43 



Canal. The Mexicans have bettered Captain Eatls' scheme for a ship 

 railway by constructing a first-class trunk line 192 miles long, with a 

 summit level below 700 feet, and adequate harbor works at each end. The 

 traffic amounted the first year to $38,000,000. This route between Atlantic 

 and Pacific ports is 1,000 to 1,500 miles and four to six days shorter than 

 the Panama route, and in competition with it can hold mail, passenger 

 and fast freight transit. 



Concerning the consequences to follow from the opening of the Panama 

 canal, no one can predict with assurance. Whether it is a great big bluff 

 put up by the United States in response to the world's dare, and will be of 

 value chiefly as a means of doubling the effective strength of our navy, or 

 wliether it will transform seaixtrts and routes of trade between Europe, 

 Asia and America, and even knock down transcontinental freight rates, 

 remains to be seen. In either event, it will prove well worth doing. It 

 is eminently fitting that the Great Republic should make I'eal the dream 

 of centuri(»s, and should overcome the greatest natural obstacle to com- 

 mercial progress that the world presents. The entei-prise is more com- 

 mendable and beneficent than the Crusades. Its execution is a victory 

 of peace, surpassing in discipline, mastery of engineering and sanitary 

 skill the achievements of Japan in war. The completion of the canal will 

 make the Caribbean truly the American Mediterranean. 



In the West Indies the negro peoples are the most interesting. They 

 number 2,500,000 and constitute nearly the whole population of Haiti, 

 Jamaica and Barbados. Here the negro has had the longest time and 

 the best opportunity to show in a congenial environment his capacity for 

 civilization. The results under self-guidance in the black republics of 

 Haiti and Santo Domingo are scarcely better than those in central Africa. 

 In Jamaica and Barbados, the British Empire has no more orderly, in- 

 dustrious, intelligent, and loyal subjects than the colored people, a large 

 majority of whom are members of the church of England. The Caribbean 

 province has an area about six times that of Java and one-third as many 

 people. If it were as efiiciently manned and manageti as Java, it could 

 supply the continent with all ti'opical products, including rubber, coffee, 

 sugar, cocoa, fruit and spices. AVho will man and manage it? 



Thus far I have tried to characterize briefly the pi'ovinces of ex- 

 tremes, those which may be called cold ajid dry, cold and wet, hot and dry 

 or hot and wet. I now come to those medial provinces which are called 

 temperate, but are in a sense the most intemperate of all. The climatic 



