The age-herald., 1898-11-12
ENORMOUS CHANGES
 IN TERRITORY
From the PIttsburg plspatch.

From the Pittsburg Dispatch.
 Leaving out of the reckoning the scrams ble of the nations for territory in Africa, the map of the world has so altered in the last three years that over 456.575 square miles of territory has changed owners and over 100. 900 people have gone with the territory to new allegiance. This area lacks about 10000 square miles of being four times the total area of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, plus the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands. The population is just about half the population of the United Kingdom and the same outlying islands. 1t is 8 territory more than twice the size of France, with a population nearly half as large. It is a population six times as large as that of the American colonies when they achieved their inde- pendence from Great Britain, and a trri- tory about equal to that of the thirteen original states. And this change has been brought about by force of arms in five years of peace, within which there has been no war in which one civilized nation was pitted against another, except our 115 days war with Spain. This is the greatest redistribution of territory and population in the same length of time which has taken place in the history of the world since the conquests of the Moslems were at their height. The three great nations which have not shared largely in this edistribution-England, Russia and Germany-have in at the end of 1t with a grand "coup" in the seizure of three Chin- csc ports, two of them the strongest for ti1ed in the empire thus laying the founda- tion for still greater combinations and permutatons of territory and population in the not remote future.
 
 Of the territory and population trans- ferred, one-fourth of the territory and considerably over half of the population has been gained by the United States. In taking possession of Hawaii. Puerto Rico, the Ladrones, the Philippines and Cuba (which for time at least will be under the American government the United States assumes control of territory as large as that of all the states of the union bor- dering on the Atlantic from the eastern border of Rhode Island to North Carolina in other words large as the combined area of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Virginia Without Cuba it Is as large as the combined area of these states, leaving out Virginia. The population is three times and a million over the combined population of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. It is nearly equal to the total population of Kentucky, Tennessee. Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas, and only four millions less than the combined population of New England, New York, New Jersey and Penn- sylvania in 1880. The territory is four times as large as the kingdom of Greece, and with population nearly five times as large.
 In the changes of the last three years two independent nations, Madagascar and Hawaii, have been wiped out. France ab- sorbed the one and the United States the other. Madagascar was nation of 22s,5OO square miles area and population of s5Oo,OOO. Hawaii had only 66l0 square miles and population of 1OO,o2O, yet the position of the islands in the middle of the Pacific rendered it a more valuable acqui- sition than Madagascar, from the point of view of military and commercial strategy. It might be argued that Hawaii was not taken by force of arms. As a matter of fact, the annexation of Hawaii was a part of the war with Spain. Honolulu having been taken by the United States a mili- tary base before the country was annexed, making the annexation necessity.
 France has seized more territory than the United States in the last three years, but that territory contained about 4000,0 900 fewer inhabitants than the territory taken by this country. The United States, France and Japan have been the nations which have gained most in territory and population and Spain, Siam and China have lost the most.
 In effect China has been the greatest loser, for the taking of Port Arthur by the Russians, of Wei-Hai-Wei by the British and of Kiao Chou by the Ger mans is the beginning of the end of China as an independent nation, and leaves her in such a state that she recently com- plained pathetically that she did not have a single fortified naval post left to which to order the warships approaching completion for her abroad. Therefore, al- though Germany, Russia and England do not figure largely in the change of the last five years in actual territory and subjects acquired, their seizure of the Chinese ports is of the greatest importance as prelude to immense acquisitions in the future. France nibbled off the southeast part of China, Japan gobbled up her outlying islands, and now Russia, England and Germany have set their teeth firmly into her flesh.