whatever capital is
temporarily idle in the places where it is created. In due time the
financial centre of the world will be shifted from London to our
imperial city.

Such a destiny has been foretold for St. Petersburg, in view of the
construction of the Siberian Railway and its branches, which in time
will open up to industry an immense tract of productive soil in the
most fertile parts of Asia, abounding in wheat and corn land, and full
of superior water power. But in this superb rivalry between the United
States and the colossus of Europe and Asia, the former nation has an
immense start as to time, and a still greater advantage in the
character of its population. And in addition to these we have the
undoubted and constantly increasing supremacy of the English language.
Just as during the Middle Ages Latin was the vernacular of the learned
classes, and as to-day French is the language of diplomacy in Europe,
so is English the common tongue in all the commercial localities of
the globe. With English a man can commit himself to foreign travel
anywhere, while outside of Russia there are few towns on the various
continents in which Russian is not an unknown speech. These
controlling conditions cannot be readily or easily changed, especially
since no paramount reasons exist why they should be changed.

It is then a reasonable forecast of the future, that in due time the
weighty import of the names of Lombard[1] and Threadneedle Streets
will be transferred to the name of Wall Street, and the facts implied
by such a transfer are of a dignity and power which it is impossible
to estimate. The road leading to this great destiny can only be
blocked by injurious legislation, and the good sense of our citizens
may be confidently relied upon to prevent the creation of such a
barricade against national prosperity.

[1] It will be recollected that Macaulay has pictured a New
Zealander of some future day as sitting upon a broken arch
of London Bridge, contemplating the ruins of St. Paul's
cathedral; and readers of the classics may recall the
forecast of Seneca in the time of Nero, as to the discovery
of a Western continent by which Rome should be dwarfed: "In
later ages the time shall come when the ocean shall loosen
the chains which bind us, a mighty continent shall be
disclosed, and a deity shall unveil a new world beyond
Britannia