140 THE ROARING FORTIES 



one numbering 19,000,000; a war over Oregon 

 would have pitted 20,000,000 against less than 

 27,000,000. What these figures portended as 

 to the future distribution of the English-speak 

 ing race, was not difficult to see. With all its 

 growth, however, whether absolute or relative, 

 the American people sprawled and straggled 

 over a territory much too large for its immediate 

 needs, yet drew from the excess only the in 

 satiable yearning for more. 



In the thick of the unpleasantness over the 

 Oregon question, it was often proclaimed by 

 boastful Americans that Great Britain would 

 not dare to fight a people so numerous as they 

 had now become. So far as military or naval 

 considerations were concerned, this was, of 

 course, ridiculous. In another aspect, however, 

 the growth of population in America had indeed 

 raised up a powerful influence against war. 

 British industry and commerce had become de 

 pendent in an extraordinary degree for their 

 prosperity on the United States. As regularly 

 as the seasons, three-fourths of the great cotton 

 crop took ship for England from the ports of 

 the southern States of the Union. Lancashire 

 in the forties well understood the danger, that 

 in the sixties became disaster, from the shutting 



