nation. Like the pettier interests of the land, it must be competed
for, perhaps fought for. The greatest of the prizes for which nations
contend, it too will serve, like other conflicting interests, to keep
alive that temper of stern purpose and strenuous emulation which is
the salt of the society of civilized states, whose unity is to be
found, not in a flat identity of conditions--the ideal of
socialism--but in a common standard of moral and intellectual ideas.

Also, amid much that is shared by all the nations of European
civilization, there are, as is universally recognized, certain radical
differences of temperament and character, which tend to divide them
into groups having the marked affinities of a common origin. When, as
frequently happens on land, the members of these groups are
geographically near each other, the mere proximity seems, like similar
electricities, to develop repulsions which render political variance
the rule and political combination the exception. But when, as is the
case with Great Britain and the United States, the frontiers are
remote, and contact--save in Canada--too slight to cause political
friction, the preservation, advancement, and predominance of the race
may well become a political ideal, to be furthered by political
combination, which in turn should rest, primarily, not upon cleverly
constructed treaties, but upon natural affection and a clear
recognition of mutual benefit arising from working together. If the
spirit be there, the necessary machinery for its working will not pass
the wit of the race to provide; and in the control of the sea, the
beneficent instrument that separates us that we may be better friends,
will be found the object that neither the one nor the other can
master, but which may not be beyond the conjoined energies of the
race. When, if ever, an Anglo-American alliance, naval or other, does
come, may it be rather as a yielding to irresistible popular impulse