Page 241 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

222 A Twentieth-Century Outlook.

end would have the ell. Moreover, the growth
of the United States in population and resources,
and the development of the British Australian
colonies, contributed to meet the demand, of
which the opening of China and Japan was
only a single indication. That opening, there-
fore, was rather an incident of the general
industrial development which followed upon
the improvement of mechanical processes and
the multiplication of communications.
Thus the century passed its meridian, and
began to decline towards its close. There were
wars and there were rumors of wars in the
countries of European civilization. Dynasties
rose and fell, and nations shifted their places
in the scale of political importance, as old-time
boys in school went up and down ; but, withal,
the main characteristic abode, and has become
more and more the dominant prepossession of
the statesmen who reached their prime at or
soon after the times when the century itself
culminated. The maintenance of a status quo,
for purely utilitarian reasons of an economical
character, has gradually become an ideal— the
quieta non movere of Sir Robert Walpole. The
ideal is respectable, certainly; in view of the