and misery attributable to the use of ardent spirits obtained at these retail liquor-saloons than to any other source.—California vs. Christiansen."

As to any question of vested right that may be supposed to have been acquired by the traffic, Mr. Thomas says:

"No one can acquire a vested right in a wrong; no one can claim property in a privilege. Privileges which have no other basis than a legislative act, can at any time be taken away by legislative act, or by judicial decision based on newer light and sounder reasoning regarding fundamental law. decision can never clash with truly just laws."

Such a

"

No new law, remember, but the same law which had been mistakenly decided by the courts, and generally acquiesced in by the people for generations."

He sums up the case of the League as follows:

"Whatever the ignorance and error of the past, science has now proved conclusively that alcohol and alcoholic liquors are poisons; are always hurtful when used as beverages, and their sale should be rigidly confined to the pharmacy, and controlled under the strict provisions of the usual laws controlling the sale of poisons. The sale of such liquors, under any other circumstances, is a violation of Natural and Common Law.

"

"

THE FIGHT AGAINST LICENSE IN BOSTON.

In the Chautauquan for March, the Rev. Addison P. Foster, D.D., writing on Boston Ideas for the Last Six Months," says: The other question which annually agitates the city is that of licensing the liquor-saloons. In years past the majority for license has been so large that the temperance people of the city have been hopeless and apathetic. But last year the majority for license unexpectedly fell to about four thousand, and there was good reason this year to hope that this majority could be completely overcome. The campaign for no-license was consequently vigorously pushed. There were temperance rallies throughout the city. There were sermons preached in many pulpits. The one temperance daily of the city struck stalwart blows. The women were indefatigable, and protested that they ought to be allowed to vote against the arch-enemy of their homes. result Boston was nearly carried for no-license, there being a majority of only eleven hundred and eighty-four votes for license."

SCIENTIFIC TEMPERANCE EDUCATION OF THE MASSES.

As a

The February number of Our Day (Boston) contains an address delivered before the National Convention of the W. C. T. U., in Denver, by Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, Life Director of the National Educational Association, upon the instruction now being given in the schools of the country on the nature and effects of alcoholic drinks and other narcotics. She tells her hearers that such instruction, in connection with the laws of hygiene and relative physiology, is now made compulsory for all pupils in all schools in thirty-six States and all the Territories of the United States, including the District of Columbia, our Military and Naval Academies, and Indian and Colored Schools. She says that the Department of Scientific Temperance Instruction has secured the revision of nearly every school text-book on physiology used in the United States.

"The old and untrue notions-mere traditions-about wine and kindred liquors, have been expunged from these books and the latest teachings of science concerning all forms of intoxicating

It

drinks, their baleful effects and poisonous character, as well as those of other narcotics, have been injected into their pages. has also added materially to the whole subject of hygiene taught in these works, and is guiding to its daily practice. More than this, it has so beautifully adapted this teaching in these manuals to the capacity of all pupils of all classes that the great majorities of to-morrow, who never go beyond the primary schools of to-day, may get these warning lessons so simply told that they can understand them.

Napoleon said, 'Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who makes their laws.' Let me teach the childhood of America through the schools, and I will not only make the laws, but guide the pen that shall write the future history of this Republic."

As to the methods of teaching this new branch, Mrs. Hunt says a consensus of opinion of eminent educators has been gathered, of which she digests the following four essentials to the faithful enforcement of a temperance education law:

"1. Well-graded books containing the truth the law requires taught, in the hands of pupils able to read, and oral instruction in other cases.

"2. A course of study of not less than three lessons a week for fourteen weeks of each school year.

"3. The same examinations or tests für promotion in this as in other branches.

These conditions constitute the 'standard' which is now guiding thousands of school-boards and teachers. The goodygoody, preachy-preachy, mushy teaching of the early days of the study is giving place to the impartation of solid truth."

Mrs. Hunt next speaks in detail of the care and labor employed in research to get the very latest phases of the "truth" that is to be taught, and of what is being done to enforce the law.

At Hope Cottage [the national headquarters of the Department at Hyde Park, Mass.], you will find a directory of every school-district in the United States, and over against these the names of local superintendents of this Department where there is one, and where there is not we are searching to find one who will work and watch for the best enforcement of these laws in the school under his care.

'The names of district and county superintendents are there, over against their districts and counties, and the Roll of Honor-the State and Territorial superintendents for every State and Territory in the nation. It is our aim to keep in close touch with all these, down to the locals, thus keeping every school in the country in the line of our observation. "A bureau of instruction for the training of teachers has already been started. We send out monthly a Circular of Advices containing a topical outline of study, the scientific authorities in support of total-abstinence teaching, etc. The national Superintendent and others are presenting the topic and method of teaching in teachers' institutes in all parts of the country."

As to the harvest already in sight she speaks most hopefully, finding increased interest on the part of school-boards, parents, teachers, and all classes of school officials, while opposition is either silenced or changed to helpfulness.

As to the immediate effects of the study on the pupils, she quotes:

"A teacher in a Pennsylvania county, where for some time the law had been well enforced, said, 'Nothing has ever been done which will strike at the vice of intemperance more certainly than the introduction of this study. We can reach the majority of parents more certainly through their children than in any other way.'

In another county marked effect was noticed among the boys, in the abandoment of the cigarette habit.

'Fathers are reported as giving up tobacco and drink habits as a result of the importunities of their children who had pursued the study."

these, with the leaders of fashion and the Church of to-morrow, these are all in the schools of to-day. "When these shall come to their majority, having all alike been taught in the schools, during the most impressive period of existence, God's law of abstinence concerning alcoholic drinks and other narcotics, then the saloon will perish.”

THE CHURCH AND TEMPERANCE.

In the pages of the February number of the Homiletic Review (New York), the Rev. James C. Fernald, writing under the above caption, sharply but kindly criticises the Church and its ministry for their neglect of plain and pressing duty in the matter of fighting the growing power of the saloon, and extending a helping hand to its victims. He says:

"The one great, fronting sin of our time is intemperance, destroying more lives and souls and homes than all others combined. Gambling and prostitution are its allies. It paves the way for them both, and nourishes them from first to last. This great, fronting sin ought to be met by the Church and the ministry with an attack equal to its own tremendousness.

One eminent minister, when asked if he preached on temperance, replied, 'Not specifically; I preach against all sin.' But it is the specific that is wanted. The sin is specific, the temptation is specific, the gilded saloon is specific, and the drunkard's grave is specific.

.

The preaching that declines to go into particulars of actual, concrete, human temptation and human sin, may be broad, may be lofty, may be eloquent, may be fashionable, but it is not scriptural.

Some honored brethren say, 'Oh, they all know where we stand.' What has that to do with it? Why preach at all, then? What is the use standing up twice a Sunday to talk on religion when they all know where you stand? Because a Christian minister is not a sign-post or a flag, but a herald. His great business is not to tell men where he stands, but to persuade them to come and stand where he does. This is just as true in regard to temperance."

After quoting a number of texts as solid foundations for temperance sermons, and calling attention to the fact that Christ, and Paul and all the great preachers that followed after him did not hesitate to preach against specific sins, he says, speaking especially of the beautiful "rescue texts":

It

Preach them in temperance mass-meetings. There is here a neglected power and a wonderful power. You gather your elegant congregation-not one manifestly exposed to this temptation and shame and the poor young man who was drunk last night, though bitterly sorry, yet cannot crowd in among all those nice people; or, if he does slip into a back seat, feels that the hopes of pardon held out to them are too good, too high for him. does not mean me,' is the spoken or unspoken feeling. But he goes to a temperance mass-meeting. Hundreds like him go. The leaders of the Christian host appeal to him and such as he—' to you is the Word of this salvation sent.' This is the Gospel translated anew for him; even for him there is hope; he comes and sets to the pledge his trembling hand; strong, good men, pure, tender-hearted women grasp his hand and look into his eyes with joy and hope, and, he starts on to a new life.

Mr. Fernald argues that temperance work must be done by the Church, not by organizations outside of it.

the Church and the ministry leading instead of following, with their hand on all the springs of power, their consecrated Christian spirit pervading all, we can have such a temperance work as this country has never seen."

Coming down to the practical part of the work at hand, the writer instances the Sunday-school as an almost untried power, and speaks of the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor as another most potent agency.

"When the Church has such a host of boys in its Sundayschool, how is it that it has so few young men in its prayermeetings and public services? Because it has not trained and fortified them against the most insidious temptation that meets them on the threshold of manhood. Public-school instruction cannot do this, because it is hygienic, and does not touch the conscience. It is a comparatively small restraint to know that a thing

is dangerous; he needs also the conviction that it is wrong. The temperance teaching of the Sunday-school must be specific enough and mighty enough to cope with the tremendous destroying influence of the world. The Sunday-school teachers cannot and will not do this unguided and unhelped. They must be massed upon it and inspired to it by the ministry and the Church, and by the societies and committees that arrange the lessons and provide the helps. That the Sunday-school has not improved its unequaled chance to fortify the young against this greatest peril of body and soul

is a neglect that will stand in history as a reproach to the Church and the Christianity of our day, and that cannot be too soon or too thoroughly repaired.

Temperance must be made fashionable, as it is not now, even in religious circles. The world never long despises what the Church devotedly maintains. She can put the cause far above a sneer or patronizing contempt."

In conclusion, Mr. Fernald says:

Finally, let us invoke the mighty power of prayer. The decadence of prayer is coincident with the present decline of temperance work, the present aggressiveness of the saloon. The Churches, with their ministry wield a moral power which, if massed against all license of the liquor traffic, would be absolutely irresistible. But the prayer and the work must be done before the election of county and municipal officers.

With the present $1,200,000,000 annual consumption of intoxicants, with the $50,000,000 annual increase, with the influx of foreigners, and with the increased toleration of liquor-drinking among church-members, this nation is sure to go down the stream of drunkenness to ruin unless the evil be checked effectively and exceeding soon. Let all our Israel cry mightily unto God to deliver this great people from this deadliest of all slavery, and He will show us, from His infinite wisdom, new ways of effectual work, and breathe into these methods of His wisdom the might of His own omnipotence."

AN ANGLICAN BISHOP'S OBSTRUCTIVE VIEWS. Apropos of the foregoing paper, a voice comes from Manitoba regarding the attitude of the Church of England upon temperance, as exemplified in that province. It appears from an editorial in the Manitoban (Winnipeg), that in a recent Synod there was moved for adoption a resolution, laid over from last year, to the effect that in the interests of Christianity and the common welfare, every effort should be made to bring about the total suppression of the liquor traffic. The mover stated that he did not know of any other evangelical body in the Dominion that had not passed a resolution on the subject, and spoke of the sweeping vote in favor of prohibition at the recent elections. An amendment was moved to substitute for the prohibition clause of the resolution a colorless one urging upon the people the "importance of the temperance question."

Canon Pentreath, supporting the original motion, referred to the recent plebiscite, showing that out of 19,000 electors, 14,000 voted for prohibition, and said the Church in Manitoba was behind that in the motherland, where the Bishop of London is one of the strongest of prohibitionists. There was so much opposition that the amendment was withdrawn and another substituted requesting the Bishop to appoint a committee to propose a constitution for a diocesan temperance association on the lines of the C. E. T. S., and to form parochial branches.

The Bishop is reported as saying, that he did not care what other bodies or other people thought; that it had to be first shown that it was right to restrict the drinking of what might be, in excess, intoxicating; that while the evils of drunkenness are continually condemned in the Bible, there is not a sentence pointing to the restriction of wine, when not taken to excess; that he considered it allowable to be a total abstainer, but that is not the highest ideal; that the Lord Jesus Christ did not abstain; that he considered the passing of a legislative act as interfering with the rightful liberty of the subject; that he did not himself abstain, though temperate. The Manitoban says:

"The motion was, as has often been done before, shunted off to a side track, where it will remain till outraged public

L

POLITICAL.

THE HAWAIIAN QUESTION.

ORRIN A. THURSTON, ex-Prime Minister of Hawaii and Chairman of the Hawaiian Annexation Commission, contributes to the North American Review for March an article in favor of annexation which is specially interesting because of the abundant historical and statistical facts that it presents.

AMERICAN POLICY IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORY.

Starting with the proposition that "the preservation of the Hawaiian Islands from the domination or control of any other great nation is essential to the welfare of the United States," Mr. Thurston argues that this is the view uniformly and consistently taken by American Presidents and statesmen from the time that Hawaii was first recognized as an independent nation.

The facts, as given by Mr. Thurston, are, briefly, as follows: The Uhited States was the first Power to recognize Hawaiian independence by treaty; this it did in 1826, under President John Quincy Adams. In 1842 President Tyler (voicing also the sentiments of Secretary Webster), said in an address to Congress that our Government sought "no exclusive control over the Hawaiian Government," and that its forbearance in this respect, under the circumstances of the very large intercourse of their citizens with the islands, would justify this Government . . in making a decided remonstrance against the adoption of an opposite policy by any other Power. In 1849 President Taylor, in his message, speaking of the islands, said that "we could in no event be indifferent to their passing under the dominion of any other Power." When the French, in pursuance of their policy of annexation in the Pacific, undertook to acquire the Hawaiian Islands, Secretary Webster said: I trust the French will not take possession, but if they do they will be dislodged, if my advice is taken, if the whole power of the Government is required to do it." In view of the French aggressions King Kamehamea III. executed a treaty ceding Hawaii to the United States, which was forwarded to Washington, but magnanimously returned afterthe crisis had passed. A full treaty of annexation was negotiated in 1854, one of the articles providing that Hawaii should come into the Union as a State; but the sudden death of the king prevented its execution. A few years later a reciprocity treaty was negotiated, but it was lost sight of in the turmoil ve; the lavery question. In 1868 President Johnson, recommending reciprocity treaty with Hawaii, said it "would be a guarantee of the good will and forbearance of all nations until the people of the islands shall of themselves, at no distant day, voluntarily apply for admission into the Union. In 1875 Gen. J. M. Schofield, then commanding the Division of the Panific, said: The time has come when we must secure forever the desire control over those islands, or let it pass into other hands." In 1876, "further, in recognition of Hawaii's importance to the United States," the reciprocity treaty was enaoed, "giving Hawaii commercial advantages such as had been granted to other country." Mr. Blaine, while Secretary of State (unde President Arthur and also under President Harrison), several times expressed himself unequivocally upon the importance of Hawaii to this country; in 1892, in answer to a tentative question as to annexation, he said: "I consider the acquisition of

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the islands is of so great importance to the United States that I cannot conceive of such a proposition being refused." President Cleveland and Secretary Bayard, in 1887, renewed the reciprocity treaty of 1876 for seven years, at the same time obtaining for the United States the exclusive right to coaling and naval privileges in the harbor of Pearl River. AMERICAN INTERESTS IN HAWAII AS SHOWN BY STATISTICS Mr. Thurston presents statistics to demonstrate that the material interests of Hawaii are really identical with those of the United States, and that the trade of the islands is an important source of profit to us, and that, altogether, our material interests there are of distinct and decided importance to our people.

We summarize Mr. Thurston's statistics.

Under the reciprocity treaty, for the period from Jan. 1, 1876 to Jan. 1, 1891, the value of the Hawaiian exports to the United States aggregated $114,705,314, and that of United States exports to Hawaii reached $47,000,000 (not counting more than $9,600,000 of specie shipped to the islands).

The duties remitted on Hawaiian goods in the United States in the same period amounted to $42,680,796; the duties remitted on United States goods in Hawaii amounted to $3,560,999. Judging from these figures the trade advantages under the treaty would seem to be largely in favor of Hawaii. But Mr. Thurston reckons that the profits of the trade leave a very decided balance on the American side. These profits he groups under the following items: Increase of sugar production; Profits on increase of exports from the United States to Hawaii; Increase in ship-building for the Hawaiian trade; Freights earned by American ships; Property in Hawaii acquired by Americans, and Premiums collected by American insurance companies. He figures out total American gains under the treaty amounting to $70,973,464-a net American profit of $28,292,668.

His statistics show that in 1875 the capital invested in the sugar business in the islands was only $2,000,000, of which $1,500,000 belonged to United States citizens; but in 1891 this capital had increased to $33,455,990, of which Americans owned $24,735,610.

In 1875 the total value of exports from the United States to Hawaii was $947,260; in 1890 it was $5,265,051.

In 1875 the domestic trade of the islands was carried on by only a few schooners and one small steamer; now it employs twenty-two steamers besides a number of sailing vessels. In the period mentioned nineteen steamers and twenty sailingvessels of American construction have been sold to Hawaii, and three steamers and twenty-three sailing-vessels for the trade between this country and Hawaii have been built.

In 1875 there was hardly any insurance business done in Hawaii. From 1876 to 1871 the business done by American insurance companies in Hawaii amounted to more than $2,000,000.

The revenues of the Hawaiian Government in 1875-6 were only $817,000; in 1889-90 they were $2,817,000.

MR. THURSTON'S CONCLUSIONS.

Mr. Thurston points out that the workings of the McKinley Act of 1890 (especially the sugar-bounty provisions of it) have been decidedly unfavorable to Hawaii. In consequence of that legislation, he says, "the price of sugar belonging to Americans in Hawaii was reduced in round numbers from $90 to $50 a ton." He adds that general depression in business is the result.

Mr. Thurston says in conclusion:

"From the standpoint of protection to American citizens and development of American industries, which is claimed to be the keystone of the present American financial policy, the present American position towards Hawaii does not seem just; for, on the point of the protection afforded the sugar industry, American capital was invested in the sugar business in Louisiana, aud, when the necessities of the occasion caused a change in the form of pro

tection, the faith was respected and the same protection afforded in another form. American capital and enterprise, acting on the same faith, pioneered an advance into 'Hawaii; built up a friendly political State, and created not only the best customer, for its population, that the United States has, but produced one of the most remarkable exhibitions of creative industrial energy in history.

The question of what the future policy of the United States towards Hawaii shall be, is no longer one in which political advantage to the United States and financial advantage to Hawaii are the only factors, as was the case in 1876; for a trade has been built up, property acquired, and interests have become vested, which make the financial effect of the future American policy of more importance to Americans than it is to Hawaiians. For every dollar that may be lost to Hawaiians by reason of that policy, Americans will lose fourfold; while if, by reason of such policy, Hawaiians are prospered, Americans will be prospered far more. In other words, American property interests in Hawaii have become so great that it is no longer a simple question of political advantage to the United States, or of charity or justice to a weak neighbor, which the authorities at Washington have to deal with; but it is a question involving the fortunes of thousands of their own flesh and blood, and millions of dollars worth of American property.

"The parting of the ways has been reached in Hawaiian and American history. They must from this point on merge into one and jointly enjoy the mutual benefits and advantages arising from such union, or the islands will be compelled, in sheer self-defense of elementary liberties and property rights, to seek other means for their preservation."

THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE SHOULD VOTE UPON ANNEXATION.

In the Engineering Magazine (New York) for March, is an article by T. Graham Gribble, late of Honolulu, in which he takes a conservative view of the question of annexation, but stoutly maintains that if there is to be annexation, the question should first be submitted to a vote of the people of Hawaii. We give a brief summary of his paper:

In the event of the annexation of the Hawaiian islands to the United States, there will not be many mourners for the monarchy, nor for the queen whose deposition is involved. Queen Liliuokolani has endeavored to dispossess the whole people of the power which has gradually devolved upon them by virtue of their superior knowledge. The attempt to place the ignorant and weak native as ruler over the white man who virtually owns the country, was an act so dangerous and foolish as to merit the forfeiture of the crown.

With a population of half a million savages at the beginning of the century, now dwindled to 35,000, and outnumbered by white people, the Sandwich islands have resisted annexation by the moral influence of American missionaries. The strictly moral influence of the missionaries has, however, become subordinated by the commercial influence, bringing with prosperity the vices of the white man. The spread of the vices of drunkenness and opium-smoking has been steadfastly resisted by the American missionaries, whose descendants to-day are the principal movers in the cause of reform, and from their positions of influence and authority in the country, are the leaders in the movement toward affiliation with the United States.

The Provisional Government has undoubted possession of the islands, but the fact that all is quiet in the islands does not prove that a majority of the people approve the abolition of the monarchy. That they would declare for annexation, if the case was clearly explained to them for their decision there can be little doubt. It is due to them, however, that they should be made to understand what benefits will accrue to them from annexation, and how their present rights will be protected. It should be made plain to the natives that the United States will carry out improvements, and so bring money into the country together with a steady growth of prosperity. The question should be put fairly before them.

The sugar industry, once so remunerative, is now barely paying its way. Wages have risen from six dollars a month to a dollar a day, and it is a question as to how annexation would affect the labor question. There is at present a large Chinese

population in the islands. Unless some special clause be inserted in the annexation treaty, these Chinamen would also be free to come over to San Francisco. At any rate, the effect of annexation would be to bring the price of labor in the islands close to the level of that of the United States. Hawaii is adapted to coolie labor. She can never flourish on the protected, high-priced system of America, because she has to compete with coolie labor in other countries. We cannot extend the beet-sugar bounty to her cane product.

on.

The Chinaman is the most suited to supplant the native. He has taken the unhealthy swamps and turned them into luxurious rice fields. He now controls the second industry of the country, and runs every other business he can set his hands There is hence very little opening for small traders and artizans, and annexation is hardly likely to encourage a rush. Hawaii would not be to the United States what it would have been to Great Britain in her scheme of imperial federation, but it will be of great strategic importance, and it is not to the ex-queen, but to the Hawaiian people that this Government should make some adequate return for this valuable naval station. If the United States will at least do as much for the islands as the Louisiana lottery proposed to do, and will so represent the case to the people, that there would be an overwhelming vote cast in favor of annexation, the transaction would be accomplished in a manner more in harmony with American ideas than if carried out with a commission not elected for that purpose by the people, however worthy in itself the commission may be.

GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS ON CONSTITUTIONAL OBJECTIONS. This article of Mr. Thurston's in the North American Review is followed by an argument, on constitutional grounds, against annexation, by George Ticknor Curtis.

"In answering the question, 'Can Hawaii be constitutionally annexed to the United States?" says Mr. Curtis, “I shall maintain the following proposition: That a foreign country cannot be incorporated into the American Union unless two things occur: First, that the foreign country is contiguous to the territory of the United States; second, that in the judgment of the people of the United States, as represented by their Government, there is a controlling public necessity for its acquisition."

Mr. Curtis argues that there is no precedent for the annexation of Hawaii. He maintains that the case of Alaska does not constitute such a precedent, for he says, "Alaska was purchased from Russia, the controlling reasons for its acquisition being, first, to prevent its annexation by any other Power, and, secondly, to secure certain rights in the Bering Sea, especially the right of catching seals." He continues:

"If I am asked why there should not a new precedent be made which will extend the scope of acquiring foreign territory by treaty so as to make it include the acquisition of a foreign country not contiguous to the United States, and not necessary to any interest of the United States, my answer would be twofold: first, that the Constitution has received such an interpretation for a long period of time as would be entirely inconsistent with the making of any such precedent; secondly, that if we acquire Hawaii by a construction of the Constitution which is contrary to the long-settled one, there will be no limit to future acquisitions of some kind. When once the greedy appetite for more territory is excited, it will go on, and will grow by what it feeds on.'

Suppose the programme of Manifest Destiny be carried out in the case of Hawaii, we shall then have Manifest Destiny substituted for the Constitution. It will not be long before we shall acquire foreign countries in different quarters of the globe. Each of these must have a chief executive ruler. He will not be likely to be selected from the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, but he will be an American.

written Constitution, or in having its meaning interpreted by precedents that have been established under it by the constituted authorities of the country? I leave this question to be answered by those whom it concerns. It is to be hoped that before anything else is done there will be a searching Congressional investigation of the circumstances attending the late revolution. It may turn out that it was fomented by interested foreigners and that the leaders of the revolution received improper assistance from the United States authorities."

AN EX-MINISTER TO HAWAII STATES THE REASONS AGAINST ANNEXATION.

The Californian Magazine for March prints a concise and pointed argument against annexation, by George W. Merrill, formerly United States Minister to Hawaii.

Mr. Merrill says that as a close observer of Hawaiian affairs for fifty years, the present annexation movement, and the representations made by those engaged in it, present nothing new to him. It has for many years, he says, been the custom of the "coterie of annexationists," at every opportunity, to appeal to American pride and fears by declaring that unless our Government acquires Hawaii some European Power will step in and become master of the situation.

Like Mr. Thurston, Mr. Merrill cites many utterances of American statesmen touching Hawaii, but he does this with a different purpose and to teach a different lesson.

Such being the attitude of the various Secretaries of State, through the several administrations of our Government, by different political parties, and announced and well known to the nations of the world, it must be conceded that in all the governmental circles it is well understood that the United States would not permit the absorption of Hawaii by any foreign Power without a fierce struggle, and after a final defeat.

'I assume, and correctly, I think, that the danger of interference in the affairs of Hawaii by any European nation is so extremely remote that to annex in order to save the islands from the greed of other Powers is entirely eliminated."

Mr. Merrill insists that the political and social conditions in the islands are so very unsatisfactory and objectionable from the American point of view that we cannot afford to burden ourselves with the government of Hawaii. He speaks particularly of the labor system and the Chinese problem. He thus describes the labor system:

"Under contracts the laborers, on arrival, are distributed by a Governmental Immigration Bureau to the various plantations for labor in the cane-fields, and for the different vocations to which they may be adapted. These labor contracts are permissible under the laws of the kingdom, which are so framed as to meet the demands of those industries (among which that of sugar is paramount) which require cheap labor, constant care, and for which organized, intelligent labor, with contingent strikes, is ill adapted. Under these laws the contracts of the imported laborers are so constructed that, when the laborer is subleased to the individual or corporation, the Government assumes the duty and becomes the power to enforce the performance of daily toil for a term of years, and compels the laborer to be worthy of his hire. These contract-labor laws may be, and doubtless are, adapted to, and demanded by, the exigencies of that particular tropical latitude; but are the people of the United States willing to forget the past, and fondly embrace even a paradise of the Pacific when the conditions are such as to demand the enforcement of labor under a system closely allied to one so lately repudiated at such a cost of lives and treasure?"

Alluding to the problem presented by the large Asiatic population, he says:

The American Congress, mindful of a growing sentiment in the United States, is endeavoring to close the avenues of the Atlantic seacoast against the influx of contract laborers, and lock the gates of the Pacific against the hordes of the Asiatic population. Understanding these facts, it is not reasonable to believe that there can exist in the United States any legitimate sentiment, fermenting the public, which would demand or even permit opening the flood-gates, and with one fell swoop absorbing into our body politic this heterogeneous population, which must, eventually, be endowed with Statehood, and all the resultant rights."

Mr. Merrill declares in conclusion that every influence which it is desirable to have in Hawaii is already possessed by the United States, or can be obtained by the natural development of the course of trade under existing political conditions.

IF

WHAT MR. GLADSTONE OUGHT TO DO. Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from Papers in Fortnightly Review, London, February.

J. FLETCHER MOULTON, Q.C.

F I were to sum up in one phrase my opinion as to the prospects of success of the present Government, I should say that they depend on the extent to which its members realize the fact that it is a campaign in which they are engaged, and not a battle.

The creation or restoration to Ireland of independent Parliamentary government in purely Irish concerns is not to be looked upon as a sacrifice or an act of generosity upon our part, but as a step in national development, in which all lovers of free institutions, whether in Great Britain or Ireland, should alike rejoice.

The power of the Imperial Parliament in those matters that remain in its hands must be preserved intact.

In certain matters the government of Ireland is to be withdrawn from the control of the Imperial Parliament, in other respects the government of Ireland is to remain in the hands of the Imperial Parliament. It follows, therefore, that for the latter class of questions Ireland should be left in its old position-fully represented in the Imperial Parliament.

JUSTIN MCCARTHY, M.P.

Let Mr. Gladstone announce, as other Prime Ministers have announced, that the House of Commons is to sit until it has come to a decision on the Home-Rule Bill, and the HomeRule Bill will be voted on without unnecessary delay.

He ought not to think-and I believe and feel convinced he will not think—of trying any feeble compromise on the Home We Rule question. We are in earnest about Home Rule. are convinced that a genuine measure of Home Rule will be for the good not only of Ireland, but for the good of England, and Scotland, and Wales as well. It would be fatal if the Liberal Government were to think of reducing the terms of its measure so as to humor the sentiments of some feeble and slinking English Liberals.

The business of the hour is to bring England and Ireland together to make Ireland feel that she is a willing partner in a great Imperial system—that she is a partner and not a bond-slave.

G. BERNARD SHAW.

Mr. Gladstone ought to do whatever he thinks right. There is the whole case in a nut-shell. I challenge any one to produce a solution more moral and more Gladstonian.

What on earth can Mr Gladstone do, with such opinions as his, except precipitate the inevitable smash? He will cling to his old Home-Rule Bill, and to his plan of reviving his Irish Land Act and Disestablishment triumphs, under pretext of gallant little Wales,” heedless of the fact that those triumphs have left the Irish land-question as unsettled, and the Irish Protestant Church as firmly saddled on the labour of the Roman Catholic Irish peasant, as ever. He will continue to make speeches which will be politely interpreted by half-Progressive papers into just what he does not mean, and he will throw us all into ecstasies from time to time by some new reading of a line in the part of the G. O. M.