The Greatest Nation.

Hastings Standard, Volume V, Issue 1427, 18 January 1901, Page 2

The Greatest Nation.

The United States, at something more than 76,000,000, is the greatest nation in the world. The direct reference is, of course, to numbers of civilised inhabitants. Only three others outnumber us, and in no one of them is the standard of civilisation or of individual intelligence for a moment comparable with our own. Russia proper outnumbers us by less than 20 per cent. But a nation in which probably not 5 per cent, of the people can read and write, and which has only 26,000 miles of railroads to our 190,000 or more, is scarcely to '• be compared with this. India is larger in numbers than Russia, if we regard it as a whole, and more highly civilised ; yet its intellectual and industrial potentiality is far below that of the United States, China is probably the most populous of all, but intellectually is scarcely superior to Russia, and industrially is probably inferior. Certainly its preponderance of population cannot avail to place it by the side of the United States. The other great nations which are comparable with our own in civilisation are now far outstripped by us in numbers. The United Kingdom has about 41,000,000 inhabitants, or less than 55 per cent of ours, and if we add thereto the millions of Britons and other civilised British subjects in Canada, Australasia and elsewhere throughout the Empire, tha grand total will still fall far below our figures. AustriaHungary, regarded as one nation, boasts only 4-3,000,000 people. France has only 39,0C0,00G. The German Empire is growing more rapidly than any other Continental nation, yet it has to-day all told not more than 55,000,000 inhabitants, or 27 per cent, less than the States. Italy has about Japan 45,000,000, and Spain 20,000,000. Among all these the United States with its 76.000,000 is a veritable giant. When we add that this country is increasing in population more rapidly than any of them, its primacy in that particular seems assured.—New York Tribune.