policy of the United States in regard to American soil as embodied in the Monroe Doctrine, and the expectation lurking in the mental background of every American that his country may eventually embrace the northern continent, find their echo in Australia’s plans for wider empire in the Pacific.  The Commonwealth of Australia has succeeded in getting into its own hands the administration of British New Guinea (90,500 square miles.) It has also secured from the imperial government the unusual privilege of settling the relations between itself and the islands of the Pacific, because it regards the Pacific question as the one question of foreign policy in which its interests are profoundly involved.  In the same way the British in South Africa, sparsely scattered though they are, feel an imperative need of further expansion, if their far-reaching schemes of commerce and empire are to be realized.

[Sidenote:  Colonials as road builders.]

The effort to annihilate space by improved means of communication has absorbed the best intellects and energies of expanding peoples.  The ancient Roman, like the Incas of Peru, built highways over every part of the empire, undaunted by natural obstacles like the Alps and Andes.  Modern expansionists are railroad builders.  Witness the long list of strategic lines, constructed or subsidized by various governments during the past half century—­the Union Pacific, Central Pacific, Canadian Pacific, Trans-Siberian, Cairo-Khartoum, Cape Town-Zambesi, and now the proposed Trans-Saharan road, designed to unite the Mediterranean and Guinea colonies of French Africa.  The equipment of the American roads, with their heavy rails, giant locomotives, and enormous freight cars, reveals adaptation to a commerce that covers long distances between strongly differentiated areas of production, and that reflects the vast enterprises of this continental country.  The same story comes out in the ocean vessels which serve the trade of the Great Lakes, and in the acres of coal barges in a single fleet which are towed down the Ohio and Mississippi by one mammoth steel tug.

[Sidenote:  Practical bent of colonials.]

The abundant natural resources awaiting development in such big new countries give to the mind of the people an essentially practical bent.  The rewards of labor are so great that the stimulus to effort is irresistible.  Economic questions take precedence of all others, divide political parties, and consume a large portion of national legislation; while purely political questions sink into the background.  Civilization takes on a material stamp, becomes that “dollar civilization” which is the scorn of the placid, paralyzed Oriental or the old world European.  The genius of colonials is essentially practical.  Impatience of obstacles, short cuts aiming at quick returns, wastefulness of land, of forests, of fuel, of everything but labor, have long characterized American activities.  The problem