Page 135 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

116 Possibilities of an

ingly shown by Mr. Carnegie's " Look Ahead,"
and by the demur thereto of so ardent a cham-
pion of Anglo-American alliance — on terms
which appear to me to be rational though pre-
mature — as Sir George Clarke. A country
with a past as glorious and laborious as that of
Great Britain, unprepared as yet, as a whole, to
take a single step forward toward reunion, is
confronted suddenly — as though the tempta-
tion must be irresistible — with a picture of
ultimate results which I will not undertake to
call impossible (who can say what is impossi-
ble ? ), but which certainly deprives the nation
of much, if not all, the hard-wrought achieve-
ment of centuries. Disunion, loss of national
identity, changes of constitution more than
radical, the exchange of a world-wide empire for
a subordinate part in a great federation, — such
may be the destiny of Great Britain in the dis-
tant future. I know not ; but sure I am, were
I a citizen of Great Britain, the prospect would
not allure me now to move an inch in such a
direction. Surely in vain the net is spread in
the sight of any bird.
The suggestions of Sir George Clarke and of
Mr. White are not open to the reproach of