The same national characteristics that of old made Great Britain the chief contestant in all questions of maritime importance—­with the Dutch in the Mediterranean, with France in the East Indies, and with Spain in the West—­have made her also the exponent of foreign opposition to our own asserted interest in the Isthmus.  The policy initiated by Cromwell, of systematic aggression in the Caribbean, and of naval expansion and organization, has resulted in a combination of naval force with naval positions unequalled, though not wholly unrivalled, in that sea.  And since, as the great sea carrier, Great Britain has a preponderating natural interest in every new route open to commerce, it is inevitable that she should scrutinize jealously every proposition for the modification of existing arrangements, conscious as she is of power to assert her claims, in case the question should be submitted to the last appeal.

Nevertheless, although from the nature of the occupations which constitute the welfare of her people, as well as from the characteristics of her power, Great Britain seemingly has the larger immediate stake in a prospective interoceanic canal, it has been recognized tacitly on her part, as on our side openly asserted, that the bearing of all questions of Isthmian transit upon our national progress, safety, and honor, is more direct and more urgent than upon hers.  That she has felt so is plain from the manner in which she has yielded before our tenacious remonstrances, in cases where the control of the Isthmus was evidently the object of her action,—­as in the matters of the tenure of the Bay Islands and of the protectorate of the Mosquito Coast.  Our superior interest appears also from the nature of the conditions which will follow from the construction of a canal.  So far as these changes are purely commercial, they will operate to some extent to the disadvantage of Great Britain; because the result will be to bring our Atlantic seaboard, the frontier of a rival manufacturing and commercial state, much nearer to the Pacific than it now is, and nearer to many points of that ocean than is England.  To make a rough general statement, easily grasped by a reader without the map before him, Liverpool and New York are at present about equidistant, by water, from all points on the west coast of America, from Valparaiso to British Columbia.  This is due to the fact that, to go through the Straits of Magellan, vessels from both ports must pass near Cape St. Roque, on the east coast of Brazil, which is nearly the same distance from each.  If the Nicaragua Canal existed, the line on the Pacific equidistant from the two cities named would pass, roughly, by Yokohama, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, or along the coasts of Japan, China, and eastern Australia,—­Liverpool, in this case, using the Suez Canal, and New York that of Nicaragua.  In short, the line of equidistance would be shifted from the eastern shore of the Pacific to its western coast, and all points of that ocean east of Japan, China, and Australia—­for example, the Hawaiian Islands—­would be nearer to New York than to Liverpool.