en by Commodore Perry. The commerce
which had long before developed between the Pacific ports and Hawaii,
China, and Japan now flourished under official care. In 1865 a ship
from Honolulu carried sugar, molasses, and fruits from Hawaii to the
Oregon port of Astoria. The next year a vessel from Hongkong brought
rice, mats, and tea from China. An era of lucrative trade was opened.
The annexation of Hawaii in 1898, the addition of the Philippines at the
same time, and the participation of American troops in the suppression
of the Boxer rebellion in Peking in 1900, were but signs and symbols of
American power on the Pacific.

[Illustration: _From an old print_

COMMODORE PERRY'S MEN MAKING PRESENTS TO THE JAPANESE]

=Conservation and the Land Problem.=--The disappearance of the frontier
also brought new and serious problems to the governments of the states
and the nation. The people of the whole United States suddenly were
forced to realize that there was a limit to the rich, new land to
exploit and to the forests and minerals awaiting the ax and the pick.
Then arose in America the questions which had long perplexed the
countries of the Old World--the scientific use of the soils and
conservation of natural resources. Hitherto the government had followed
the easy path of giving away arable land and selling forest and mineral
lands at low prices. Now it had to face far more difficult and complex
problems. It also had to consider questions of land tenure again,
especially if the ideal of a nation of home-owning farmers was to be
maintained. While there was plenty of land for every man or woman who
wanted a home on the soil, it made little difference if single landlords
or companies got possession of millions of acres, if a hundred men in
one western river valley owned 17,000,000 acres; but when the good land
for small homesteads was all gone, then was raised the real issue. At
the opening of the twentieth century the nation, which a hundred years
before had land and natural resources apparently without limit, was
compelled to enact law after law conserving its forests and minerals.
Then it was that the great state of California, on the very border of
the continent, felt constrained to enact a land settlement measure
providing government assistance in an effort to break up large holdings
into small lots and to make it easy for actual settlers to acquire small
farms. America was passing into a new epoch.

=References=

H