Page 104 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

The Isthmus and Sea Power. 85

of the protectorate of the Mosquito Coast. Our
superior interest appears also from the nature
of the conditions which will follow from the con-
struction of a canal So far as these changes
are purely commercial, they will operate to
some extent to the disadvantage of Great
Britain ; because the result will be to bring
our Atlantic seaboard, the frontier of a rival
manufacturing and commercial state, much
nearer to the Pacific than it now is, and
nearer to many points of that ocean than is
England. To make a rough general statement,
easily grasped by a reader without the map
before him, Liverpool and New York are at
present about equidistant, by water, from all
points on the west coast of America, from
Valparaiso to British Columbia. This is due
to the fact that, to go through the Straits of
Magellan, vessels from both ports must pass
near Cape St. Roque, on the east coast of
Brazil, which is nearly the same distance from
each. If the Nicaragua Canal existed, the line
on the Pacific equidistant from the two cities
named would pass, roughly, by Yokohama,
Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Melbourne, or

along the coasts of Japan, China, and eastern