During the Napoleonic wars the flats and bars
of the German coast along the North Sea offered light vessels a great
opportunity and the pursuing warships great obstacles. A modern
motor-driven light craft will now have an enormous advantage over
destroyers or cruisers. Here, as a century ago, many an American will
find an opportunity to make a fortune.
The preoccupation of Europe with the war and the opening of the Panama
Canal will afford the United States an unrivaled opportunity to develop
trade with Canada, South America, Australia, New Zealand, India, China,
and the Far East in general. We have never bulked large in the eyes of
these countries and there has been much speculation as to the reasons
why the German succeeded so well in South America and why the Englishman
did so much business in China. Whether from sentiment or from a national
habit that prefers English goods, the English colonies have bought more
largely of the mother country than they have of us. But now that the war
has closed the German factories, called German commercial agents home,
and sent German ships racing to neutral harbors; now that the Panama
Canal brings us some thousands of miles nearer to Australia and New
Zealand than they are to London via Suez; now that England will be busy
manufacturing for Europe and will have less to sell her colonies, these
particular parts of the world will probably be compelled to look for
their manufactured goods to the United States.
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