8th December.
THE old settled policy of the United States was to have as little as possible to do with foreign politics. Beyond ensuring everywhere the fullest respect and protection for U. S. citizens, in which success was assured as no European Power cared to test her latent strength, the Great Republic kept as much as possible within her ring fence, warding off by the conspicuous proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine all attempts at foreign interference with the American Continent. The United States during the last two or three years, despite all her efforts to maintain her traditional policy of isolation, has been forced to become a World Power. Her manifest destiny has driven her into the great arena, and notwithstanding the opposition of the Conservatives who croaked of Imperialism and foretold the ruin of democratic institutions, she has had to take up the white man's burden. Hu-inanity obliged her to undertake the war with Spain, and though that war was only waged against Spain's colonies, it opened the eyes of Europe to the fact that there was a new Great Power to be taken into their calculations. How the Great Republic has been drawn into the ring of international politics, is shown rather strikingly in the Washington correspondence in a recent issue of of the Chicago "Record-Herald." 'I'he correspondent, Mr. Walter Wellman, says that "to show the overwhelming importance of foreign questions now pending it is only necessary to give a list of them "].—The Hay-Pauncefote treaty with Great Britain abrogating the Clayton-Bulwer treaty and providing for a neutral isthmian canal under the sole control of the United States.
"2—Proposed reciprocal trade treaties with foreign countries and the threatened European tariff question as a domestic consideration is fast merging into the broader outlook involved in the general principle of reciprocity.
"3.—Plans for the isthmian canal, a great American enterprise on foreign territory, the rivalry between the two routes, and the need of new treaties with certain isthmian countries,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.