, the fact being so, the interests of our
sixty-five million people, in a position so vital to our part in the
Pacific, must be allowed to outweigh those of the six millions of
Canada.

From the foregoing considerations may be inferred the importance of the
Hawaiian Islands as a position powerfully influencing the commercial
and military control of the Pacific, and especially of the Northern
Pacific, in which the United States, geographically, has the strongest
right to assert herself. These are the main advantages, which can be
termed positive: those, namely, which directly advance commercial
security and naval control. To the negative advantages of possession,
by removing conditions which, if the islands were in the hands of any
other power, would constitute to us disadvantages and threats, allusion
only will be made. The serious menace to our Pacific coast and our
Pacific trade, if so important a position were held by a possible
enemy, has been mentioned frequently in the press, and dwelt upon in
the diplomatic papers which from time to time are given to the public.
It may be assumed that it is generally acknowledged. Upon one
particular, however, too much stress cannot be laid, one to which naval
officers cannot but be more sensitive than the general public, and that
is the immense disadvantage to us of any maritime enemy having a
coaling-station well within twenty-five hundred miles, as this is, of
every point of our coast-line from Puget Sound to Mexico. Were there
many others available, we might find it difficult to exclude from all.
There is, however, but the one. Shut out from the Sandwich Islands as a
coal base, an enemy is thrown back for supplies of fuel to distances of
thirty-five hundred or four thousand miles,--or between seven thousand
and eight thousand, going and coming,--an impediment to sustained
maritime operations well-nigh prohibitive. The coal-mines of British
Columbia constitute, of course, a qualification to this statement; but
upon them, if need arose, we might hope at least to impose some
trammels by action from the land side. It is rarely that so important a
factor in the attack or defence of a coast-line--of a sea frontier--is
concentrated in a single position; and the circumstance renders doubly
imperative upon us to secure it, if we righteously can.

It is to be hoped, also, that the opportunity thus thrust upon us may
not be viewed narrowly, as though it concerned but one section of our