and policy of the government, from the beginning of its history, in its relations with the Orient have been marked by a spirit of justice, forbearance, and magnanimity. Its early and its later intercourse with China, Japan, and Korea has been that of a friend interested for their welfare, ready to aid them in their efforts to attain an honorable place among the nations, and willing to recognize the embarrassments which attended those efforts.
With the acquisition of the Philippines, whether wisely or unwisely done, the United States has assumed towards those countries the new and additional relation of a neighbor. The enormous development of the resources of the United States and the increased necessity for foreign markets have strengthened the reasons which have controlled its policy in the past, and the proximity of its new possessions, with their millions of inhabitants, has brought it nearer than ever in sympathy to these peoples and their governments. The American Union has become an Asiatic power. It has new duties to discharge and enlarged interests to protect. But its record of a hundred years of honorable intercourse with that region will be a safe guide for the conduct of affairs. Its task will be well done if it shall aid in giving to the world a freer market, and to the inhabitants of the Orient the blessings of Christian civilization.
