerts a vital effect upon the course of trade, and so upon
the struggle, not only for bare existence, but for that increase of
wealth, of prosperity, and of general consideration, which affect both
the happiness and the dignity of nations. Consequently, in every age,
according to its particular temperament and circumstances, there will
be found manifested this desire for control; sometimes latent in an
attitude of simple watchfulness; sometimes starting into vivid action
under the impulse of national jealousies, and issuing in diplomatic
rivalries or hostile encounter.

Such, accordingly, has been the history of the Central American
Isthmus since the time when it became recognized as the natural
centre, towards which, if not thwarted by adverse influences, the
current of intercourse between East and West inevitably must tend.
Here the direction of least resistance was indicated clearly by
nature; and a concurrence of circumstances, partly inherent in the
general character of the region, partly adventitious or accidental,
contributed at an early date, and until very recently, to emphasize
and enlarge the importance consequent upon the geographical situation
and physical conformation of this narrow barrier between two great
seas. For centuries the West India Islands, circling the Caribbean,
and guarding the exterior approaches to the Isthmus, continued to be
the greatest single source of tropical products which had become
increasingly necessary to the civilized nations of Europe. In them,
and in that portion of the continent which extended on either side of
the Isthmus, known under the vague appellation of the Spanish Main,
Great Britain, during her desperate strife with the first Napoleon,--a
strife for very existence,--found the chief support of the commercial
strength and credit that alone carried her to the triumphant end. The
Isthmus and the Caribbean were vital elements in determining the issue
of that stern conflict. For centuries, also, the treasures of Mexico
and Peru, upon which depended the vigorous action of the great though
decadent military kingdom of Spain, flowed towards and accumulated
around the Isthmus, where they were reinforced by the tribute of the
Philippine Islands, and whence they took their way in the lumbering
galleons for the ports of the Peninsula. Where factors of such
decisive influence in European politics were at stake, it was
inevitable that the rival nations, in peace as well as in open war,
should carry their ambitions to the scene; and the unceasing struggle
for the mastery would fluctuate with the control of the waters, which,
as in all maritime regions, must depend mainly upon naval
preponderance, but also in part upon possession of those determining
positions, of whose tenure Napoleon said that "war is a business of
positions." Among these the Isthmus was chief.

The wild enterprises and bloody cruelties of the early buccaneers were
therefore not merely a brutal exhibition of unpitying greed,
indicative of the scum of nations as yet barely emerging from
barbarism. They were this, doubtless, but they were something more. In
the march of events, these early marauders played the same part, in
relation to what was to succeed them, as the rude, unscrupulous,
lawless adventurers who now precede the ruthless march of civilized
man, who swarm over the border, occupy the outposts, and by their
excesses stain the fair fame of the race whose pioneers they are. But,
while thus libels upon and reproaches to the main body, they
nevertheless belong to it, share its essential character, and foretell
its inevitable course. Like driftwood swept forward on the crest of a
torrent, they betoken the approaching flood. So with the celebrated
freebooters of the Spanish Main. Of the same general type,--though
varying greatly in individual characteristics, in breadth of view, and
even in elevation of purpose,--their piratical careers not only
evidenced the local wealth of the scene of their exploits, but
attested the commercial and strategic importance of the position upon
which in fact that wealth depended. The carcass was there, and the
eagles as well as the vultures, the far-sighted as well as the mere
carrion birds of prey, were gathering round it. "The spoil of
Granada," said one of these mercenary chieftains, two centuries ago,
"I count as naught beside the knowledge of the great Lake Nicaragua,
and of the route between the Northern and Southern seas which depends
upon it."

As time passed, the struggle for the mastery inevitably resulted, by a
kind of natural selection, in the growing predominance of the people
of the British Islands, in whom commercial enterprise and political
instinct were blended so happily. The very lawlessness of the period
favored the extension of their power and influence; for it removed
from the free play of a nation's innate faculties the fetters which
are imposed by our present elaborate framework of precedents,
constitutions, and international law. Admirably adapted as these are
to the conservation and regular working of a political system, they
are, nevertheless, however wise, essentially artificial, and hence are
ill adapted to a transition state,--to a period in which order is
evolving out of chaos, where the result is durable exactly in
proportion to the freedom with which the natural forces are allowed to
act, and to reach their own equilibrium without extraneous
interference. Nor are such periods confined to the early days of mere
lawlessness. They recur whenever a crisis is reached in the career of
a nation; when old traditions, accepted maxims, or written
constitutions have been outgrown, in whole or in part; when the time
has come for a people to recognize that the limits imposed upon its
expansion, by the political wisdom of its forefathers, have ceased to
be applicable to its own changed conditions and those of the world.
The question then raised is not whether the constitution, as written,
shall be respected. It is how to reach modifications in the
constitution--and that betimes--so that the genius and awakened
intelligence of the people may be free to act, without violating that
respect for its fundamental law upon which national stability
ultimately depends. It is a curious feature of our current journalism
that it is clear-sighted and prompt to see the unfortunate trammels in
which certain of our religious bodies are held, by the cast-iron
tenets imposed upon them by a past generation, while at the same time
political tenets, similarly ancient, and imposed with a like ignorance
of a future which is our present, are invoked freely to forbid this
nation from extending its power and necessary enterprise into and
beyond the seas, to which on every side it now has attained.

During the critical centuries when Great Britain was passing through
that protracted phase of her history in which, from one of the least
among states, she became, through the power of the sea, the very
keystone and foundation upon which rested the commercial--for a time
even the political--fabric of Europe, the free action of her statesmen
and people was clogged by no uneasy sense that the national genius was
in conflict with artificial, self-imposed restrictions. She plunged
into the brawl of nations that followed the discovery of a new world,
of an unoccupied if not unclaimed inheritance, with a vigor and an
initiative which gained ever-accelerated momentum and power as the
years rolled by. Far and wide, in every sea, through every clime, her
seamen and her colonists spread; but while their political genius and
traditions enabled them, in regions adapted to the physical well-being
of the race, to found self-governing colonies which have developed
into one of the greatest, of free states, they did not find, and never
have found, that the possession of and rule over barbarous, or
semi-civilized, or inert tropical communities, were inconsistent with
the maintenance of political liberty in the mother country. The sturdy
vigor of the broad principle of freedom in the national life is
attested sufficiently by centuries of steady growth, that surest
evidence of robust vitality. But, while conforming in the long run to
the dictates of natural justice, no feeble scrupulosity impeded the
nation's advance to power, by which alone its mission and the law of
its being could be fulfilled. No artificial fetters were forged to
cramp the action of the state, nor was it drugged with political
narcotics to dwarf its growth.

In the region here immediately under consideration, Great Britain
entered the contest under conditions of serious disadvantage. The
glorious burst of maritime and colonial enterprise which marked the
reign of Elizabeth, as the new era dawned when the country recognized
the sphere of its true greatness, was confronted by the full power of
Spain, as yet outwardly unshaken, in actual tenure of the most
important positions in the Caribbean and the Spanish Main, and
claiming the right to exclude all others from that quarter of the
world. How brilliantly this claim was resisted is well known; yet, had
they been then in fashion, there might have been urged, to turn
England from the path which has made her what she is, the same
arguments that now are freely used to deter our own country from even
accepting such advantages as are ready to drop into her lap. If it be
true that Great Britain's maritime policy now is imposed to some
extent by the present necessities of the little group of islands which
form the nucleus of her strength, it is not true that any such
necessities first impelled her to claim her share of influence in the
world, her part in the great drama of nations. Not for such reasons
did she launch out upon the career which is perhaps the noblest yet
run by any people. It then could have been said to her, as it now is
said to us, "Why go beyond your own borders? Within them you have what
suffices for your needs and those of your population. There are
manifold abuses within to be corrected, manifold miseries to be
relieved. Let the outside world take care of itself. Defend yourself,
if attacked; being, however, always careful to postpone preparation to
the extreme limit of imprudence. 'Sphere of influence,' 'part in the
world,' 'national prestige,'--there are no such things; or if there
be, they are not worth fighting for." What England would have been,
had she so reasoned, is matter for speculation; that the world would
have been poorer may be confidently affirmed.

As the strength of Spain waned apace during the first half of the
seventeenth century, the external efforts of Great Britain also
slackened through the rise of internal troubles, which culminated in
the Great Rebellion, and absorbed for the time all the energies of the
people. The momentum acquired under Drake, Raleigh, and their
associates was lost, and an occasion, opportune through the exhaustion
of the great enemy, Spain, passed unimproved. But, though thus
temporarily checked, the national tendency remained, and quickly
resumed its sway when Cromwell's mighty hand had composed the
disorders of the Commonwealth. His clear-sighted statesmanship, as
well as the immediate necessities of his internal policy, dictated the
strenuous assertion by sea of Great Britain's claims, not only to
external respect, which he rigorously exacted, but also to her due
share in influencing the world outside her borders. The nation quickly
responded to his proud appeal, and received anew the impulse upon the
road to sea power which never since has been relaxed. To him were due
the measures--not, perhaps, economically the wisest, judged by modern
lights, but more than justified by the conditions of his times--which
drew into English hands the carrying trade of the world. The glories
of the British navy as an organized force date also from his short
rule; and it was he who, in 1655, laid a firm basis for the
development of the country's sea power in the Caribbean, by the
conquest of Jamaica, from a military standpoint the most decisive of
all single positions in that sea for the control of the Isthmus. It is
true that the successful attempt upon this island resulted from the
failure of the leaders to accomplish Cromwell's more immediate purpose
of reducing Santo Domingo,--that in so far the particular fortunate
issue was of the nature of an accident; but this fact serves only to
illustrate more emphatically that, when a general line of policy,
whether military or political, is correctly chosen upon sound
principles, incidental misfortunes or disappointments do not frustrate
the conception. The sagacious, far-seeing motive, which prompted
Cromwell's movement against the West Indian possessions of Spain, was
to contest the latter's claim to the monopoly of that wealthy region;
and he looked upon British extension in the islands as simply a
stepping-stone to control upon the adjacent continent. It is a
singular commentary upon the blindness of historians to the true
secret of Great Britain's rise among the nations, and of the eminent
position she so long has held, that writers so far removed from each
other in time and characteristics as Hume and the late J.R. Green
should detect in this far-reaching effort of the Protector, only the
dulled vision of "a conservative and unspeculative temper misled by
the strength of religious enthusiasm." "A statesman of wise political
genius," according to them, would have fastened his eyes rather upon
the growing power of France, "and discerned the beginning of that
great struggle for supremacy" which was fought out under Louis XIV.
But to do so would have been only to repeat, by anticipation, the
fatal error of that great monarch, which forever forfeited for France
the control of the seas, in which the surest prosperity of nations is
to be found; a mistake, also, far more ruinous to the island kingdom
than it was to her continental rival, bitter though the fruits thereof
have been to the latter. Hallam, with clearer insight, says: "When
Cromwell declared against Spain, and attacked her West Indian
possessions, there was little pretence, certainly, of justice, but not
by any means, as I conceive, the impolicy sometimes charged against
him. So auspicious was his star, that the very failure of that
expedition obtained a more advantageous possession for England than
all the triumphs of her former kings." Most true; but because his star
was despatched in the right direction to look for fortune,--by sea,
not by land.

The great aim of the Protector was checked by his untimely death,
which perhaps also definitely frustrated a fulfilment, in the actual
possession of the Isthmus, that in his strong hands might have been
feasible. His idea, however, remained prominent among the purposes of
the English people, as distinguished from their rulers; and in it, as
has been said before, is to be recognized the significance of the
exploits of the buccaneers, during the period of external debility
which characterized the reigns of the second Charles and James. With
William of Orange the government again placed itself at the head of
the national aspirations, as their natural leader; and the irregular
operations of the freebooters were merged in a settled national
policy. This, although for a moment diverted from its course by
temporary exigencies, was clearly formulated in the avowed objects
with which, in 1702, the wise Dutchman entered upon the War of the
Spanish Succession, the last great act of his political life. From the
Peace of Utrecht, which closed this war in 1713, the same design was
pursued with ever-increasing intensity, but with steady success, and
with it was gradually associated the idea of controlling also the
communication between the two oceans by way of the Isthmus. The best
known instance of this, because of its connection with the great name
of Nelson, was the effort made by him, in conjunction with a land
force, in 1780, when still a simple captain, to take possession of the
course of the San Juan River, and so of the interoceanic route through
Lake Nicaragua. The attempt ended disastrously, owing partly to the
climate, and partly to the strong series of works, numbering no less
than twelve, which the Spaniards, duly sensible of the importance of
the position, had constructed between the lake and the sea.

Difficulties such as were encountered by Nelson withstood Great
Britain's advance throughout this region. While neither blind nor
indifferent to the advantages conferred by actual possession, through
which she had profited elsewhere abundantly, the prior and
long-established occupation by Spain prevented her obtaining by such
means the control she ardently coveted, and in great measure really
exercised. The ascendency which made her, and still makes her, the
dominant factor in the political system of the West Indies and the
Isthmus resulted from her sea power, understood in its broadest sense.
She was the great trader, source of supplies, and medium of
intercourse between the various colonies themselves, and from them to
the outer world; while the capital and shipping employed in this
traffic were protected by a powerful navy, which, except on very rare
occasions, was fully competent to its work. Thus, while unable to
utilize and direct the resources of the countries, as she could have
done had they been her own property, she secured the fruitful use and
reaped the profit of such commercial transactions as were possible
under the inert and narrow rule of the Spaniards. The fact is
instructive, for the conditions to-day are substantially the same as
those of a century ago. Possession still vests in states and races
which have not attained yet the faculty of developing by themselves
the advantages conferred by nature; and control will abide still with
those whose ships, whose capital, whose traders support the industrial
system of the region, provided these are backed by a naval force
adequate to the demands of the military situation, rightly understood.
To any foreign state, control at the Central American Isthmus means
naval control, naval predominance, to which tenure of the land is at
best but a convenient incident.

Such, in brief, was the general tendency of events until the time when
the Spanish colonial empire began to break up, in 1808-10, and the
industrial system of the West India islands to succumb under the
approaching abolition of slavery. The concurrence of these two
decisive incidents, and the confusion which ensued in the political
and economical conditions, rapidly reduced the Isthmus and its
approaches to an insignificance from which the islands have not yet
recovered. The Isthmus is partially restored. Its importance, however,
depends upon causes more permanent, in the natural order of things,
than does that of the islands, which, under existing circumstances,
and under any circumstances that can be foreseen as yet, derive their
consequence chiefly from the effect which may be exerted from them
upon the tenure of the Isthmus. Hence the latter, after a period of
comparative obscurity, again emerged into notice as a vital political
factor, when the spread of the United States to the Pacific raised the
question of rapid and secure communication between our two great
seaboards. The Mexican War, the acquisition of California, the
discovery of gold, and the mad rush to the diggings which followed,
hastened, but by no means originated, the necessity for a settlement
of the intricate problems involved, in which the United States, from
its positions on the two seas, has the predominant interest. But,
though predominant, ours is not the sole interest; though less vital,
those of other foreign states are great and consequential; and,
accordingly, no settlement can be considered to constitute an
equilibrium, much less a finality, which does not effect our
preponderating influence, and at the same time insure the natural
rights of other peoples. So far as the logical distinction between
commercial and political will hold, it may be said that our interest
is both commercial and political, that of other states almost wholly
commercial.

The same national characteristics that of old made Great Britain the
chief contestant in all questions of maritime importance--with the
Dutch in the Mediterranean, with France in the East Indies, and with
Spain in the West--have made her also the exponent of foreign
opposition to our own asserted interest in the Isthmus. The policy
initiated by Cromwell, of systematic aggression in the Caribbean, and
of naval expansion and organization, has resulted in a combination of
naval force with naval positions unequalled, though not wholly
unrivalled, in that sea. And since, as the great sea carrier, Great
Britain has a preponderating natural interest in every new route open
to commerce, it is inevitable that she should scrutinize jealously
every proposition for the modification of existing arrangements,
conscious as she is of power to assert her claims, in case the
question should be submitted to the last appeal.

Nevertheless, although from the nature of the occupations which
constitute the welfare of her people, as well as from the
characteristics of her power, Great Britain seemingly has the larger
immediate stake in a prospective interoceanic canal, it has been
recognized tacitly on her part, as on our side openly asserted, that
the bearing of all questions of Isthmian transit upon our national
progress, safety, and honor, is more direct and more urgent than upon
hers. That she has felt so is plain from the manner in which she has
yielded before our tenacious remonstrances, in cases where the control
of the Isthmus was evidently the object of her action,--as in the
matters of the tenure of the Bay Islands and of the protectorate of
the Mosquito Coast. Our superior interest appears also from the nature
of the conditions which will follow from the construction of a canal.
So far as these changes are purely commercial, they will operate to
some extent to the disadvantage of Great Britain; because the result
will be to bring our Atlantic seaboard, the frontier of a rival
manufacturing and commercial state, much nearer to the Pacific than it
now is, and nearer to many points of that ocean than is England. To
make a rough general statement, easily grasped by a reader without the
map before him, Liverpool and New York are at present about
equidistant, by water, from all points on the west coast of America,
from Valparaiso to British Columbia. This is due to the fact that, to
go through the Straits of Magellan, vessels from both ports must pass
near Cape St. Roque, on the east coast of Brazil, which is nearly the
same distance from each. If the Nicaragua Canal existed, the line on
the Pacific equidistant from the two cities named would pass, roughly,
by Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, or along the coasts
of Japan, China, and eastern Australia,--Liverpool, in this case,
using the Suez Canal, and New York that of Nicaragua. In short, the
line of equidistance would be shifted from the eastern shore of the
Pacific to its western coast, and all points of that ocean east of
Japan, China, and Australia--for example, the Hawaiian Islands--would
be nearer to New York than to Liverpool.

A recent British writer has calculated that about one-eighth of the
existing trade of the British Islands would be affected unfavorably by
the competition thus introduced. But this result, though a matter of
national concern, is political only in so far as commercial prosperity
or adversity modifies a nation's current history; that is, indirectly.
The principal questions affecting the integrity or security of the
British Empire are not involved seriously, for almost all of its
component parts lie within the regions whose mutual bond of union and
shortest line of approach are the Suez Canal. Nowhere has Great
Britain so little territory at stake, nowhere has she such scanty
possessions, as in the eastern Pacific, upon whose relations to the
world at large, and to ourselves in particular, the Isthmian Canal
will exert the greatest influence.

The chief political result of the Isthmian Canal will be to bring our
Pacific coast nearer, not only to our Atlantic seaboard, but also to
the great navies of Europe. Therefore, while the commercial gain,
through an uninterrupted water carriage, will be large, and is clearly
indicated by the acrimony with which a leading journal, apparently in
the interest of the great transcontinental roads, has lately
maintained the singular assertion that water transit is obsolete as
compared with land carriage, it is still true that the canal will
present an element of much weakness from the military point of view.
Except to those optimists whose robust faith in the regeneration of
human nature rejects war as an impossible contingency, this
consideration must occasion serious thought concerning the policy to
be adopted by the United States.

The subject, so far, has given rise only to diplomatic arrangement and
discussion, within which it is permissible to hope it always may be
confined; but the misunderstandings and protracted disputes that
followed the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, and the dissatisfaction with the
existing status that still obtains among many of our people, give
warning that our steps, as a nation, should be governed by some
settled notions, too universally held to be set aside by a mere change
of administration or caprice of popular will. Reasonable discussion,
which tends, either by its truth or by its evident errors, to clarify
and crystallize public opinion on so important a matter, never can be
amiss.

This question, from an abstract, speculative phase of the Monroe
Doctrine, took on the concrete and somewhat urgent form of security
for our trans-Isthmian routes against foreign interference towards the
middle of this century, when the attempt to settle it was made by the
oft-mentioned Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, signed April 19, 1850. Great
Britain was found then to be in possession, actual or constructive, of
certain continental positions, and of some outlying islands, which
would contribute not only to military control, but to that kind of
political interference which experience has shown to be the natural
consequence of the proximity of a strong power to a weak one. These
positions depended upon, indeed their tenure originated in, the
possession of Jamaica, thus justifying Cromwell's forecast. Of them,
the Belize, a strip of coast two hundred miles long, on the Bay of
Honduras, immediately south of Yucatan, was so far from the Isthmus
proper, and so little likely to affect the canal question, that the
American negotiator was satisfied to allow its tenure to pass
unquestioned, neither admitting nor denying anything as to the rights
of Great Britain thereto. Its first occupation had been by British
freebooters, who "squatted" there a very few years after Jamaica fell.
They went to cut logwood, succeeded in holding their ground against
the efforts of Spain to dislodge them, and their right to occupancy
and to fell timber was allowed afterwards by treaty. Since the
signature of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, this "settlement," as it was
styled in that instrument, has become a British "possession," by a
convention with Guatemala contracted in 1859. Later, in 1862, the
quondam "settlement" and recent "possession" was erected, by royal
commission, into a full colony, subordinate to the government of
Jamaica. Guatemala being a Central American state, this constituted a
distinct advance of British dominion in Central America, contrary to
the terms of our treaty.

A more important claim of Great Britain was to the protectorate of the
Mosquito Coast,--a strip understood by her to extend from Cape Gracias
á Dios south to the San Juan River. In its origin, this asserted right
differed little from similar transactions between civilized man and
savages, in all times and all places. In 1687, thirty years after the
island was acquired, a chief of the aborigines there settled was
carried to Jamaica, received some paltry presents, and accepted
British protection. While Spanish control lasted, a certain amount of
squabbling and fighting went on between the two nations; but when the
questions arose between England and the United States, the latter
refused to acquiesce in the so-called protectorate, which rested, in
her opinion, upon no sufficient legal ground as against the prior
right of Spain, that was held to have passed to Nicaragua when the
latter achieved its independence. The Mosquito Coast was too close to
the expected canal for its tenure to be considered a matter of
indifference. Similar ground was taken with regard to the Bay Islands,
Ruatan and others, stretching along the south side of the Bay of
Honduras, near the coast of the republic of that name, and so uniting,
under the control of the great naval power, the Belize to the Mosquito
Coast. The United States maintained that these islands, then occupied
by Great Britain, belonged in full right to Honduras.

Under these _de facto_ conditions of British occupation, the United
States negotiator, in his eagerness to obtain the recession of the
disputed points to the Spanish-American republics, seems to have paid
too little regard to future bearings of the subject. Men's minds also
were dominated then, as they are now notwithstanding the intervening
experience of nearly half a century, by the maxims delivered as a
tradition by the founders of the republic who deprecated annexations
of territory abroad. The upshot was that, in consideration of Great
Britain's withdrawal from Mosquitia and the Bay Islands, to which, by
our contention, she had no right, and therefore really yielded nothing
but a dispute, we bound ourselves, as did she, without term, to
acquire no territory in Central America, and to guarantee the
neutrality not only of the contemplated canal, but of any other that
might be constructed. A special article, the eighth, was incorporated
in the treaty to this effect, stating expressly that the wish of the
two governments was "not only to accomplish a particular object, but
to establish a general principle."

Considerable delay ensued in the restoration of the islands and of the
Mosquito Coast to Honduras and Nicaragua,--a delay attended with
prolonged discussion and serious misunderstanding between the United
States and Great Britain. The latter claimed that, by the wording of
the treaty, she had debarred herself only from future acquisitions of
territory in Central America; whereas our government asserted, and
persistently instructed its agents, that its understanding had been
that an entire abandonment of all possession, present and future, was
secured by the agreement. It is difficult, in reading the first
article, not to feel that, although the practice may have been perhaps
somewhat sharp, the wording can sustain the British position quite as
well as the more ingenuous confidence of the United States negotiator;
an observation interesting chiefly as showing the eagerness on the one
side, whose contention was the weaker in all save right, and the
wariness on the other, upon whom present possession and naval power
conferred a marked advantage in making a bargain. By 1860, however,
the restorations had been made, and the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty since
then has remained the international agreement, defining our relations
to Great Britain on the Isthmus.

Of the subsequent wrangling over this unfortunate treaty, if so
invidious a term may be applied to the dignified utterances of
diplomacy, it is unnecessary to give a detailed account. Our own
country cannot but regret and resent any formal stipulations which
fetter its primacy of influence and control on the American continent
and in American seas; and the concessions of principle over-eagerly
made in 1850, in order to gain compensating advantages which our
weakness could not extort otherwise, must needs cause us to chafe now,
when we are potentially, though, it must be confessed sorrowfully, not
actually, stronger by double than we were then. The interest of Great
Britain still lies, as it then lay, in the maintenance of the treaty.
So long as the United States jealously resents all foreign
interference in the Isthmus, and at the same time takes no steps to
formulate a policy or develop a strength that can give shape and force
to her own pretensions, just so long will the absolute control over
any probable contingency of the future rest with Great Britain, by
virtue of her naval positions, her naval power, and her omnipresent
capital.

A recent unofficial British estimate of the British policy at the
Isthmus, as summarized in the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, may here have
interest: "In the United States was recognized a coming formidable
rival to British trade. In the face of the estimated disadvantage to
European trade in general, and that of Great Britain in particular, to
be looked for from a Central American canal, British statesmen,
finding their last attempt to control the most feasible route (by
Nicaragua) abortive, accomplished the next best object in the interest
of British trade. They cast the onus of building the canal on the
people who would reap the greatest advantage from it, and who were
bound to keep every one else out, but were at the same time very
unlikely to undertake such a gigantic enterprise outside their own
undeveloped territories for many a long year; while at the same time
they skilfully handicapped that country in favor of British sea power
by entering into a joint guarantee to respect its neutrality when
built. This secured postponement of construction indefinitely, and yet
forfeited no substantial advantage necessary to establish effective
naval control in the interests of British carrying trade."

Whether this passage truly represents the deliberate purpose of
successive British governments may be doubtful, but it is an accurate
enough estimate of the substantial result, as long as our policy
continues to be to talk loud and to do nothing,--to keep others out,
while refusing ourselves to go in. We neutralize effectually enough,
doubtless; for we neutralize ourselves while leaving other powers to
act efficiently whenever it becomes worth while.

In a state like our own, national policy means public conviction, else
it is but as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. But public
conviction is a very different thing from popular impression,
differing by all that separates a rational process, resulting in manly
resolve, from a weakly sentiment that finds occasional hysterical
utterance. The Monroe Doctrine, as popularly apprehended and indorsed,
is a rather nebulous generality, which has condensed about the Isthmus
into a faint point of more defined luminosity. To those who will
regard, it is the harbinger of the day, incompletely seen in the
vision of the great discoverer, when the East and the West shall be
brought into closer communion by the realization of the strait that
baffled his eager search. But, with the strait, time has introduced a
factor of which he could not dream,--a great nation midway between the
West he knew and the East he sought, spanning the continent he
unwittingly found, itself both East and West in one. To such a state,
which in itself sums up the two conditions of Columbus's problem; to
which the control of the strait is a necessity, if not of existence,
at least of its full development and of its national security, who can
deny the right to predominate in influence over a region so vital to
it? None can deny save its own people; and they do it,--not in words,
perhaps, but in act. For let it not be forgotten that failure to act
at an opportune moment is action as real as, though less creditable
than, the most strenuous positive effort.

Action, however, to be consistent and well proportioned, must depend
upon well-settled conviction; and conviction, if it is to be
reasonable, and to find expression in a sound and continuous national
policy, must result from a careful consideration of present conditions
in the light of past experiences. Here, unquestionably, strong
differences of opinion will be manifested at first, both as to the
true significance of the lessons of the past, and the manner of
applying them to the present. Such differences need not cause regret.
Their appearance is a sign of attention aroused; and when discussion
has become general and animated, we may hope to see the gradual
emergence of a sound and operative public sentiment. What is to be
deprecated and feared is indolent drifting, in wilful blindness to the
approaching moment when action must be taken; careless delay to remove
fetters, if such there be in the Constitution or in traditional
prejudice, which may prevent our seizing opportunity when it occurs.
Whatever be the particular merits of the pending Hawaiian question, it
scarcely can be denied that its discussion has revealed the existence,
real or fancied, of such clogs upon our action, and of a painful
disposition to consider each such occurrence as merely an isolated
event, instead of being, as it is, a warning that the time has come
when we must make up our minds upon a broad issue of national policy.
That there should be two opinions is not bad, but it is very bad to
halt long between them.

There is one opinion--which it is needless to say the writer does not
share--that, because many years have gone by without armed collision
with a great power, the teaching of the past is that none such can
occur; and that, in fact, the weaker we are in organized military
strength, the more easy it is for our opponents to yield our points.
Closely associated with this view is the obstinate rejection of any
political action which involves implicitly the projection of our
physical power, if needed, beyond the waters that gird our shores.
Because our reasonable, natural--it might almost be called
moral--claim to preponderant influence at the Isthmus heretofore has
compelled respect, though reluctantly conceded, it is assumed that no
circumstances can give rise to a persistent denial of it.

It appears to the writer--and to many others with whom he agrees,
though without claim to represent them--that the true state of the
case is more nearly as follows: Since our nation came into being, a
century ago, with the exception of a brief agitation about the year
1850,--due to special causes, which, though suggestive, were not
adequate, and summarized as to results in the paralyzing
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,--the importance of the Central American Isthmus
has been merely potential and dormant. But, while thus temporarily
obscured, its intrinsic conditions of position and conformation bestow
upon it a consequence in relation to the rest of the world which is
inalienable, and therefore, to become operative, only awaits those
changes in external conditions that must come in the fulness of time.
The indications of such changes are already sufficiently visible to
challenge attention. The rapid peopling of our territory entails at
least two. The growth of the Pacific States enhances the commercial
and political importance of the Pacific Ocean to the world at large,
and to ourselves in particular; while the productive energies of the
country, and its advent to the three seas, impel it necessarily to
seek outlet by them and access to the regions beyond. Under such
conditions, perhaps not yet come, but plainly coming, the consequence
of an artificial waterway that shall enable the Atlantic coast to
compete with Europe, on equal terms as to distance, for the markets of
eastern Asia, and shall shorten by two-thirds the sea route from New
York to San Francisco, and by one-half that to Valparaiso, is too
evident for insistence.

In these conditions, not in European necessities, is to be found the
assurance that the canal will be made. Not to ourselves only, however,
though to ourselves chiefly, will it be a matter of interest when
completed. Many causes will combine to retain in the line of the Suez
Canal the commerce of Europe with the East; but to the American shores
of the Pacific the Isthmian canal will afford a much shorter and
easier access for a trade already of noteworthy proportions. A weighty
consideration also is involved in the effect upon British navigation
of a war which should endanger its use of the Suez Canal. The power of
Great Britain to control the long route from Gibraltar to the Red Sea
is seriously doubted by a large and thoughtful body of her statesmen
and seamen, who favor dependence, in war, upon that by the Cape of
Good Hope. By Nicaragua, however, would be shorter than by the Cape to
many parts of the East; and the Caribbean can be safeguarded against
distant European states much more easily than the line through the
Mediterranean, which passes close by their ports.

Under this increased importance of the Isthmus, we cannot safely
anticipate for the future the cheap acquiescence which, under very
different circumstances, has been yielded in the past to our demands.
Already it is notorious that European powers are betraying symptoms of
increased sensitiveness as to the value of Caribbean positions, and
are strengthening their grip upon those they now hold. Moral
considerations undoubtedly count for more than they did, and nations
are more reluctant to enter into war; but still, the policy of states
is determined by the balance of advantages, and it behooves us to know
what our policy is to be, and what advantages are needed to turn in
our favor the scale of negotiations and the general current of events.

If the decision of the nation, following one school of thought, is
that the weaker we are the more likely we are to have our way, there
is little to be said. Drifting is perhaps as good a mode as another to
reach that desirable goal. If, on the other hand, we determine that
our interest and dignity require that our rights should depend upon
the will of no other state, but upon our own power to enforce them, we
must gird ourselves to admit that freedom of interoceanic transit
depends upon predominance in a maritime region--the Caribbean
Sea--through which pass all the approaches to the Isthmus. Control of
a maritime region is insured primarily by a navy; secondarily, by
positions, suitably chosen and spaced one from the other, upon which
as bases the navy rests, and from which it can exert its strength. At
present the positions of the Caribbean are occupied by foreign powers,
nor may we, however disposed to acquisition, obtain them by means
other than righteous; but a distinct advance will have been made when
public opinion is convinced that we need them, and should not exert
our utmost ingenuity to dodge them when flung at our head. If the
Constitution really imposes difficulties, it provides also a way by
which the people, if convinced, can remove its obstructions. A
protest, however, may be entered against a construction of the
Constitution which is liberal, by embracing all it can be constrained
to imply, and then immediately becomes strict in imposing these
ingeniously contrived fetters.

Meanwhile no moral obligation forbids developing our navy upon lines
and proportions adequate to the work it may be called upon to do.
Here, again, the crippling force is a public impression, which limits
our potential strength to the necessities of an imperfectly realized
situation. A navy "for defence only" is a popular catchword. When, if
ever, people recognize that we have three seaboards, that the
communication by water of one of them with the other two will depend
in a not remote future upon a strategic position hundreds of miles
distant from our nearest port,--the mouth of the Mississippi,--they
will see also that the word "defence," already too narrowly
understood, has its application at points far away from our own coast.

That the organization of military strength involves provocation to war
is a fallacy, which the experience of each succeeding year now
refutes. The immense armaments of Europe are onerous; but
nevertheless, by the mutual respect and caution they enforce, they
present a cheap alternative, certainly in misery, probably in money,
to the frequent devastating wars which preceded the era of general
military preparation. Our own impunity has resulted, not from our
weakness, but from the unimportance to our rivals of the points in
dispute, compared with their more immediate interests at home. With
the changes consequent upon the canal, this indifference will
diminish. We also shall be entangled in the affairs of the great
family of nations, and shall have to accept the attendant burdens.
Fortunately, as regards other states, we are an island power, and can
find our best precedents in the history of the people to whom the sea
has been a nursing mother.




POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN REUNION.

_July, 1894._


    [The following article was requested by the Editor of the "North
    American Review," as one of a number, by several persons, dealing
    with the question of a formal political connection, proposed by
    Mr. Andrew Carnegie, between the United States and the British
    Empire, for the advancement of the general interests of the
    English-speaking peoples. The projects advocated by previous
    writers embraced: 1, a federate union; 2, a merely naval union or
    alliance; or, 3, a defensive alliance of a kind frequent in
    political history.]

The words "kinship" and "alliance" express two radically distinct
ideas, and rest, for both the privileges and the obligations involved
in them, upon foundations essentially different. The former represents
a natural relation, the latter one purely conventional,--even though
it may result from the feelings, the mutual interests, and the sense
of incumbent duty attendant upon the other. In its very etymology,
accordingly, is found implied that sense of constraint, of an
artificial bond, that may prove a source, not only of strength, but of
irksomeness as well. Its analogue in our social conditions is the
marriage tie,--the strongest, doubtless, of all bonds when it realizes
in the particular case the supreme affection of which our human nature
is capable; but likewise, as daily experience shows, the most fretting
when, through original mistake or unworthy motive, love fails, and
obligation alone remains.

Personally, I am happy to believe that the gradual but, as I think,
unmistakable growth of mutual kindly feelings between Great Britain
and the United States during these latter years--and of which the
recent articles of Sir George Clarke and Mr. Arthur Silva White in the
"North American Review" are pleasant indications--is a sure evidence
that a common tongue and common descent are making themselves felt,
and are breaking down the barriers of estrangement which have
separated too long men of the same blood. There is seen here the
working of kinship,--a wholly normal result of a common origin, the
natural affection of children of the same descent, who have quarrelled
and have been alienated with the proverbial bitterness of civil
strife, but who all along have realized--or at the least have been
dimly conscious--that such a state of things is wrong and harmful. As
a matter of sentiment only, this reviving affection well might fix the
serious attention of those who watch the growth of world questions,
recognizing how far imagination and sympathy rule the world; but when,
besides the powerful sentimental impulse, it is remembered that
beneath considerable differences of political form there lie a common
inherited political tradition and habit of thought, that the moral
forces which govern and shape political development are the same in
either people, the possibility of a gradual approach to concerted
action becomes increasingly striking. Of all the elements of the
civilization that has spread over Europe and America, none is so
potential for good as that singular combination of two essential but
opposing factors--of individual freedom with subjection to law--which
finds its most vigorous working in Great Britain and the United
States, its only exponents in which an approach to a due balance has
been effected. Like other peoples, we also sway between the two,
inclining now to one side, now to the other; but the departure from
the normal in either direction is never very great.

There is yet another noteworthy condition common to the two states,
which must tend to incline them towards a similar course of action in
the future. Partners, each, in the great commonwealth of nations which
share the blessings of European civilization, they alone, though in
varying degrees, are so severed geographically from all existing
rivals as to be exempt from the burden of great land armies; while at
the same time they must depend upon the sea, in chief measure, for
that intercourse with other members of the body upon which national
well-being depends. How great an influence upon the history of Great
Britain has been exerted by this geographical isolation is
sufficiently understood. In her case the natural tendency has been
increased abnormally by the limited territorial extent of the British
Islands, which has forced the energies of their inhabitants to seek
fields for action outside their own borders; but the figures quoted by
Sir George Clarke sufficiently show that the same tendency, arising
from the same cause, does exist and is operative in the United States,
despite the diversion arising from the immense internal domain not yet
fully occupied, and the great body of home consumers which has been
secured by the protective system. The geographical condition, in
short, is the same in kind, though differing in degree, and must impel
in the same direction. To other states the land, with its privileges
and its glories, is the chief source of national prosperity and
distinction. To Great Britain and the United States, if they rightly
estimate the part they may play in the great drama of human progress,
is intrusted a maritime interest, in the broadest sense of the word,
which demands, as one of the conditions of its exercise and its
safety, the organized force adequate to control the general course of
events at sea; to maintain, if necessity arise, not arbitrarily, but
as those in whom interest and power alike justify the claim to do so,
the laws that shall regulate maritime warfare. This is no mere
speculation, resting upon a course of specious reasoning, but is based
on the teaching of the past. By the exertion of such force, and by the
maintenance of such laws, and by these means only, Great Britain, in
the beginning of this century, when she was the solitary power of the
seas, saved herself from destruction, and powerfully modified for the
better the course of history.

With such strong determining conditions combining to converge the two
nations into the same highway, and with the visible dawn of the day
when this impulse begins to find expression in act, the question
naturally arises, What should be the immediate course to be favored by
those who hail the growing light, and would hasten gladly the perfect
day? That there are not a few who seek a reply to this question is
evidenced by the articles of Mr. Carnegie, of Sir George Clarke, and
of Mr. White, all appearing within a short time in the pages of the
"North American Review." And it is here, I own, that, though desirous
as any one can be to see the fact accomplished, I shrink from
contemplating it, under present conditions, in the form of an
alliance, naval or other. Rather I should say: Let each nation be
educated to realize the length and breadth of its own interest in the
sea; when that is done, the identity of these interests will become
apparent. This identity cannot be established firmly in men's minds
antecedent to the great teacher, Experience; and experience cannot be
had before that further development of the facts which will follow the
not far distant day, when the United States people must again betake
themselves to the sea and to external action, as did their forefathers
alike in their old home and in the new.

There are, besides, questions in which at present doubt, if not even
friction, might arise as to the proper sphere of each nation,
agreement concerning which is essential to cordial co-operation; and
this the more, because Great Britain could not be expected reasonably
to depend upon our fulfilment of the terms of an alliance, or to yield
in points essential to her own maritime power, so long as the United
States is unwilling herself to assure the security of the positions
involved by the creation of an adequate force. It is just because in
that process of adjusting the parts to be played by each nation, upon
which alone a satisfactory cooperation can be established, a certain
amount of friction is probable, that I would avoid all premature
striving for alliance, an artificial and possibly even an irritating
method of reaching the desired end. Instead, I would dwell continually
upon those undeniable points of resemblance in natural characteristics,
and in surrounding conditions, which testify to common origin and
predict a common destiny. Cast the seed of this thought into the
ground, and it will spring and grow up, you know not how,--first the
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear. Then you may put
in your sickle and reap the harvest of political result, which as yet
is obviously immature. How quietly and unmarked, like the slow
processes of nature, such feelings may be wrought into the very being
of nations, was evidenced by the sudden and rapid rising of the North
at the outbreak of our civil war, when the flag was fired upon at Fort
Sumter. Then was shown how deeply had sunk into the popular heart the
devotion to the Union and the flag, fostered by long dwelling upon the
ideas, by innumerable Fourth of July orations, often doubtless
vainglorious, sometimes perhaps grotesque, but whose living force and
overwhelming results were vividly apparent, as the fire leaped from
hearthstone to hearthstone throughout the Northern States. Equally in
the South was apparent how tenacious and compelling was the grip which
the constant insistence upon the predominant claim of the State upon
individual loyalty had struck into the hearts of her sons. What paper
bonds, treaties, or alliances could have availed then to hold together
people whose ideals had drifted so far apart, whose interests, as each
at that time saw them, had become so opposed?

Although I am convinced firmly that it would be to the interest of
Great Britain and the United States, and for the benefit of the world,
that the two nations should act together cordially on the seas, I am
equally sure that the result not only must be hoped but also quietly
waited for, while the conditions upon which such cordiality depends
are being realized by men. All are familiar with the idea conveyed by
the words "forcing process." There are things that cannot be forced,
processes which cannot be hurried, growths which are strong and noble
in proportion as they imbibe slowly the beneficent influence of the
sun and air in which they are bathed. How far the forcing process can
be attempted by an extravagant imagination, and what the inevitable
recoil of the mind you seek to take by storm, is amusingly shown by
Mr. Carnegie's "Look Ahead," and by the demur thereto of so ardent a
champion of Anglo-American alliance--on terms which appear to me to
be rational though premature--as Sir George Clarke. A country with a
past as glorious and laborious as that of Great Britain, unprepared
as yet, as a whole, to take a single step forward toward reunion,
is confronted suddenly--as though the temptation must be
irresistible--with a picture of ultimate results which I will not
undertake to call impossible (who can say what is impossible?), but
which certainly deprives the nation of much, if not all, the
hard-wrought achievement of centuries. Disunion, loss of national
identity, changes of constitution more than radical, the exchange of a
world-wide empire for a subordinate part in a great federation,--such
_may_ be the destiny of Great Britain in the distant future. I know
not; but sure I am, were I a citizen of Great Britain, the prospect
would not allure me now to move an inch in such a direction. Surely in
vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird.

The suggestions of Sir George Clarke and of Mr. White are not open to
the reproach of repelling those whom they seek to convince. They are
clear, plain, business-like propositions, based upon indisputable
reasons of mutual advantage, and in the case of the former quickened,
as I have the pleasure of knowing through personal acquaintance, by a
more than cordial good-will and breadth of view in all that relates to
the United States. Avoiding criticism of details--of which I have
little to offer--my objection to them is simply that I do not think
the time is yet ripe. The ground is not prepared yet in the hearts and
understandings of Americans, and I doubt whether in those of British
citizens. Both proposals contemplate a naval alliance, though on
differing terms. The difficulty is that the United States, as a
nation, does not realize or admit as yet that it has any strong
interest in the sea; and that the great majority of our people rest
firmly in a belief, deep rooted in the political history of our past,
that our ambitions should be limited by the three seas that wash our
eastern, western, and southern coasts. For myself, I believe that
this, once a truth, can be considered so no longer with reference even
to the present--much less to a future so near that it scarcely needs a
prophet's eye to read; but even if it be but a prejudice, it must be
removed before a further step can be taken. In our country national
policy, if it is to be steadfast and consistent, must be identical
with public conviction. The latter, when formed, may remain long
quiescent; but given the appointed time, it will spring to mighty
action--aye, to arms--as did the North and the South under their
several impulses in 1861.

It is impossible that one who sees in the sea--in the function which
it discharges towards the world at large--the most potent factor in
national prosperity and in the course