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CAPTAIN JAMES WILSON. Ill
ties, Cape of Good Hope, Tasmania, and Cape Horn,
stretch uninterruptedly in a circuit of 15,000 to
16,000 miles. The great ocean completely floods
the immense semicircle for 24,000 miles between the
two capes, overshadowed by the Ethiopian Highlands,
the Himalayas, and the Andes. Over the Indian or
western section of this great oceanic hemisphere Great
Britain has long held the chief supremacy, for the good
of humanity, as well as of its own subjects, and the
Americans have been voluntarily associated with it
in the civilizing work. Over the Pacific or eastern
section, also, Great Britain has hitherto wielded the
foremost influence, keeping the door open for all, alike
by its Australasian colonies, its New Guinea and
Borneo interests, its Fiji colony, its New Hebrides'
Scots Missions, and, above all, its position in China
ever since the old East India Company began the task
of opening the far east of Asia to the world. From
the other side of the Pacific Ocean the Dominion of
Canada commands the ocean highway and guards the
shortest international route that commerce can follow,
developing by railways and steamers a splendid future.
The Siberian Railway, nearly approaching completion,
following the personal study on the spot by the young
Czar, has given Russia a new point of vantage in the
north-east. The rise of Japan, shattering the ex-
clusiveness of China, has revealed the hopelessness,
of its dynasty, and further opened up the trade of its
four hundred millions. Germany has struck in, and
France is pushing up from the south-east. The parti-