republican, North America is somewhat equally divided, so far as extent of territory is concerned (Plate VII), but not as respects population. The people under republican organization far outnumber those still acknowledging allegiance to hereditary rulers. The countries self-governed, or forming parts of American republics, embraced in 1900 all of the continental mainland south of the United-States-Canadian boundary, together with Alaska, Cuba, San Domingo and Haiti, and Porto Rico. The provinces, islands, etc., still controlled by European powers are Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and all of the West Indies except the islands just referred to, which are more definitely designated in the table on page 424. The population of the American republics is in the neighbourhood of 97,000,000, and of the European dependencies somewhat less than 7,000,000. A republican form of government, more or less definitely foreshadowed by the tribal confederations of the aborigines, the most conspicuous example of which is furnished by the Iroquois or "Six Nations," has thus become the characteristic feature of the political organizations of North America; the same is true also of South America. The New World is thus conspicuously republican, in distinction from the Old World, which is characteristically monarchical.
The immigration to North America since its discovery by Columbus has been from all the nations of the Old World, but most largely from Europe. Negroes were brought as slaves, and their descendants, now free, form a large percentage of the population, especially in the southeastern part of the United States and the West Indies. Chinese, since about 1870, have arrived in large numbers, but their immigration to the United States is now restricted. Of the nations of Europe, the strongest influx has come from Great Britain, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy. To a marked degree this westward migration has been along parallels of latitude, but the migratory streams on reaching North America subdivided into many distributaries, and a mingling of nationalities on a vast scale has resulted. This amalgamation has been so great and so long-continued that several new and somewhat strongly individualized nationalities
have arisen, the most instructive being in the temperate portion of the continent.
The dominant language, as in the case of political control, has been inherited from Great Britain. English is the universal language to the northward of Mexico and on certain of the West Indian islands. To the south of the United-States-Mexican boundary, but beginning in the southwestern portion of the United States, and including also the greater part of the population of the West Indies, Spanish is the current language, except among the uncivilized aborigines. French is commonly spoken by many thousands of people in the province of Quebec, Canada, and in certain of the West Indies.
The ideal nation, from the point of view of the geographer, is one so situated that it is self-sustaining—that is, contains within its own domain all the conditions necessary for its life and growth. It should have favourable climatic conditions, agricultural land, forests, mines, fisheries, etc. More than this, even if all material wants are supplied from within its own border, intellectual desires demand outside stimuli. The ideal nation should therefore touch the ocean, in order to have avenues for travel open to its people. I am well aware that a more commanding, or, perhaps better, a more modern view, would show that improved methods of transportation have made the whole world commercially one; but invisible tariff walls still separate peoples and wars break lines of communication.
It might be expected that in the New World, conditions being also new and room for development abundant, civilized nations would have adjusted their boundaries so as to make an ideal subdivision of territory in accord with natural conditions. A study of the boundaries separating the nations of North America, however, fails to furnish evidence of such an adjustment. On the contrary, even between the most highly civilized countries, in which the people speak the same language, the dividing lines are entirely arbitrary, so far as relation to soil, climate, mineral and timber resources, fisheries, etc., are concerned. The line separating Alaska and Canada is mainly a meridian of longitude, which
passes through a rich mining district. The southern boundary of Canada is for the most part a parallel of latitude dividing agricultural, mining, and timber lands. The material advancement of the inhabitants on the opposite sides of these unnatural dividing lines is retarded by them and the progress of civilization delayed. The same is true of the invisible wall separating the United States from Mexico, and the various partitions intersecting Central America. There has evidently been but little, if any, tendency to draw the boundaries referred to in conformity with natural conditions. What, then, is the force which sets nature at naught? The reply is not obscure. In one word, it is greed. "To have and to hold" is the unwritten motto of republics as well as of monarchies.
The absurdity of disregarding geographical relations, and in consequence checking national development, and leading to stagnation and to material and intellectual decline, is sadly illustrated by the subdivision of the West Indies. In an admirable account of the Caribbean region by R. T. Hill, in which its present commercial depression is described and the reasons for it judiciously analyzed, occurs the following passage relative to the case in point:
"A greater drawback to the West Indies than the one-sided agriculture—the raising of sugar-cane—is their political condition. Their distribution among too many nationalities necessitates the support of expensive and useless administrations, and prevents federation of interests and the development of trade among themselves and with the United States, the nearest and largest natural consumer of their products. Very ridiculous some of these political conditions seem. The island of St. Martin, not as large as an average county in the United States, is divided into two principalities, the French and the Dutch, each of which maintains an administrative force as large as that of the State of Texas. Then, as we sail down the eastern islands, hardly a score in number, and within sight of one another, aggregating in area less than our little State of Delaware, about 2,000 square miles, we find five foreign and no less than a dozen distinct colonial governments, each responsible to Europe, with no
shadow of federation between them, or even cooperation of any kind—a condition not only pitiable, but absurd. Why should Dominica, whose people are French in language and institutions, be sandwiched in between Martinique and Guadeloupe, and within easy sight of both, yet so cut off from them by quarantine and tariff laws that it is commercially nearer England, some 3,000 miles distant, than to its neighbours?"