lition, the Union has increased
enormously in power, till it now embraces 10,000,000 square miles, and
has a free and enlightened population of 300,000,000. Though the Union
established by Washington and his contemporaries has attained such
tremendous proportions, its growth is by no means finished; and as a
result of modern improvements, it is less of a journey now to go from
Alaska to the Orinoco than it was for the Father of his Country to
travel from New York or Philadelphia to the site of the city named in
his honour.

"Adequate and really rapid transportation facilities have done much to
bind the different parts of the country together, and to rub off the
edges of local prejudice. Though we always favour peace, no nation
would think of opposing the expressed wishes of the United States, and
our moral power for good is tremendous. The name Japhet means
enlargement, and the prophecy seems about to be literally fulfilled by
these his descendants. The bankrupt suffering of so many European
Continental powers had also other results. It enabled the
socialists--who have never been able to see beyond themselves--to force
their governments into selling their colonies in the Eastern hemisphere
to England, and their islands in the Western to us, in order to realize
upon them. With the addition of Canada to the United States and its
loss to the British Empire, the land possessions of the two powers
became about equal, our Union being a trifle the larger. All danger of
war being removed by the Canadian change, a healthful and friendly
competition took its place, the nations competing in their growth on
different hemispheres. England easily added large areas in Asia and
Africa, while the United States grew as we have seen. The race is
still, in a sense, neck-and-neck, and the English-speakers together
possess nearly half the globe. The world's recent rate of progress
would have been impossible without this approximation to a universal
language. The causes that checkmated the Continental powers have
ceased to exist. Many millions of men whose principal thought had been
to destroy other members of the race became producers, but it was then
too late, for the heavy armaments had done their work.

"Let us now glance at the times as they are, and see how the business
of life is transacted. Manhattan Island has something over 2,500,000
inhabitants, and is surrounded by a belt of population, several miles
wide, of 12,000