merly were
in America, excluded from all orificial appointments; but they feel
deeply hurt and injured through the crowds of place-hunters which
the frequent changes of Ministers send to Manilla. The influence,
also, of the American element is at least visible on the horizon,
and will be more noticeable when the relations increase between the
two countries. At present they are very slender. The trade in the
meantime follows in its old channels to England and to the Atlantic
ports of the United States. Nevertheless, whoever desires to form an
opinion upon the future history of the Philippines, must not consider
simply their relations to Spain, but must have regard to the prodigious
changes which a few decades produce on either side of our planet.

For the first time in the history of the world the mighty powers
on both sides of the ocean have commenced to enter upon a direct
intercourse with one another--Russia, which alone is larger than
any two other parts of the earth; China, which contains within its
own boundaries a third of the population of the world; and America,
with ground under cultivation nearly sufficient to feed treble the
total population of the earth. Russia's further role in the Pacific
Ocean is not to be estimated at present.

The trade between the two other great powers will therefore be
presumably all the heavier, as the rectification of the pressing need
of human labour on the one side, and of the corresponding overplus
on the other, will fall to them.

"The world of the ancients was confined to the shores of the
Mediterranean; and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans sufficed at one
time for our traffic. When first the shores of the Pacific re-echoed
with the sounds of active commerce, the trade of the world and
the history of the world may be really said to have begun. A start
in that direction has been made; whereas not so very long ago the
immense ocean was one wide waste of waters, traversed from both points
only once a year. From 1603 to 1769 scarcely a ship had ever visited
California, that wonderful country which, twenty-five years ago, with
the exception of a few places on the coast, was an unknown wilderness,
but which is now covered with flourishing and prosperous towns and
cities, divided from sea to sea by a railway, and its capital already
ranking the third of the seaports of the Union; even at this early
stage of its existence a central point of the world's commerce, and
apparently desti