292 THE GROWTH OF CANADA 



These had passed and a new generation de 

 manded new opportunities for testing its forces. 

 The population exceeded 50,000,000; the ma 

 terial resources of the land were being revealed 

 in ever-increasing variety and volume; by the 

 progress of settlement the vast interior spaces 

 of the continent were peopled and organized, 

 till at the decade s end the full-fledged States 

 of the Union stretched in unbroken series three 

 thousand miles from ocean to ocean. It was 

 an imposing political fabric, and the citizen 

 who admired it from within might be pardoned 

 for insisting on tributes of admiration from 

 without. 



This national pride found something of sat 

 isfaction during the eighties in the beginnings 

 of a fleet that should conform to the standards 

 of the time. Likewise expressive of the feeling 

 was the popular approval of the policy which 

 secured to the United States, after a somewhat 

 acrimonious tilt with Germany, a substantial 

 foothold in the far-distant Samoan Islands. 

 This initial excursion into the field of extra- 

 American dependencies was stimulated by the 

 exciting competition during the preceding years 

 between Great Britain and Germany for colo 

 nial possessions. Those who had confidence in 



