Page:Anglo-American relations during the Spanish-American war (IA abz5883.0001.001.umich.edu).pdf/37

Rh be confronted at any moment with a combination of the Great Powers; second, that it was her first duty to draw all parts of her empire closer together and to infuse into them a spirit of united and imperial patriotism; third, that it was her next duty to establish and maintain bonds of permanent amity with her kinsmen across the Atlantic. If this scheme could have been executed and a definite alliance been formed between the British Empire and the United States it would have given to the English speaking countries the balance of world power, and, at the same time, it might have nullified the two European alliances and restricted the German and Russian policies of colonial and commercial expansion.

While the two great European alliances were assuming definite organization, a new power appeared in international polities. By 1890 the United States, a western nation hitherto unrecognized as a force in world polities, had come to be openly involved in the Far East. This situation which had been developing for a century had come about so gradually and so naturally that the majority of the people of the nation were generally unaware of either its growth or its existence. It had come as the normal result of the expansion of its industry and commerce. There were four different spheres around which this trade had developed: the Hawaiian Islands which were in the path of trade between the United States and China; Japan which was both an objective in itself and in direct line with China; and Samoa which was in the path of trade both between the United States and Australia, and