ABSTRACT OF THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
335 
and will always serve, as the best means of communication 
between a population of 300,000,000 in Europe and 600,000,000 
in India, China, and the neighbouring countries. Plymouth, 
indeed, is especially interested in the development of the new 
routes of traffic, for instead of the stream of passengers and 
light traffic going from England by the overland route, via Brindisi, 
or other ports of the Mediterranean, and avoiding the sea so far, 
they would make this the point of embarkation and debarkation 
for the Panama Canal or Canadian -Pacific Eailway, and we 
should so far benefit. 
Whatever differences of opinion, however, there may be as to 
the commercial success of the new means of communication 
between the eastern and western portions of the world, there can 
be none as to the benefits which will be effected by them in 
bringing together more easily and more rapidly the different 
peoples of the earth. Every such endeavour is to be welcomed 
and encouraged, as facilitating not only the cheap and rapid 
exchange of commodities, but also the transit of travellers, tending 
to make the nations of the earth more known and loss foreign to 
each other. With more intimate knowledge we may hope to 
avoid causes of contention, or if not to avoid them altogether, 
to deal with them as between friends, and thus promote the 
inestimable blessings of goodwill and peace. 
