nd now stands at the mathematical centre of the
practical world, and unless some Big Thing occurs to displace her, she
must continue to stand there. It takes a great deal to upset the balance
of an entire planet.

Is anything now displacing her? Well, there is the fact that railways
are making land-carriage to-day more important relatively to
water-carriage than at any previous period. That may, perhaps, in time
shift the centre of the world from an island like England to the middle
of a great land area, like Chicago or Moscow. And, no doubt, if ever the
centre shifts at all, it will shift towards Western America, or rather
the prairie region. But, just at present, what are the greatest
commercial towns of the world? All ports to a man. And the day when it
will be otherwise, if ever, seems still far distant. Look at the newest
countries. What are their great focal points? Every one of them ports.
Melbourne and Sydney; Rio, Buenos Ayres, and Valparaiso; Cape Town, San
Francisco, Bombay, Calcutta, Yokohama. Chicago itself, the most vital
and the quickest grower among modern towns, owes half its importance to
the fact that there water-carriage down the Great Lakes begins; though
it owes the other half, I admit, to the converse fact that all the great
trans-continental railways have to bend south at that point to avoid
Lake Michigan. Still, on the whole, I think, as long as conditions
remain what they are, the commercial supremacy of England is in no
immediate danger. It is these great permanent geographical factors that
make or mar a country, not Eight Hours Bills or petty social
reconstructions. Said the Lord Mayor of London to petulant King James,
when he proposed to remove the Court to Oxford, "May it please your
Majesty not to take away the Thames also."

"But our competitors? We are being driven out of our markets." Oh, yes,
if that's all you mean, I don't suppose we shall always be able in
everything to keep up our exclusive position. Our neighbours, who (bar
the advantage of insularity, which means a coast and a port always close
at hand) seem nearly as well situated as we are for access to the
world-markets, are beginning to wake up and take a slice of the cake
from us. Germany is manufacturing; Belgium is smelting; Antwerp is
exporting; America is occupying her own markets. But that's a very
different thing indeed from national decadence. We may have to compete a
little harder with our rivals, that's all. The Boo