Mr. Firth goes to seek them, and the amazing progress of half a century shows these elements to be starting into life. Mr. Firth is an Australian colonist and a man of the future. But we may be allowed to cast a retrospective glance on the rapid evolution of a nation which has passed under our own eyes. We have seen a population of thirteen millions in 1830 swell to nearly sixty millions in 1888. We have seen the steamer and the railway open a continent, which but a few years ago was deemed impenetrable, to hosts of immigrants and to the export of enormous produce. We have seen nine millions of strangers from the different races of Europe acclimatised and nationalised in America. Nor has the social and political aspect of the nation remained unaltered. A country which was poor, economical, and untaxed has become inordinately wealthy, burdened with prodigious debts, and an amount of taxation which renders it one of the dearest in the world. A civil war of unparalleled magnitude breaks out between its members and costs a million of lives; yet within twenty years the traces of that great contest are obliterated. Twice within a short period the chief officer of the State has been struck down by the hand of an assassin, and once the President of the United States has been impeached and acquitted. But the Union has continued to pursue its majestic course, and has escaped the curse of revolution. No men have appeared in the first rank comparable in genius and wisdom to its founders, Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Madison, and it has given comparatively few signs of the highest intellectual powers. The growth of the nation has been above all things material and mechanical, surpassing in those respects all previous human experience. But we are tempted to ask whether it is possible that the higher spiritual elements of national life, the offices of religion, the principles of public morality, the wisdom of rulers, the conscience of the people, have been or can be sustained in due pro portion to its rapid material progress. Mens agitat molem. The greatness and welfare of a nation depend not on the size of its territory or the numbers of its population, but on the Mind which permeates and rules it.

These considerations suffice to show that the causes of the actual condition of the American people and the sources of their future progress, whether for good or evil, must be sought elsewhere than in the townships of New England, where M. de Tocqueville found them. A more recent explorer, like Mr. Firth, seeks the solution of what he terms'

'American problems' in the material condition of the continent, and in a more prolonged experience of the peculiar democratic institutions of the nation. And here we first encounter the general question, whether the purely elective system, based on universal suffrage, does or does not tend to the establishment of good government, which is the end of all political organisation. The experience of the United States, and more recently that of France, returns at least a dubious answer. The uncontrolled majority of votes at elections frequently recurring does not always represent the true opinion or the true interest of the nation. Large classes stand aloof and are not represented at all. The result at the moment is arbitrary and absolute; but it is attended by an extreme mutability and reaction, fatal to a consistent system of policy. Above all, the electoral machinery is liable to be worked by means destructive of true liberty and of public integrity. On this point our author says:

'To Englishmen and English colonists American politics are a puzzle. Theoretically the American Constitution possesses every element of freedom. It claims (theoretically) to provide for the government of the people by the people. It has no reigning family, no aristocracy, no privileged classes.

'But yet, owing to various causes, this noble promise and flower of freedom is steadily developing a condition of things grievously disappointing to every well-wisher to American institutions. Two great parties-Republican and Democrat-apparently rule the destinies of the nation. The figure-head" politicians at Washington are selected by Republican or Democratic conventions. The "convention" is nominated by the "caucus," the "caucus" in its turn being nominated and controlled, in some cases, by secret irresponsible "rings," in others by "political bosses."

"The "caucus registers the decision of the "ring," or "boss." The "convention," after no end of talk and voting, obeys the commands of the "caucus," and puts out "the ticket," or list of candidates, for the election of which the people vote, or such of them as care to play a part in the farce.'

And again in an important passage :—

'The abuses and monopolies which have already taken rout in the United States, owing to the culpable indolence and apathy of large sections of its citizens, justify a similar inquiry. Indeed, intelligent Americans, who have the true welfare of their country at heart, are wellnigh unanimous in declaring their belief that, could the Founders of the American Constitution have foreseen the disastrous effects arising from the culpable indifference of so many of the possessors of the franchise, and from conferring the suffrage upon the hordes of foreigners flocking to their shores, whose previous training renders

them incapable of rightly using the privileges of freemen, they would have greatly limited the suffrage and rendered naturalisation much more difficult. The growing disbelief in the efficacy of universal suffrage in the United States is apparent, from the following extract from a recent number of an influential American newspaper :

"The American statesman who will gain the highest niche in this republican temple of ours, and who will best deserve it, will be the one who shall devise a scheme for the peaceful disfranchisement of three millions of our present voting population. Whether this can be done, and the time ever come when the legislation of this republic can be confined to the intelligent and moral classes, is more than doubtful. That, until that time comes, discord and violence will continue to prevail, no intelligent mind can doubt."

So much for the central force of popular power, on which the whole action of government rests, for it must be observed that the action of the State is determined not by the intrinsic wisdom or folly of a measure, by the right or the wrong, but by the effect it may have on the parties in the electorate which are contending for power. This circumstance renders it almost impossible for foreign governments to negotiate with success with the government of the United States, for when a question has been well and equitably adjusted by the responsible agents of the executive, the result is liable to be defeated by a party vote, and the faith of treaties is shaken by popular clamour or electoral contests. Of this we have had some recent experience, and not for the first time. It is not worth while to dwell upon an incident which might be called trivial, if it did not illustrate in a striking manner the reckless vehemence with which American statesmen may sacrifice the usages and comity of nations to gain a few votes at an election. An indiscreet private letter of the British Minister at Washington to an unknown correspondent, who appears to have deliberately practised on the good faith and courtesy of Lord Sackville, was used by the American Government of to-day to offer a foolish and wanton affront to the representative of the Queen, without any previous enquiry or explanation. Such an escapade is, to say the least of it, unprecedented in diplomatic history; and although we feel an absolute impartiality and indifference as to the success of this or that party in the United States, since both of them are apt to speculate on their antagonism to this country, we cannot regret that the trick failed, and that Mr. Cleveland and Mr. Bayard were swept incontinently from the

scene.

It deserves remark that states governed like the United States and France, at the present time, on extreme democratic

principles, become isolated: no alliance can be contracted by them with any other state, because they are without permanence, stability, and traditions. The avowed foreign policy of the United States is isolation, and the fewer points of contact they have with foreign countries the better. The French are surprised by the discovery that a democratic republic, however successful at home, may be friendless and powerless abroad. We ourselves have not altogether escaped the effects of isolation. The exorbitant policy of the late Government shook faith in our stability, and left us without a friend in Europe. To the credit of Lord Rosebery be it Isaid that he did what he could to restore confidence in the Foreign Office, and Lord Salisbury has had the skill and the good fortune to revive the best traditions of our foreign policy.

'Liberty of speech, liberty of the citizen, liberty of the Press, the election of all the magistrates and the election of nearly all the judges, have, by the culpable indolence and grievous neglect of the better portion of American citizens, gone far to result in the creation of more gigantic monopolies, in the production of more colossal fortunes, in a greater cost of living, in the existence of greater political profligacy, in a greater spirit of unrest than the world has hitherto seen in any country claiming to be free. Nay, in the development of luxury and in the extent and variety of difficult problems, incipient or actual, the United States does not lag far behind some of the European nations which may be said to be the natural homes of the rights (?) of kings and the wrongs of men.'

Some of these problems are discussed briefly by Mr. Firth, and we shall follow him in noting the most important of

them.

The abolition of slavery has removed from the list the question which appeared, fifty years ago, to be the most arduous and obscure. It has been solved in an heroic manner, and by enormous sacrifices; but the American people have nobly shaken off the stigma of the bondage of the black race. The bondage has ceased, but the black race remains. There is the fact that the States contain within their boundaries millions of men of two colours, absolutely dissimilar in their physical and mental qualities, which can never mix or become one. The Anglo-American race in America is not prolific; it increased by births in the ten years from 1870 to 1880 by 8.33 per cent. The black population on the contrary increased within the same period by 35.4 per cent., from 4,880,000 to 6,580,000. Such a ratio of increase would in no long period make the blacks equal to the whites in

number, barring the addition to the white population from the various countries of Europe. We are indebted to Mr. Firth for this very remarkable fact.

Compared with this fact the immigration of a few thousand Chinamen becomes an insignificant affair. Mr. Firth discusses it in the vehement spirit of an Australian colonist, not much, we think, to his credit. Nobody supposes that the Chinese will emigrate and settle in America or Australia with the intent to form a nation or part of a nation. They come to labour, to make money, and to go home again. The numbers that would come will be limited by the profits to be made. The true reason of the resistance to Chinese immigration is that they supply cheap labour. John Chinaman,' says Mr. Firth, is industrious, expert, obedient, inoffensive, 6 but he never can become a true colonist.' He does not aspire to be a true colonist. He works for lower wages, and he works well. A supply of labour of this kind is precisely what would most effectively promote the progress of colonies. To exclude it is to apply the protectionist doctrine in its most absurd form-the avowed object to make and keep labour and all its products dearer than they would otherwise be. But, New Zealander as he is, Mr. Firth is an incurable protectionist, and he is unable to understand that the first object of political economy and legislation ought to be not to make things dear, but to make them cheap. He seems to forget that an opening of the Chinese ports was an enormous benefit to this country, and to the colonies; and if the Chinese government consented to admit foreigners and to abandon their exclusive system, it is strange that the opposition to Chinese immigration should proceed from nations which have proclaimed the whole human race to be equal and free. In the British crown settlements, as at Singapore, and in North Borneo, the labour of the Chinese is welcomed, and no inconvenience arises from it. Elsewhere it is repudiated by democratic intolerance and the thirst for high wages. But the Chinese have the best of the argument. It is absolutely nonsense to suppose, with Mr. Firth, that large portions of the United States and the Austral'asian colonies will be overrun with vast hordes of Mongolian 'invaders, who may so change these new countries as to replace their homelike vigorous Anglo-Saxon type by a hideous developement of a Mongolian type, making these 'fair lands nothing better than Chinese colonies.' This is a remarkable instance of the extravagance to which the local passion of colonial politics may lead a sensible and liberal