nce
of conditions, in which are latent elements of future disputes,
identical in principle with those through which we have passed
heretofore. Can we expect that, if unprovided with adequate military
preparation, we shall receive from other states, not imbued with our
traditional habits of political thought, and therefore less patient of
our point of view, the recognition of its essential reasonableness
which has been conceded by the government of Great Britain? The latter
has found capacity for sympathy with our attitude,--not only by long
and close contact and interlacing of interests between the two
peoples, nor yet only in a fundamental similarity of character and
institutions. Besides these, useful as they are to mutual
understanding, that government has an extensive and varied experience,
extending over centuries, of the vital importance of distant regions
to its own interests, to the interests of its people and its commerce,
or to its political prestige. It can understand and allow for a
determination not to acquiesce in the beginning or continuance of a
state of things, the tendency of which is to induce future
embarrassments,--to complicate or to endanger essential welfare. A
nation situated as Great Britain is in India and Egypt scarcely can
fail to appreciate our own sensitiveness regarding the Central
American isthmus, and the Pacific, on which we have such extensive
territory; nor is it a long step from concern about the Mediterranean,
and anxious watchfulness over the progressive occupation of its
southern shores, to an understanding of our reluctance to see the
ambitions and conflicts of another hemisphere approach, even remotely
and indirectly, the comparatively peaceful neighborhoods surrounding
the Caribbean Sea, bearing a threat of disturbance to the political
distribution of power or of territorial occupation now existing.
Whatever our interests may demand in the future may be a matter of
doubt, but it is hard to see how there can be any doubt in the mind of
a British statesman that it is our clear interest now, when all is
quiet, to see removed possibilities of trouble which might break out
at a less propitious season.

Such facility for reaching an understanding, due to experience of
difficulties, is supported strongly by a hearty desire for peace,
traditional with a commercial people who have not to reproach
themselves with any lack of resolution or tenacity in assuming and
bearing the burden of