and the actual work was begun in October, 1889.

The President of the country, which has a

in the Mediterranean as well as in the Black Sea, thereby commanding the entrance of the Danube, which opens. the way to Germany, as well as the sources of the Euphrates, which open the road to the Indies, dictating her own terms to the commerce of Greece, France, Italy, Spain, and Egypt. This is what the proud city of Constantine could be, and this is what she is not, 'because' as Montesquieu says, 'God permitted that Turks should exist on earth, a people the most fit to possess uselessly a great empire.'

"There exists in the New World a state as admirably situated as Constantinople, and we must say, up to the present time, as uselessly occupied ; we allude to the state of Nicaragua. As Constantinople is the centre of the ancient world, so is the town of Leon, or rather Massaya, the centre of the new; and if the tongue of land which separates its two lakes from the Pacific Ocean were cut through, she would command by her central position the entire coast of North and South America. Like Constantinople, Massaya is situated between two extensive natural harbours, capable of giving shelter to the largest fleets, safe from attack. The state of Nicaragua can become, better than Constantinople, the necessary route for the great commerce of the world, for it is for the United States the shortest road to China and the East Indies, and for England and the rest of Europe to New Holland, Polynesia, and the whole of the western coast of America. The state of Nicaragua is, then, destined to attain to an extraordinary degree of prosperity and

surplus of 57,000,000 dollars, alluding to the commencement of the Nicaragua Canal said in his message to the Senate :

"This Government is ready to promote grandeur; for that which renders its political position more advantageous than that of Constantinople is, that the great maritime powers of Europe would witness with pleasure, and not with jealousy, its attainment of a station. no less favourable to its individual interests than to the commerce of the world.

"France, England, Holland, Russia, and the United States, have a great commercial interest in the establishment of a communication between the two oceans; but England has more than the other powers a political interest in the execution of this project. England will see with pleasure Central America become a flourishing and powerful state, which will establish a balance of power by creating in Spanish America a new centre of active enterprise, powerful enough to give rise to a great feeling of nationality and to prevent, by backing Mexico, any further encroachment from the north. England will witness with satisfaction the opening of a route which will enable her to communicate more speedily with Oregon, China, and her possessions in New Holland. She will find, in a word, that the advancement of Central America will renovate the declining commerce of Jamaica and the other English island in the Antilles, the progressive decay of which will be thereby stopped. It is a happy coincidence that the political and commercial prosperity of the state of Nicaragua is closely connected with the policy of that nation which has the greatest preponderance on the sea."

every proper requirement for the adjustment of all questions presenting obstacles to its completion." It is therefore pretty sure, sooner or later, to be completed, and would take the place of the Panama Canal and give the same advantages with regard to the Pacific and Japan.

'In the school of Carl Ritter," I said Professor Seeley, "much has been said of three stages of civilization determined by geographical conditions-the potamic, which clings to rivers; the thalassic, which grows

up

around inland seas; and lastly, the oceanic." He also traced the movements of the centre of commerce and intelligence in Europe, and at last found out why England had attained her present great

ness.

Without doubt, since the discovery of a new world the whole world has become the oceanic.

But the discoveries of Watt and Stephenson, seem to me to have added another stage to general civilization, viz., the railway; and 1 Prof. Seeley's "Expansion of England," p. 87.

it seems also to me that we might call the present era "the railway-oceanic."

The Canadian Pacific Railway scheme was. completed in 1887. It has a total length of at least 3,000 miles, starting from Quebec and finishing at Vancouver's Island on the Pacific. Its marvellous success will also considerably change the general tenor of the Pacific even more than the Panama or Nicaragua scheme will do. An express train can cross in five days, while the voyage from Vancouver to Yokohama in Japan, would only occupy twelve days steaming at the rate of fourteen or fifteen knots an hour. From England the whole journey to Shanghai and Hong Kong by this route would take only thirtyfour or thirty-five days, and Australia now has direct communication with the mother country through a sister colony.

Last of all, Japan would have much better communication with the European markets generally than is possible at the present time, if the English proposed mail steamers

"The negotiations with the Imperial Government for the establishment of a permanent line of first-class steam

should run, and it is said that the Canadian Pacific route would bring Japan within twenty-six or twenty-seven days' reach of England.

On the other hand, if the Russian Siberian Railway scheme should be carried out to the Pacific at Vladivostock, it would open a very large field of trade and commerce with inland Siberia to Japan. It would be still more so if the Chinese railways were extended so as to open the entire empire.1

Japan has not only a splendid future before her with regard to commercial greatness, but has every chance of rising to the head of

manufacturing nations. In the latter respect she has advantages over Vancouver's Island and New South Wales, her rivals on the Pacific. She is known to possess valuable ships, suitable for service as armed cruisers in case of need, resulted in an official notification that Her Majesty's Government had decided to grant a subsidy of £60,000 per annum for a monthly service between Vancouver and Hong Kong, via Yokohama " ("Canada, Statistical Abstract and Record for the Year 1887," p. 306).

I

"China is a storehouse of men and means; its outer door has scarcely yet been opened" (R. E. Webster's "The Trade of the World," p. 317).