E.—GEOGRAPHY, 129 
and since the close of the recent war this citadel of the Empire, the 
home of two-thirds of the white population, has been more exposed to 
attack from the Continent than at any previous time during the last eight 
hundred years. 
The Suez Canal, where we have the principal control, is the gateway 
between the railway termini of Europe, the greatest manufacturing 
centre of the world, and those of the monsoon region of Asia, the greatest 
centre of population. It is also on the shortest route between the rail- 
ways of North America and India. 
The commercial and strategic importance of Singapore as an Inter- 
mediate Position between India and the Far East is enhanced by the 
circumstance that railway communication between them is debarred by 
the greatest mountain system in the world. 
Hong Kong, at the chief gateway of Southern China, is typical of 
British maritime stations both in its Intermediate Position and in the 
facilities provided for the ships of other nations, which swell the vast 
tonnage entered and cleared at the port. 
How far-reaching is the effect of our Intermediate Position is re- 
vealed by the important but little recognised fact that it is the British 
naval stations which would, if available, provide America with the 
best line for reinforcement of the Philippines, the Achilles’ heel of the 
Republic. The distance of Manila from the naval shipbuilding yards of 
the United States is almost exactly the same by Suez and Panama, but 
the Pacific connection has never been good owing to the great distance 
between stations, and is now worse than before the Great War on 
account of the island mandates acquired by the Japanese. The relation 
of Port Said and Singapore to America and the Philippines is only one of 
many cases in which our position is intermediate between the home and 
Colonial possessions of a white nation. Thus the important French 
possession of Indo-China has to be reached from France either by way 
of the Suez Canal where we maintain a garrison, or by rounding the 
Cape where we have a national recruiting base, as well as a station of 
the Royal Navy. The true significance of our Intermediate Position 
has, however, been generally missed owing to a one-sided interpretation 
of strategical geography. An intermediate station, particularly a naval 
station, has commonly been regarded as a blocking position, a Barrier 
where freedom of movement can be interfered with. The historical fact 
is, however, that the harbours of the British Empire have also been a 
Link between nations. In the Great War the British Empire was the 
Link of the Allied and Associated Powers, and its geographical position 
is unequalled for making a benevolent alliance effective or checkmating 
the action of an alliance formed with a sinister purpose. 
The British Empire provides in Canada the one Link between the 
European and American divisions of the white race, for public opinion 
in the United States adheres to the view that the New World, in the 
sense of North and South America, should be shut off and sheltered 
from the evils of a bad Old Europe. 
Tn Tropical Australia the British, in the exercise of their discretion, 
have set up a Barrier between the white and coloured races. Australia 
3s a land almost empty of aboriginals, which has for the most part 
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