eat Britain and the United States did not
reach the armies on this side in time to prevent the battle of New
Orleans. Even the results of the battle of Waterloo were not known in
England for several days after Napoleon's overthrow. Now ocean
leviathans keep pace with the storms that move across the waters, and
the cable and the wireless flash their messages with the speed of the
lightning. Power to put a girdle around the earth in a few minutes has
made modern news agencies possible, and they have made the modern
newspaper essential. The newspaper requires the railroad and the
steamship for its distribution, and business men depend upon them all
to carry out their plans. These physical agencies have made possible a
commerce that is world-wide. There are ports that receive ships from
every nation east and west. Great freight terminal yards hold cars
that belong to all the great transportation lines of the country.
Lombard Street and Wall Street feel the pulse of the world's trade as
it beats through the channels of finance.

Improved communication has made possible the unification of a great
political system like the British Empire. In the Parliament House and
government offices of Westminster centre the political interests of
Canada, Australia, South Africa, Egypt, and India, as well as of
islands in every sea. Better communication has brought into closer
relations the Pan-American states, so that they have met more than
once for their mutual benefit.

Helpful social results have come from the travel that has grown
enormously in volume since ease and cheapness of transportation have
increased. The impulse to travel for pleasure keeps persons of wealth
on the move, and the desire for knowledge sends the intellectually
minded professional man or woman of small means globe-trotting. In
this way the people of different nations learn from one another; they
become able to converse in different languages and to get one
another's point of view; they gain new wants while they lose some of
their professional interests; they return home poorer in pocket but
richer in experience, more interested in others, more tolerant. These
are social values, certain to make their influence felt in days to
come, and by no means unappreciable already.

355. =International Institutions.=--These values are conserved by
international institutions. Societies are formed by like-minded
persons for better acquaintance and for the advancement of knowl