The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1891-03-05
A GREAT CONFEDERATION.
Industrial and Commercial Devel-
opment the Problem for States
men to Solve.
The Era Of Warriors Gone and It's
Return Not at all Prob
able.
FORCES Of a Nation of More Consequence
Than Its Cannon-A Great English
Zollvcrein.

The practical side of modern statesman
ship is shown by its attention to industrial
and commercial development. To that in
terest all others are subsidiary or pivotal.
The glory age is going into Libraries. mag
netic politics and military bureaus. The
commercial and economic necessities of ma
lions are slowly tightening the thumb
screw on old Mars. and the old frenzy of
t;nsel and trappings is being diverted into
political parades, military exhibits and the
dry goods display of clubs, aocieties and
civic grandees, says the Age of Steel. One
by one the hand of time il taking in the
red rags Of Msus and wiping the name of
so-called heroes from the slate of time.
George Stephenson survives the marshals of
Napoleon; Livingstone is greater than Han
nibal; Stanley overshaaows Pompey;
Edison will be a memory when the
Gntling gun will sell for old
metal, and glorious old Bessemer.
with his steel rails crossing a hemisphere,
will be q grateful warmth on the page of
history when the genius of torpedoes and
dynamite tubes will be an old zone in the
shambles of history. The glory of conquest
is losing its charm and the wooden legs ut n
peusion office are tremendously practical
regarding the heroes of chivalry. 1t is
shaking the sawdust out of en- old idol
pretty freely and perhaps none too soon.
The industries of nations are their aristoc-
racies. and other resources their rulers. 1t
is. we know, confuscdly vulgar and intensely
den. ocratic that such common stuff as iron
and steel corn. cotton and coal, and tho In
terchances of commerce, be they c~ocoanrts,
nutmegs or tish-hooks, should slowly but
surely take the spurs off the old dragon.
and make the fosges of a nation count
for more than its cannon. Look
whore We may in history, review its mon
uments and read it's tablets, and the fact
that peace is gaining greater victo-
ries than war. 49,, by law as sure AS That
of orayitatipn, making the industrial con-
Germs of the world of more moment than
its military discoveries. This is az We
would expect with Il divine volltlon at the
back of history and greater destiny for
humanity than m1ncemeat.
The reciprocity crack in the wall of pro-
lection ia coincident with the movement we
have named. Ii has in this case taken the
Panama route. and will without a doubt be
of unreasonable importance. 1t will,
however, have it's back-set IN race traits
and character. They are not likely to make
q very harmonious amalgeun. 1t is geogra-
rhy and not affinity that makes a closer re-
lationship with the austral republics a ma
tioual desideratum. The historian of the
next century will simply record the fact that
the austral apple fell INTO the American bas-
ket by the virtue of proximity, as was an
ticipated but never annouucetb by the solons
of '91. But be this as At may, the
commercial confederacy yet to be consum-
mated will be on the basis of a common
race-type. Il common language, q common
code of equity, q common commercial am
bition, and a common of the
strategic points of Il wotld-encirclilg cpm-
merce. This confederacy will be NO less
than the commercial union of oil the Eng
lish speaking people oil the globe. The
prestige of the ancestral type will be merged
in it's successors. The same courage;i the
same enterprises; the same sworn fealty to
law, and the same unbroken unit of reSis-
lance to the dominance of any other nation
in law, creed or morals: the migration of
British capital this aide the Atlantic: the
uncsasing productiveness of populations;
the grip on an empire which, i'll "A CONNER
cial sense, holds the key of future trade
all make an ultimate unity Il matter of
economic necessity.
We may add to this the certain advance
of Aslatic civilizations in mechanical
knowledge, freedom in government and in
industrial and commercial ambitions-to
these the inevitable growth of the Russ and
Slav. and the Monaghan luminary not yet
over ti.e temples of Pekin. and if there is
any other confederation on earth capable
of maintaining its independently and lead
ership, it is only in the direction of the
coming confederation of all Elglish-speak-
ing peoples. Gen. Grant foresaw this COM
mercial necessity, and in one of his few but
famous speeches said that such q aonfeder-
alton would be one of the ambitions of the
future. We SO anticipate the true solution
OF the most profound of all modern or an
ciert movements-the migration and domi-
nance of the Anglo or Celto-Saxon race,
and IN such a we see
a perpetuation of law, a continuance
of human freedom, the dominance
Of OF H TIM xo1id. 1 xn .t shs pshfp
pointing that way, in co%ntradistinc-
ton to the sh%ort-sighted jingoism OF tenn
porary political puppets, is in line will one
of the grandest issues ever yet involved in
the story of civilization and m
We cannot reinforce our statement with o
more emphatic and authoritative d~eclara-
ton than that of Edward Atkinson, in his
famous paper on 1.-The Future Sites of the
Principal Iron Production of the World"
"Finallv it may DO remarked that it is
not only matter Of the utmost personal
man who has attained a little public influ-
enoe, to use it in such a way as to hasten the
time when the English speaking people of
every land and of every cline may be united
in one great 'Zollverein' or treaty for the free
exchange of their services SO az to increase
their power to the utmost. They may then
dominate the world in the pursuits of
peace and plenty. and may COM
pei other states and nations
to disarm which are still bound to
the misconception which belonged to the
childhood of nations, that is it,
self a state of war, and that it promotes
antagonism. This medieval theory of
trade is still a mark of the mediocrity of
intelligence and lack of true political edu-
cation which is displayed by legislators,
who even now propose to regulate genera
prices and to raise the rate of wages by
act of congress-a proposition actually
made by a senator III q debate but a few
weeks since! Under such q treaty of mu-
tual service the control of the commerce of
the word would be SO complete on The part
of the English speaking people that Other
nations would be incapable of bearing the
load of their great armies, and would be
compelled to disband them and permit
their navies to rust away in order that they
might live"