That the organization of military strength involves provocation to war is a fallacy, which the experience of each succeeding year now refutes.  The immense armaments of Europe are onerous; but nevertheless, by the mutual respect and caution they enforce, they present a cheap alternative, certainly in misery, probably in money, to the frequent devastating wars which preceded the era of general military preparation.  Our own impunity has resulted, not from our weakness, but from the unimportance to our rivals of the points in dispute, compared with their more immediate interests at home.  With the changes consequent upon the canal, this indifference will diminish.  We also shall be entangled in the affairs of the great family of nations, and shall have to accept the attendant burdens.  Fortunately, as regards other states, we are an island power, and can find our best precedents in the history of the people to whom the sea has been a nursing mother.

POSSIBILITIES OF AN ANGLO-AMERICAN REUNION.

July, 1894.

[The following article was requested by the Editor of the “North American Review,” as one of a number, by several persons, dealing with the question of a formal political connection, proposed by Mr. Andrew Carnegie, between the United States and the British Empire, for the advancement of the general interests of the English-speaking peoples.  The projects advocated by previous writers embraced:  1, a federate union; 2, a merely naval union or alliance; or, 3, a defensive alliance of a kind frequent in political history.]

The words “kinship” and “alliance” express two radically distinct ideas, and rest, for both the privileges and the obligations involved in them, upon foundations essentially different.  The former represents a natural relation, the latter one purely conventional,—­even though it may result from the feelings, the mutual interests, and the sense of incumbent duty attendant upon the other.  In its very etymology, accordingly, is found implied that sense of constraint, of an artificial bond, that may prove a source, not only of strength, but of irksomeness as well.  Its analogue in our social conditions is the marriage tie,—­the strongest, doubtless, of all bonds when it realizes in the particular case the supreme affection of which our human nature is capable; but likewise, as daily experience shows, the most fretting when, through original mistake or unworthy motive, love fails, and obligation alone remains.

Personally, I am happy to believe that the gradual but, as I think, unmistakable growth of mutual kindly feelings between Great Britain and the United States during these latter years—­and of which the recent articles of Sir George Clarke and Mr. Arthur Silva White in the “North American Review” are pleasant indications—­is a sure evidence that a common tongue and common descent are making themselves felt, and are breaking down the barriers