What are the real ambitions and hopes of the people of the United States and the people of Canada in regard to their own future?  Their expectations of greatness certainly are not based on any conception of invincible military force, or desire for the physical means of enforcing their own will on their neighbors.  They both believe in the free commonwealth, administered justly, and with the purpose of securing for each individual all the freedom he can exercise without injury to his neighbors and the collective well-being.  They desire for themselves, each for itself, a strong Government, equipped to perform its functions with dignity, certainty, and efficiency; but they wish to have that Government under the control of the deliberate public opinion of free citizens, and not under the control of any Praetorian Guard, Oligarchic Council, or General Staff, and they insist that the civil authority should always control such military and police forces as it may be necessary to maintain for protective purposes.

True National Greatness.

They believe that the chief object of government should be the promotion of the public welfare by legislative and administrative means; that the processes of government should be open and visible, and their results be incessantly published for approval or disapproval.  They believe that a nation becomes great through industrial productiveness and the resulting internal and external commerce, through the gradual increase of comfort and general well-being in the population, and through the advancement of science, letters, and art.  They believe that education, free intercourse with other nations, and religious enthusiasm and toleration are means of national greatness, and that in the development and use of these means force has no place.  They attribute national greatness in others, as well as in themselves, not to the possession of military force, but to the advance of the people in freedom, industry, righteousness, and good-will.

They believe that the ideals of fighting power and domination should be replaced by the ideals of peaceful competition in production and trade, of generous rivalry in education, scientific discovery, and the fine arts, of co-operation for mutual benefit among nations different in size, natural abilities, and material resources, and of federation among nations associated geographically or historically, or united in the pursuit of some common ends and in the cherishing of like hopes and aspirations.  They think that the peace of the world can be best promoted by solemn public compacts between peoples—­not Princes or Cabinets—­compacts made to be kept, strengthened by mutual services and good offices, and watched over by a permanent International Judicial Tribunal authorized to call on the affiliated nations for whatever force may be necessary to induce obedience to its decrees.