Page 317 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future

Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. 295 ;

bound to the Isthmus and passing eastward
of Jamaica. Such conditions constitute unde-
niable military importance ; but Holland is a
small state, unlikely to join again in a general
war. There is, indeed, a floating apprehension
that the German Empire, in its present desires
of colonial extension, may be willing to ab-
sorb Holland, for the sake of her still exten-
sive colonial possessions. Improbable as this
may seem, it is scarcely more incomprehensible
than the recent mysterious movements upon
the European chess-board, attributed by com-
mon rumor to the dominating influence of
the Emperor of Germany, which we puzzled
Americans for months past have sought in
vain to understand.
The same probable neutrality must be ad-
mitted for the remaining positions that have
been distinguished : Mujeres Island, Samana
Bay, and the island of St. Thomas. The first
of these, at the extremity of the Yucatan
Peninsula, belongs to Mexico, a country whose
interest in the Isthmian question is very real
for, like the United States, she has an exten-
sive seaboard both upon the Pacific and — in
the Gulf of Mexico — upon the Atlantic Oceaa