Nor is there anything in the position of the United States on the continent which would justify Americans in demanding from the Empire the sacrifice of her maritime position implied in the transfer of Canada to a new nationality. Ports on the Atlantic and Pacific as many as they need the United States already have. Trade in Canadian products they can obtain on terms as fair as they will themselves agree to. A less aggressive neighbour they could scarcely expect to have. Two countries on the same continent working out parallel political problems by different agencies may be mutually helpful with varying experiment and example. Contrast and mutual reaction stimulate progress for more than vast monotony of system.
Mr. Carnegie endorses Mr. Goldwin Smith's opinion that Britain's 'position upon the American continent is the barrier to sympathetic union with her great {265} child, the Republic.' As an American he should be ashamed to admit the accuracy of such an opinion. Britain's right to her place on the American continent is as much above question as is that of the United States. The man or people to whom a neighbour's enjoyment of an admitted right causes irritation, has lost the finer sense of morality. The nation which yielded an undoubted right under the pressure of such a base irritation would do a harm to international morals. British Federationists have more faith in the nobler qualities of the American people than has Mr. Carnegie. They earnestly hope for a union of effort in behalf of the higher interests of humanity between the great Republic and the Empire from which she sprang, but they know that that union can only come from mutual respect for each other's rights, and can never be brought about if the aggrandisement of the one must be purchased by the disintegration of the other.
One more passage must be quoted to illustrate the range of Mr. Carnegie's vision when he leaves the domain of American politics to discuss the affairs of Great Britain. He says: 'Her (Britain's) colonies weaken her powers in war and confer no advantage upon her in peace.'
I must let another American, whose mind has not been too much influenced by devotion to trade on a highly protected continent, a man who has had occasion to study seriously the larger problems of national life, make answer.
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'England,' says Lieutenant Mahan[3], 'by her immense colonial Empire has sacrificed much of this advantage of concentration of force around her own shores; but the sacrifice was wisely made, for the gain was greater than the loss, as the event proved. With the growth of her colonial system her war fleets also grew, but her merchant shipping and wealth grew yet faster.'
And again;—
'Undoubtedly under this second head of warlike preparation must come the maintenance of suitable naval stations, in those distant parts of the world to which the armed shipping must follow the peaceful vessels of commerce. The protection of such stations must depend either upon direct military force, as do Gibraltar and Malta, or upon a surrounding friendly population, such as the American colonists once were to England, and, it may be presumed the Australian colonists now are. Such friendly surroundings and backing, joined to a reasonable military provision, are the best of defences, and when combined with decided preponderance at sea, make a scattered and extensive empire like that of England, secure; for while it is true that an unexpected attack may cause disaster in some one quarter, the actual superiority of naval power prevents such disaster from being general or irremediable. History has sufficiently proved this. England's naval bases have been in all parts of the world, and her fleets have at once protected them, {267} kept open the communications between them, and relied upon them for shelter.
'Colonies attached to the mother-country afford, therefore, the surest means of supporting abroad the sea power of a country. In peace, the influence of the government should be felt in promoting by all means a warmth of attachment and a unity of interest which will make the welfare of one the welfare of all, and the quarrel of one the quarrel of all; and in war, or rather for war, by inducing such measures of organization and defence as shall be felt by all to be a fair distribution of a burden of which each reaps the benefit.'
After such a statement of the bases on which sea power rests it is with natural regret that Lieutenant Mahan adds: 'Such colonies the United States has not and is not likely to have. … Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting-places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.'