commercial activities and rivalries, in which all the great powers,
ourselves included, have a share. Through these causes Central and
Caribbean America, now intrinsically unimportant, are brought in turn
into great prominence, as constituting the gateway between the
Atlantic and Pacific when the Isthmian canal shall have been made, and
as guarding the approaches to it. The appearance of Japan as a strong
ambitious state, resting on solid political and military foundations,
but which scarcely has reached yet a condition of equilibrium in
international standing, has fairly startled the world; and it is a
striking illustration of the somewhat sudden nearness and unforeseen
relations into which modern states are brought, that the Hawaiian
Islands, so interesting from the international point of view to the
countries of European civilization, are occupied largely by Japanese
and Chinese.

In all these questions we have a stake, reluctantly it may be, but
necessarily, for our evident interests are involved, in some instances
directly, in others by very probable implication. Under existing
conditions, the opinion that we can keep clear indefinitely of
embarrassing problems is hardly tenable; while war between two foreign
states, which in the uncertainties of the international situation
throughout the world may break out at any time, will increase greatly
the occasions of possible collision with the belligerent countries,
and the consequent perplexities of our statesmen seeking to avoid
entanglement and to maintain neutrality.

Although peace is not only the avowed but for the most part the actual
desire of European governments, they profess no such aversion to
distant political enterprises and colonial acquisitions as we by
tradition have learned to do. On the contrary, their committal to such