VENEZUELA AND AFTER 313 



secrecy the verge of war, was incomprehensi 

 ble; that so grave a situation should be due 

 to an obscure boundary dispute in one of the 

 least important fragments of the empire, seemed 

 grotesquely beyond the limits of belief. Some 

 voices from the lurking-places of ancient Tory 

 ism were shrill with resentment and defiance 

 toward the new display of Yankee insolence; 

 but the great volume of opinion sounded the 

 note of amazed regret that tension had arisen, 

 and of eager confidence that its causes could be 

 removed. While responsible politicians were 

 appropriately reticent, men of light and leading 

 in other fields pronounced with emphasis and 

 iteration that war between the two great Eng 

 lish-speaking nations was unthinkable. Au 

 thors, journalists, ministers of the Gospel, and 

 business men demanded that a peaceful way 

 out of the threatening difficulty should be 

 promptly found. The enormous development 

 in means of communication and thence in per 

 sonal relationships between the two peoples 

 made powerfully for amity. Where in the days 

 of the Trent affair intimacies between English 

 men and Americans were numbered by dozens, 

 thousands and myriads existed in 1896. Across 

 the dividing Atlantic, therefore, sped by mail 



