Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 35, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1903 — AMERICA AMONG THE NATIONS [ARTICLE]

AMERICA AMONG THE NATIONS

Commercially, the United ! tates Has an Unparalleled Situation. Uncle Sam has a better business stand than any of his competitors. By far the greater part of the world’s population is to live around the Facific ocean. It is to be the midland sea —of the future. At present England has a commercial advantage in the Pacific, but the cutting of the - isthmian canal will transfer that advantage to the United States. If a British ship should sail from Liverpool for Cape Horn, and an American ship should sail from New York for tjie same point, the latter would have to sail 150 miles farther than the former to reach the %ape; and that means that every port ou the western coast of South America, Mexico and North America, Mexico and North America is. by water, nearer to Liverpool than to New York. By sea San Francisco is to-day 150 miles farther from New York than from Liverpool. Suppose thnt the two ships sail from New York and Liverpool for the Suez cnnal. The latter ship would have an advantage of 2,000 miles over the former, which means that all Asiatic nml Indian ports are, by the Suez canal, 2.000 miles nearer to Liverpool than to New York. But \vhen the isthmian canal shall be cut New York will have an advantage of about 1.000 miles on the average to the ports of north China, from 900 to 2,700 miles t 6 the principal ports of the central and western Pacific, and from 2,700 to 3,500 miles to the ports of the eastern Pacific. That’is, commercially speaking, the Pacific is now a British ocean. By reason, therefore, of the location of the United States, we shall always have better access to the markets of the world than nny other people. Not only does our location give us a great commercial advantage, but \f also saves us hundreds of millions of dollars every year by freeing us from the burden of a grent standing army, such ns well nigh crushes the life out of every great continental power of Europe. As the London Spectator says, ours is “a situation on this planet unparalleled."