may never come, but whose possibility, in existing conditions, looms large upon the horizon of the future, and against which the only barrier will be the warlike spirit of the representatives of civilization.  Whate’er betide, Sea Power will play in those days the leading part which it has in all history, and the United States by her geographical position must be one of the frontiers from which, as from a base of operations, the Sea Power of the civilized world will energize.

For this seemingly remote contingency preparation will be made, if men then shall be found prepared, by a practical recognition now of existing conditions—­such as those mentioned in the opening of this paper—­and acting upon that knowledge.  Control of the sea, by maritime commerce and naval supremacy, means predominant influence in the world; because, however great the wealth product of the land, nothing facilitates the necessary exchanges as does the sea.  The fundamental truth concerning the sea—­perhaps we should rather say the water—­is that it is Nature’s great medium of communication.  It is improbable that control ever again will be exercised, as once it was, by a single nation.  Like the pettier interests of the land, it must be competed for, perhaps fought for.  The greatest of the prizes for which nations contend, it too will serve, like other conflicting interests, to keep alive that temper of stern purpose and strenuous emulation which is the salt of the society of civilized states, whose unity is to be found, not in a flat identity of conditions—­the ideal of socialism—­but in a common standard of moral and intellectual ideas.

Also, amid much that is shared by all the nations of European civilization, there are, as is universally recognized, certain radical differences of temperament and character, which tend to divide them into groups having the marked affinities of a common origin.  When, as frequently happens on land, the members of these groups are geographically near each other, the mere proximity seems, like similar electricities, to develop repulsions which render political variance the rule and political combination the exception.  But when, as is the case with Great Britain and the United States, the frontiers are remote, and contact—­save in Canada—­too slight to cause political friction, the preservation, advancement, and predominance of the race may well become a political ideal, to be furthered by political combination, which in turn should rest, primarily, not upon cleverly constructed treaties, but upon natural affection and a clear recognition of mutual benefit arising from working together.  If the spirit be there, the necessary machinery for its working will not pass the wit of the race to provide; and in the control of the sea, the beneficent instrument that separates us that we may be better friends, will be found the object that neither the one nor the other can master, but which may not be beyond the conjoined energies of the race.  When, if ever, an Anglo-American alliance, naval or other, does come, may it be rather as a yielding to irresistible popular impulse than as a scheme, however ingeniously wrought, imposed by the adroitness of statesmen.