destruction of her Armada Spain’s colossal dream of colonial empire passed away.  Against the new power Holland strove in vain, and when France acknowledged the superiority of the Briton upon the sea, she at the same time relinquished her designs upon the world.  Hampered by her feeble navy, her contest for supremacy upon the land was her last effort and with the passing of Napoleon she retired within herself to struggle with herself as best she might.  For fifty years England held undisputed sway upon the sea, controlled markets, and domineered trade, laying, during that period, the foundations of her empire.  Since then other naval powers have arisen, their attitudes bearing significantly upon the future; for they have learned that the mastery of the world belongs to the masters of the sea.

That many of the phases of this world shrinkage are pathetic, goes without question.  There is much to condemn in the rise of the economic over the imaginative spirit, much for which the energetic Philistine can never atone.  Perhaps the deepest pathos of all may be found in the spectacle of John Ruskin weeping at the profanation of the world by the vandalism of the age.  Steam launches violate the sanctity of the Venetian canals; where Xerxes bridged the Hellespont ply the filthy funnels of our modern shipping; electric cars run in the shadow of the pyramids; and it was only the other day that Lord Kitchener was in a railroad wreck near the site of ancient Luxor.  But there is always the other side.  If the economic man has defiled temples and despoiled nature, he has also preserved.  He has policed the world and parked it, reduced the dangers of life and limb, made the tenure of existence less precarious, and rendered a general relapse of society impossible.  There can never again be an intellectual holocaust, such as the burning of the Alexandrian library.  Civilizations may wax and wane, but the totality of knowledge cannot decrease.  With the possible exception of a few trade secrets, arts and sciences may be discarded, but they can never be lost.  And these things must remain true until the end of man’s time upon the earth.

Up to yesterday communication for any distance beyond the sound of the human voice or the sight of the human eye was bound up with locomotion.  A letter presupposed a carrier.  The messenger started with the message, and he could not but avail himself of the prevailing modes of travel.  If the voyage to Australia required four months, four months were required for communication; by no known means could this time be lessened.  But with the advent of the telegraph and telephone, communication and locomotion were divorced.  In a few hours, at most, there could be performed what by the old way would have required months.  In 1837 the needle telegraph was invented, and nine years later the Electric Telegraph Company was formed for the purpose of bringing it into general use.  Government postal systems also came into being, later to consolidate into an international union and to group the nations of the earth into a local neighbourhood.  The effects of all this are obvious, and no fitter illustration may be presented than the fact that to-day, in the matter of communication, the Klondike is virtually nearer to Boston than was Bunker Hill in the time of Warren.