12 



MEXICO, CENTEAL AMERICA, WEST INDIES. 



strong feeling has sprung up for a more intimate alliance of all Englis^li- speaking 

 communities^ in fact, for the constitution of a " Greater Britain " encircling the 

 globe — in the same spirit an " Ibero- American " society has been founded for the 

 formation of a league between all Spanish- speaking states. At the first congress 

 held by this association in the city of Mexico in 1887, as many as nineteen states 

 were represented by their delegates. Belt's prophecy, that in a few centuries 

 English would be the mother-tongue of all Americans, from the Frozen Isles of 

 the great north to the Land of Fire, does not seem likely to be fulfilled. Jules 

 Leclercq has even ventured to assert that in a short time all Mexico will be 

 English. But this is a delusion, as shown, for instance, by the extreme slowness 



Fig. 6. — Caxals and Routes aceoss the IsTrnJUSES. 

 Scale 1 : 20,000,CiOO. 



Eailways. 



Pinjeoted 

 Railways. 



Canal in 

 progress. 



Pnijected 

 Canal. 



with which the process of assimilation is proceeding in New Mexico, a territory 

 where, at the time of the annexation to the United States, over forty years ago, 

 there were only fifty thousand people of Spanish speech. 



Sooner or later, the region of the isthmuses must occupy a commercial position 

 of the first importance, for here will assuredly one day be traced the great line of 

 inter-communication between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Accordingly, the 

 Americans might well suspect the European powers of the intention of seizing one 

 or other of these passages. It was, in fact, the fear of such a contingency that 

 inspired the " Monroe doctrine " of " America for the Americans," thereb}^ for- 

 mally reserving the possession of the isthmuses for the states of the New World. 



