LETTER TO THE EDITOR.
CONTRASTED CONTINENTS.
[TO TIM EDITOR OF THR " SPICTALTOR."]
SIR,—The writer of " Day-Dreaming in Politics," in the Spectator of November 19th, told his geographical reveries; allow me to tell mine. They are that the Rhine took its rise in Russia, and that its valley was a broad and fertile one ; and I picture to myself the civilisation that would have resulted; for society in all ages conforms itself to emphatic geographical facts. Europe is like a bowl turned upside down with its apex in the centre, from which radiate the great rivers,—the Rhine to the north, the Rhone to the south, the Danube to the east, and the Po to the Adriatic. There is no confluence
of these streams, and-
" Mountains interposed Make enemies of mankind, That else like kindred drops Had mingled into one."
In all the centuries' religion diplomacy and force have failed to unify the peoples living around the base of the Alps, which are segregated by the act of Nature. How contrasted is the physical make-up of the North American continent. There the (metaphysical) bowl is turned heavenwards to receive and fuse whatever comes within its rims,—these rime consisting of the Alleghany range on the east and the Rockies on the west. Tne great calcareous plain (extending about fifteen hundred miles from east to west and fifteen hundred miles from north to south), fertile, rich in minerals and salubrious, slopes to the south, and is watered with rivers, all affluents of the Mississippi. These streams are navigable for fifteen thousand miles during low water and twenty-five thousand miles during a high stage ; and thus the products of the varied climates of this central basin of the continent are cheaply interchanged.
My dream is that what Europe might have been if her great rivers had been confluent, that the United States will be. The Union of the States is indissoluble because it is enforced by Nature. In this valley resides a body of in telli- gent and able men, who will dominate and hold in political union with them the mountain region and the Atlantic and Pacific slopes. They have one speech and no barriers to the fullest interchange of ideas and commodities ; they have a purely industrial civilisation, and yet no hostile soldier will ever set foot in this valley. One great war, it is true, had to be fought to throw off the last anachronism that bound this people ; and the North-West (largely settled by freedom- loving Germans, exiled in 18491 determined that no alien nation should hold the mouth of their great river. These Americans will make mistakes, will try experiments, but in their ex- pressive phrase "you. may bank your bottom dollar" on their remaining a united people.—I am, Sir, &c., [There is not a hill between the Ural and Hamburg. Do Germans and Slays, therefore, love each other ? Where is the physical barrier between Belfast and Cork ?—ED. Spectator.]
Previous page
