As regards the Pacific, American ambition is clear. The United States holds the Philippines at great expense of treasure and blood. She is fortifying Honolulu, with the idea of making it a naval base "stronger than Gibraltar."[1] She is cutting the Panama Canal and fortifying the entrances with the probable purpose of giving to the United States a monopoly of that gateway in time of war. With splendid audacity the American despises secrecy in regard to his future plans. In New York Naval Yard three years ago I was informed, with an amplitude of detail that was convincing, of the United States' scheme for patrolling the whole Pacific with her warships when the Canal had been finished.
Supposing, then, the United States to continue her present industrial and commercial progress; supposing her to gradually tighten her hold on the rest of the American continent; supposing her to overcome certain centrifugal forces now at work, the problem of the Pacific, should the United States decide to play a "lone hand," will be solved. It will become an American lake, probably after a terrible struggle in which the pretensions of the Yellow Races will be shattered, possibly after another fratricidal struggle in which the British possessions in the Pacific, Australia, and New Zealand, equally with Canada, will be forced to obedience.
But is there any necessity to consider the United States and the British Empire as playing mutually hostile parts in the Pacific? They have been the best of friends there in the past. They have many good reasons to remain friends in the future. A discussion as to whether the Pacific Ocean is destined to be controlled by the American or by the British Power could be reasonably ended with the query: Why not by an Anglo-Celtic union representing both?
An Anglo-Celtic alliance embracing Great Britain, the United States and the British Dominions, would settle in the best way the problem of the Pacific. No possible combination, Asiatic, European, or Asia-European, could threaten its position. But there are certain difficulties in the way, which will be discussed later. For the present, it has only to be insisted that both Powers are potential rather than actual masters of the Pacific. Neither in the case of Great Britain nor of the United States is a great Pacific force at the moment established. After her treaty with Japan, Great Britain abandoned for a while the idea of maintaining any serious naval strength in the Pacific. The warships she maintained there, on the Australian station and elsewhere, had no fighting value against modern armaments, and were kept in the Pacific as a step towards the scrap-heap. That policy has since been reversed, and the joint efforts of Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand directed towards re-establishing British Pacific naval strength. At the moment, however, the actual British naval force in the Pacific is inconsiderable, if obsolete or obsolescent vessels are ruled out of consideration. The United States also has no present naval force in the Pacific that could contest the issue with even a fraction of the Japanese navy. Clearly, too, she has no intention of attempting the organisation of a powerful Pacific Fleet separate from her Atlantic Fleet, but aims at the bolder policy of holding her interests in both oceans by one great Fleet which will use the Panama Canal to mobilise at an emergency in either.