58 HEEEDITY. 



international law, which already begins to be codi- 

 fied, would advance to new details and enlarged 

 honor. After these earlier and smaller strands should 

 have been tied, there might come a day when the 

 question would be raised, whether all ports of this 

 alliance should not be open to free trade. Having 

 once adopted arbitration as an international law, 

 shall Great Britain and the United States treat each 

 other as enemies in trade, although friends in poli- 

 tics ? There is much to be said against free trade ; 

 but probably an English-speaking alliance would at 

 last drift into it. What inspiritment would come to 

 commerce with free trade among all English-speak- 

 ing peoples in the whole world ! [Applause.] 

 What encouragement would come to all friends of 

 peace if commerce were to be made a missionary for 

 peace, not only in England, but in Australia, and in 

 America as well ! If the Anglo-American alliance 

 of the possible future were to become, in the inter- 

 ests of commerce, a missionary of peace in all seas, 

 it surely would be the same in all continents. Our 

 ocean lines of transit are now so connected with the 

 railways and telegraphs, that an alliance able to 

 manage the seas would also need to assert its 

 power over many large lines of railway transit ; and 

 so, little by little, commerce, after managing the 

 water, would manage the land in the interest of 

 peace. 



How much power would there be behind such an 

 alliance? What would be the strength of its 

 numbers ? We have in Great Britain forty millions 



