and purchases (Louisiana,
Florida, Texas, California, New Mexico), we had secured relatively
empty territories which a flow of emigrants from our Eastern States
could rapidly Americanise. But in Porto Rico, the Philippines and
Hawaii, there was neither prospect nor intention of colonising. The
impulse that led to their taking was the desire to possess their
wealth, to rule and "civilise" them, and above all not "to haul down
the flag." It was an impulse not very different from that which led to
the European partition of Africa.[1]

The change in our policy was startling. We had seemed, after the Civil
War, to have reached a stage of satiety, to be through with expansion.
Henceforth the ocean was to be our boundary; we were not, like the
slave-owners before the war, to scheme for new lands in Central {46}
America and the Caribbean. When in 1867 Russia offered us a territory
almost three times as large as Germany for a sum about equal to the
value of the Equitable Building, we accepted only to oblige Russia and
because we believed that we were in honour bound to buy. We refused to
purchase St. Thomas and St. Johns, although Denmark offered to sell
cheap, and we declined to annex San Domingo or to entertain Sweden's
proposal to purchase her West Indian possessions. Again in 1893,
instead of annexing Hawaii, we vainly sought to bolster up the
sovereignty of a native Queen. Then suddenly Porto Rico, the
Philippines and Guam were annexed; Hawaii was incorporated and Samoa
was divided up with Germany.

In part this change in foreign policy was due to military
considerations. The possession of Hawaii, Panama and Guantanamo in
Cuba was obviously necessary for the defence of our coasts. Just as
the Monroe Doctrine was intended to protect us from the approach of
great military powers, so these new acquisitions were desired to
pre-empt near-lying bases, from which, in enemy possession fleets might
assail our trade or cut off our communications.[2]

Such strategic considerations, however, do not explain the whole of our
new imperialistic policy. Economic motives played their part. We
changed our foreign policy because at the same time we were undergoing
a commercial and industrial revolution.

As a result of this industrial change our merchants had begun to think
in terms of foreign markets and our financiers in terms of foreign
investments. We had passed {47} through the stage in which our
industrial life was com