The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1898-07-14
The AngIO-American Alliance.

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in Italy, and bestowed happiness and
tranquility over all the earth. The
husbandman gathered in peace the fruits
of his labour, and the fields smiled with
plenteous harvests. The liberal arts
were sedulously cultivated and every
home was the abode of innocence. Com
pairing this blissful state with their own
degenerate rule of blood and iron, in
which all the vices had supplanted virtue,
they have handed it down to lis as "The
Golden Age" which, they deplored,
could never come again.
This retrospective fable however, of
Pagan writers, the Hebrew Prophet saw
as a future reality. In his vision, the
God Of Peace was to take the place of the
heather deity, land to teach us of His
ways. And He shall judge among the
nations and shall rebuke many people
and they shall beat their swords into
ploughshares, and their spears into prun-
ing books: nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more
1t is possible that this glowing proph-
esy of Isaiah, although delivered twenty
SIX centuries ago, may yet be fulfilled,
but not, as he imagined, through religious
influence. No more potential personality
than Jesus Christ has ever appeared, yet
nineteen centuries of His teaching have
done little or nothing to suppress war,
even among His professed followers.
Age after age the earth has been drenched
with the blood of Christians, slain by their
brethren: and those who bore His name
have at such times been animated by the
hatreds and ferocity of heather savages.
The increased intelligence and accumulat-
ed knowledge of the most civilized nations
have been exercised in developing greater
means of destruction, and the fruits of
every industry and the lives of hapless
millions have been squandered in wanton
or needless wars. At the present moment
Europe is an armed camp ready for
slaughter Of her sixty million men
twelve millions are trained soldiers. And
the New World has recently entered on
the fatal career of the Old. But a remote
| and comparatively insignificant contest
| is sufficient to dslocate the delicate social
machinery of every civilized state, and
dilatory contest carries famine 10 the
hearths OF the poor thousands of miles
from the conflict. In various countries in
both hemispheres, starving men and
women are rioting for bread what they
really want is peace.
Can nothing be done, then, to make
war more difficult? Is the Golden Age to
be merely poetic dream never to be in
any degree realized? We trust not For.
II we mistake not the first faint streak
OF the brighter dawn is breaking. In
both the Old and the New World men of
clear heads and generous hearts are look
ing forward to confederation of The
English speaking peoples. And the slight
est consideration of the matter must con-
vince every unprecedented mind that the
American Alliance, based upon sound,
equitable, and permanent principles, will
lay the foundation of new era. one
which, perchance, may be crowned by
universal and perennial peace.
America is only a younger England,
moving in wider range with freer step.
Excepting the immigrants of alien tongues.
her people have the same blood and tradi-
tlons the same literature and habits, the
same proud history and aims, as the
mother country. In religion. in political
and municipal freedom, in inventive
genius and commercial and industrial
eagerness, they are alike. Great Britain's
purchases from the United States from
April 30th, 1897, to April 30th, 1898,
amounted to $4,000, 900, or nearly
one half of the total American exports.
in other words, almost as much as was
purchased by all the rest of the world.
Her Colonies and India purchased in the
preceding year II per cent. Thus about
60 per cent of their exports We're bought
by Great Britain and other parts of the
British Empire. AS the balance of trade
is very largely in their favour, the diff
ference provides them with the means of
making cash investments in any part of
the world, and of purchasing in other
countries, if need be, beyond the amount
of their exports to them. Thus their i'm
mense commerce and vast wealth, distrib-
uted throughout the earth, give England
and the United States common aim
the welfare and prosperity of all nations.
They are therefore eminently qualified to
become the joint repositories of peace and
guarantors of the worlds best interests.
Great Britain and the United States
possess together one half of the whole
habitable part of the globe, and nearly
one third of all it's inhabitants. OF the
latter about one hundred and ten
millions are of European blood, and of
hundred millions of these the English
language is their mother tongue.
Their commercial shipping greatly ex-
ceeds that of all the rest of the world
mi