nable, natural--it might almost be called
moral--claim to preponderant influence at the Isthmus heretofore has
compelled respect, though reluctantly conceded, it is assumed that no
circumstances can give rise to a persistent denial of it.

It appears to the writer--and to many others with whom he agrees,
though without claim to represent them--that the true state of the
case is more nearly as follows: Since our nation came into being, a
century ago, with the exception of a brief agitation about the year
1850,--due to special causes, which, though suggestive, were not
adequate, and summarized as to results in the paralyzing
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty,--the importance of the Central American Isthmus
has been merely potential and dormant. But, while thus temporarily
obscured, its intrinsic conditions of position and conformation bestow
upon it a consequence in relation to the rest of the world which is
inalienable, and therefore, to become operative, only awaits those
changes in external conditions that must come in the fulness of time.
The indications of such changes are already sufficiently visible to
challenge attention. The rapid peopling of our territory entails at
least two. The growth of the Pacific States enhances the commercial
and political importance of the Pacific Ocean to the world at large,
and to ourselves in particular; while the productive energies of the
country, and its advent to the three seas, impel it necessarily to
seek outlet by them and access to the regions beyond. Under such
conditions, perhaps not yet come, but plainly coming, the consequence
of an artificial waterway that shall enable the Atlantic coast to
compete with Europe, on equal terms as to distance, for the markets of
eastern Asia, and shall shorten by two-thirds the sea route from New
York to San Francisco, and by one-half that to Valparaiso, is too
evident for insistence.

In these conditions, not in European necessities, is to be found the
assurance that the canal will be made. Not to ourselves only, however,
though to ourselves chiefly, will it be a matter of interest when
completed. Many causes will combine to retain in the line of the Suez
Canal the commerce of Europe with the East; but to the American shores
of the Pacific the Isthmian canal will afford a much shorter and
easier access for a trade already of noteworthy proportions. A weighty
consideration also is involved in the effect upon British navigation
of a war which should e