CONCLUSION 367 



accessible to the poor, began the transfer of 

 the land of Ireland from the aristocracy to the 

 Irish tenant farmers. In the United States 

 it raised four millions of negroes from chattel 

 slavery to civil and political equality with their 

 former masters. In Australia and British Amer 

 ica it dominated in every respect the great 

 expansion of these communities that charac 

 terized the period. The Dominion of Canada 

 was established, to parallel on the north of the 

 United States the development of free institu 

 tions across the continent. With whatever 

 disparity of population and resources, the new 

 Dominion exhibited as distinctly as its great 

 neighbor the qualities of a progressive, inde 

 pendent, and self-sufficient democracy. 



Our fourth period opens with friction be 

 tween the two neighbors in North America. 

 Both peoples were in the course of marvellous 

 internal development. The two oceans were 

 bound together by railways and the vast in 

 terior spaces of the continent were becoming 

 peopled and prosperous on both sides of the 

 astronomical line that alone marked them off 

 as distinct. Along all the thousands of miles 

 of this line no incident occurred to arouse the 

 concern of the governments, but the tide-water 



