APPENDIX.

"In the cross of Christ I glory";

and its author proceeded to glory in the cross of the Prince of Peace by making war on the Chinese, although the governor, Yeh, had sent back all the men whose return was demanded by Mr. Parkes.

Mr. Justin McCarthy, in his "History of our own Times," says, "During the whole business Sir John Bowring contrived to keep himself almost invariably in the wrong; and, even where his claim happened to be in itself good, he managed to assert it in a manner at once untimely, imprudent, and indecent."

One of the highest legal authorities in England, Lord Lyndhurst, declared Sir John Bowring's action, and that ofthe British authorities who aided him, to be unjustifiable on any principle either of law or reason; and Mr. Cobden, himself an old friend of Sir John Bowring, moved in the House of Commons that "the papers which have been laid upon the table fail to establish satisfactory grounds for the violent measures resorted to at Canton in the late affair of the 'Arrow.'"

Nearly all the best men in the House of Commons—Gladstone, Roundell Palmer, Sydney Herbert, Milner Gibson, Sir Frederick Thesiger, as well as many of the chief Tories—supported Mr. Cobden; and the vote of censure was carried against Lord Palmerston's government by 263 to 247. But Lord Palmerston, then the hero of the Evangelical Church party,—"Palmerston, the true Protestant," "Palmerston, the only Christian Prime Minister,"—knew exactly the strength of British Christianity when it interfered with the sale of British beer, or Indian opium, or Manchester cotton, and appealed to the shop-keeper instincts of the British people. He dissolved Parliament; and Cobden, Bright, Milner Gibson, W.J. Fox, Layard, and many others were left without seats. Manchester rejected John Bright because he had spoken in the interests of peace and honor, and condemned one of the most cowardly, brutal, and unprovoked wars of the century.

We see the same cause at work in Ireland. One British bishop, Dr. Thirlwall, of St. David's, had the manliness to favor Mr. Gladstone's bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church; but most of them acted in this matter in direct opposition to the teachings of Him whom they profess to worship as their God. Mr. John Bright warned the Lords that, by throwing themselves athwart the national course, they might meet with "accidents not pleasant to think of"; and there is no doubt that the warning had its effect. And even now I do not think that the people of Ireland will ever get from the House of Lords that measure of right which even the House of Commons has unwillinglyand grudgingly, accorded to them, unless the Irishmen of America come to their aid in a more effective manner than they have ever yet done.

Newfoundland, unlike Ireland, has few friends in the United States, and therefore is wholly at England's mercy. What it suffered in the past I have already told. Let us see how England has treated it in the last few years.

It was from Lord Palmerston, of all men, that the Newfoundlander might hope for redress.

He had said in the Don Pacifico case, "As the Roman in the days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say, 'Civis Romanus sum,' so also a British subject, in whatever land he be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England shall protect him against injustice and wrong."

Surely, the 200,000 Newfoundlanders had more right to expect that Lord Palmerston would maintain this principle in their defence than the extortionate Portuguese Jew or the Chinese pirates who were taken from the Lorcha "Arrow."

And Lord Palmerston had the best opportunity of helping the Newfoundlander; for he was the intimate friend of Louis Napoleon and Persigny. By his approbation of Louis Napoleon'scoup d'étathe became the creator of the Anglo-French Alliance; and, since this alliance was a matter of life and death to the Second Empire, he might have used the opportunity, after the Crimean War, of exercising such pressure upon Louis Napoleon as to secure justice to Newfoundland.

But he neglected it, and thereby, he lost the opportunity of strengthening the position of England and Canada towards the United States at the time of the "Trent" and "Alabama" affairs.

We may be glad of this; but, from a British point of view, it was not merely an injustice to Newfoundland, but also a political blunder.

One would suppose that, simply as a matter of imperialpolicy, the British government would long ago have built a railroad across this island, in order to have the quickest possible connection with its Canadian dependency. The Fenian raids into Canada, the Confederate raids from Canada, the Red River Rebellion, the possibility of war arising from the "Trent" incident, the necessity of securing a rapid means of communication with the Pacific, should all, on purely strategic grounds, have induced the British government to establish a safe naval station in some southern harbor of Newfoundland, with a railroad communication to the west shores of the island.

But the government left the Newfoundlanders, impoverished by the consequences of British misrule, to take the initiative; and it was not until 1878 that they were able to do anything. Then the Hon. William V. Whiteway induced the Newfoundland government to offer an annual subsidy of $120,000 per annum and liberal grants of crown lands to any company which would construct and operate a railway across Newfoundland, connecting by steamers with Britain or Ireland on the one hand, and the Intercolonial and Canadian lines on the other. Of the immense advantage of such a line to Great Britain, constructed as it would be at the expense of Newfoundland, I need hardly speak, and every patriotic ministry would have greeted the proposal with enthusiasm; but, most unfortunately both for England and for Newfoundland, the Premier was Mr. Disraeli, and the Foreign Secretary Lord Salisbury. What Lord Salisbury was may be learned from Mr. James G. Blaine's account of his speeches and conduct as Lord Robert Cecil in 1862. I know of no sermon preached within the last thirty years that inculcates a more necessary moral and religious lesson for Lords and Commons and parsons of England than that taught in the twentieth chapter of the Hon. James G. Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress." From it we may learn, first of all, that the right of secession of Ireland or Newfoundland from the British empire is already virtuallyconceded by many of the Tory leaders of England. Mr. Blaine gives us in that chapter a list of twenty-four members of the British House of Commons, ten members of the British Peerage, one admiral, one vice-admiral, one captain, one colonel, one lieutenant-colonel, and a host of knights and baronets who subscribed money to the Confederate Cotton Loan, while he gives extracts from the speeches of Bernal Osborne, Lord John Russell, Lord Palmerston, Mr. Gregory, M.P., Mr. G.W. Bentinck, M.P., Lord Robert Cecil, now Marquis of Salisbury, M. Lindsy, M.P., Lord Campbell, Earl Malmesbury, Mr. Laird, M.P. (the builder of the "Alabama" and the rebel rams), Mr. Horsman, M.P. for Stroud, the Marquis of Clanricarde (a name familiar to all Irishmen from its connection with the evictions), Mr. Peacocke, M.P., Mr. Clifforde, M.P., Mr. Haliburton, M.P., Lord Robert Montague, Sir James Ferguson, the Earl of Donoughmore, Mr. Alderman Rose, Lord Brougham, and the Right Hon. William Ewart Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, breathing hostility to the cause of the Union States and friendship for the slaveholder; while the few honest men in the House of Commons, who, like John Bright, Foster, Charles Villiers, Milner Gibson, and Cobden, spoke for the cause of the North, were reviled, not alone by their colleagues, but even by many of their constituents, because they defended the side of liberty, truth, and justice.

Why should we withhold from the just cause of Ireland and Newfoundland the sympathy which England gave to the secessionist slaveholder?

Of course the LondonTimeswas on the slaveholder's side. On the last day of December, 1864, it said that "Mr. Seward and other teachers and flatterers of the multitude still affect to anticipate the early restoration of the Union"; and in three months from that date the rebels were conquered.

It was on March 7, 1862, that Lord Robert Cecil said inParliament: "The plain fact is that the Northern States of America can never be our sure friends, because we are rivals politically, rivals commercially. We aspire to the same position. We both aspire to the government of the seas. We are both manufacturing people, and, in every port as well as at every court we are rivals of each other.... With the Southern States the case is entirely reversed. The people are an agricultural people. They furnish the raw material of our industry, and they consume the products which we make from it. With them, therefore, every interest must lead us to cultivate friendly relations; and we have seen that, when the war began, they at once recurred to England as their natural ally."

It was easy enough for the most cowardly man, in Lord Robert Cecil's position, to use such words, even were he naught more than a lath painted over to imitate steel. Even if England is ruined, he is safe. But it was quite another matter when, sixteen years later, the poor Newfoundlander applied to him and Disraeli-Beaconsfield for the right to build a railroad.

Russia had just declared her intention of demolishing the last unpleasant clause in the treaty forced upon her by France and England at the close of the Crimean War; and Russia was a more dangerous foe than the Northern States. And the story of the Beaconsfield-Salisbury connection with that affair excited the laughter of all other diplomatists in Europe.

They pretended to have brought peace with honor from the Conference of Berlin. But what did the rest of Europe think about it?

It made the Christian populations of the South believe that Russia was their especial friend, and their enemies were England and the unspeakable Turk; it strengthened among the Greeks the impression already made by Palmerston's action in the Don Pacifico case,—that France was their friend, and England their enemy; and it created everywherethe impression that the Congress was a theatrical piece of business, merely enacted as a pageant on the Berlin stage.

England has not yet paid the full penalty of her stupid acquiescence in the rule of Disraeli and Salisbury; and it will cost her yet far more than she paid for the results of Tory infamy and Whig senility in the "Alabama" business, for she has enemies to deal with who are far less generous and far slyer than the people of the United States. It was under the Beaconsfield-Salisbury cabinet that Sir Bartle Frere made that infamous declaration of war against Cetewayo which led to the defeat of Lord Chelmsford's British troops by a lot of half-naked savages. It was under this ministry that the stupid expedition to Afghanistan led to the massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the members of his staff. It was under this ministry that the soul-stirring anthem of Thompson,

"When Britain first at Heaven's command,"

was superseded by the rant of the Tory street-walker,—

"We don't want to fight;But, by jingo, if we do,We've got the ships, we've got the men,We've got the money, too."

And the manner in which the government used the ships, the men, and the money, proved that there was one thing needful which the Jingoes had not got; and that is manhood.

To this Jingo ministry it was, then, that Sir William V. Whiteway had to apply for the imperial sanction to the railway; and sanction wasrefused. For what reason? Thepretended reasonwas that the western terminus of the line at Bay St. George would be on that part of the coast affected by the French treaty rights. It may be open to doubt whether the French claims which interfered with the establishment of a railroad terminus at Bay St. Georgewere just or not; but there is not the slightest doubt that Lord Palmerston, in his note of July 10, 1838, to Count Sebastiani, had maintained that they were not justified, and that the Tories were and are of the same opinion.

But when a whole colony of Englishmen were wronged according to the statements both of Palmerston and Salisbury, the Beaconsfield-Salisbury administrationdarenot maintain the rights of these Englishmen against the French. That is the courage and the bravery of British Jingoism, which bullies weak China and little Greece in support of a Sir John Bowring or Don Pacifico, but dares not maintain an Englishman's rights against the French republic.

The question might easily have been settled without offending France by making Port aux Basques, which is less than eighty miles south-west of Bay St. George and beyond the French treaty limits, the terminus of the line.

There must, then, have been some concealed reason behind the pretended one. It is absolutely certain that there were two influences at work in London which were directly antagonistic to the true interest both of Great Britain and Newfoundland. One was that of the Canadian party, who are determined to boycott every scheme that would make any Newfoundland port a rival of Halifax. The other is the British, or mercantile, party, who for two hundred years past have consistently and successfully opposed the introduction of any industry into the island that would enable the fishermen to escape from their present bondage.

If either Beaconsfield or Salisbury had really cared for England's interests, they must have foreseen that, even if they were willing to sacrifice Newfoundland, the position they took in this matter must in the highest degree be damaging to the European prestige of Great Britain. When republican France was threatened by all the tyrants of Europe, the terrible Danton said, "Il nous faut de l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace."To-day the Frenchman requires no Danton to teach him the lesson; for the extraordinary confession of weakness made by the Jingo government of 1878 in refusing to sanction a line that could have been built without touching the French shore question at all was a direct encouragement to the French to persevere in that policy which they have since so successfully pursued in Madagascar, in Siam, in Africa, and in Newfoundland.

No matter whether the French claims in Newfoundland be right or wrong, the Beaconsfield-Salisbury government have practically surrendered the matter; and the only thing left for the British government is to compensate Newfoundland for its loss, as America was compensated for the "Alabama" damages. But they will not do it.

Mr. Whiteway had to find another means of helping the colony. He was obliged to choose between two alternatives,—either to build no railway at all or only one which would avoid the very districts which, for the benefit of the settler, ought to opened for settlement.

So the line to Harbor Grace was built. But even this the wealthy British did not build. It was left to an American syndicate. P.T. McG., writing of this line to the New YorkWeekly Postof Jan. 2, 1895, says, "The contract was given to an enterprising Yankee, who built a few miles, swindled the shareholders, fleeced the colony, and then decamped, leaving as a legacy an unfinished road, an interminable lawsuit, and a damaged colonial credit."

I happen to know another side of the question; and it does not become the Englishmen interested in that railway matter to talk of "Yankee swindlers."

When Sir Robert Thorburn became Premier of Newfoundland, he took the first step necessary to make this line of some value to the tax-payers by extending it twenty-seven miles to Placentia, the old French "La Plaisance." This line was of immense value to St. John's, because it gave the people of that city a convenient winter harbor which isalways open, by which they have an easy communication with Canada and the United States; and I hope the time will soon come when we shall have steamers running from Boston, touching at the French Island of St. Pierre, and then going to Placentia.

What were the English diplomatists doing meanwhile? In 1890 they were arranging amodus vivendiwith the French government about the lobster fisheries. The Tories were in power, and Sir James Ferguson was the Under-secretary of State. This gentleman's sentiments towards the United States have been recorded by the Hon. James G. Blaine. In his "Twenty Years of Congress," Vol. II., page 481, foot-note, he writes: Sir James Ferguson declared in the House of Commons, March 14, 1864, that "wholesale peculations and robberies have been perpetrated under the form of war by the generals of the Federal States; and worse horrors than, I believe, have ever in the present century disgraced European armies have been perpetrated under the eyes of the Federal government, and yet remain unpunished. These things are as notorious as the proceedings of a government which seems anxious to rival one despotic and irresponsible power of Europe in its contempt for the public opinion of mankind." These words need no commentary to-day. They show us pretty clearly the character of the man who then spoke them, and will prepare us for his treatment of the Newfoundland question. On March 20, 1890, he made the following statement in the House of Commons:—

"The Newfoundland government was consulted as to the terms of themodus vivendi, which was modified to some extent to meet their views; but it was necessary to conclude it without referring it to them in its final shape."

Five days later the Governor of Newfoundland telegraphed to the Secretary of State:—

"My ministers request that incorrect statement made by Under-secretary of State for foreign affairs be immediatelycontradicted,as the terms of modus vivendi were not modified in accordance with their views. Ministers protested against any claims of French, and desired time to be changed till January for reasons given; but that was ignored, andmodus vivendientered into without regard to their wishes. Ministers much embarrassed by incorrect statement made by Under-secretary of State."

Of course the Secretary of State supported the statement of Sir James Ferguson, and refused to correct it. But on page 54 of the case for the colony, published June, 1890, we find the words:—

"Two facts are placed beyond dispute by the above-quoted correspondence: (1) that the consent of the 'community' of Newfoundland to themodus vivendiwas not obtained by laying it before the legislature, which the 'Labouchere' despatch declared to be the proper action to be taken in such cases; (2) and that even the government of Newfoundland was not consulted as to the adoption of themodus vivendias settled."

The Labouchere despatch alluded to above, and called by the Newfoundlanders their "Magna Charta," had been sent by the Right Hon. Henry Labouchere on March 26, 1857. But Mr. Labouchere was not a Tory; and there is the whole difference. So Newfoundland still has to suffer for the criminal negligence which British Tories have displayed from 1743 until to-day.

There was one Englishman, and that the Governor of Newfoundland itself, who had a clear and honorable notion of the imperial government's duty to its unfortunate colony. Sir G. William des V[oe]ux, writing from the government House, St. John's, Jan. 14, 1887, to the Colonial Office in London, after reciting the circumstances, says: "If this be so, as indeed there are other reasons for believing, I would respectfully urge that in fairness the heavy resulting loss should not, or, at all events, not exclusively, fall upon this colony, and that if in the national interest a right is tobe withheld from Newfoundland which naturally belongs to it, and the possession of which makes to it all the difference between wealth and penury, there is involved on the part of the nation a corresponding obligation to grant compensation of a value equal or nearly equal to that of the right withheld."

Nothing can be fairer than that, and it is written by the trusted official of the British government.

Sir G. William des V[oe]ux continues, "In conclusion, I would respectfully express on behalf of this suffering colony the earnest hope that the vital interests of 200,000 British subjects will not be disregarded out of deference to the susceptibilities of any foreign power," etc.

The best interests of those 200,000 inhabitants can be served without touching the French shore at all. Even if France concedes all that Newfoundland demands, the bounty question is in the way; and Newfoundland cannot compete with that.

France gives this bounty—and quite rightly—as a protection to her sailors. A similar protection to England's fishermen would not be permitted by the Manchester men.

The other way is to build a railroad connecting the mining and agricultural districts along the French shore with Port aux Basques. Of course I do not mean such railroads as are built in England. They have been taxed to the extent of more than seventy millions of pounds sterling over and above the real value of the land sold to them by the rapacious land monopolists. They have been taxed to the extent of many millions more for legal expenses, which, if the House of Commons were equal to its duties, could have been saved. They have been taxed in many cases to find sinecure berths for the dependants of rich men; and so, in order to pay a fair dividend to their stockholders, they must reduce wages to the lowest point, and screw the utmost penny out of their customers.

It is, then, the American way which I recommend as amodel, and which the Newfoundland government have tried to imitate in their contract with Mr. Reid, of Montreal. They could have made a far more advantageous contract with him if England had done her duty; but neither Mr. Reid nor Newfoundland is to be blamed for England's fault.

The contract signed on May 16, 1893, by Mr. R.G. Reid binds him to construct a line about five hundred miles in length, connecting Placentia Junction and the chief eastern ports of Newfoundland with Port aux Basques, and to operate this line as well as the Placentia Branch Railway for a period of ten years, commencing Sept. 1, 1893. After that the line is to become the property of the Newfoundland government, and will be an interesting experiment in the State ownership of railroads. For every mile of single 42-inch gauge built by Mr. Reid he is to receive the sum of $15,600 in Newfoundland government bonds, bearing interest at 3-1/2 per cent., and eight square miles of land. The increase in rental value of this land will give a large revenue, even if the line should not pay its working expenses.

The land grant for 500 miles of railroad would amount to 2,500,000 acres. If Newfoundland were one of the United States, capital enough would be subscribed to enable Mr. Reid to finish his contract in the allotted time; but, as it is under England, and must therefore suffer from the awful burden of England's diplomatic incapacity, capital holds aloof from it.

Where does British money go? The Tory of 1878 sang,—

"We don't want to fight;But, by jingo, if we do,We've got the ships, we've got the men,We've got the money, too."

It is interesting to see how that money, which is withheld from Britain's oldest colony, has been spent.

We will begin with Mr. Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress." On page 479 he quotes Lord Campbell as saying in Parliament on March 23, 1863, "Swelling with omnipotence, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues dictate insurrection to the slaves of Alabama." (That fatal word, "Alabama"! Will it ever cease to trouble the British conscience?) And he spoke of the administration as "ready to let loose 4,000,000 negroes on their compulsory owners, and to renew from sea to sea the horrors and crimes of San Domingo." Mr. Blaine says, further, that Lord Campbell argued earnestly in favor of the British government joining the government of France in acknowledging Southern independence. He boasted that within the last few days a Southern loan of £3,000,000 sterling had been offered in London, and of that £9,000,000, or three times the amount, had been subscribed.

Here, then, we have a means of accounting for $15,000,000. Another $15,000,000 is accounted for by the money which America forced England to pay for the "Alabama" depredations. On that point Mr. Laird, the builder of the "Alabama," deserves to be immortalized. According to Mr. Blaine, on March 27, 1863, Mr. Laird was loudly cheered in the House of Commons when he declared that "the institutions of the United States are of no value whatever, and have reduced the name of liberty to an utter absurdity."

Another large lump of Jingo money has gone into the Russian loan; and, of this loan, $4,000,000 is coming to Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. O shade of John Roebuck, look back to the earth you have left, and see what your words have done for the armor plate manufacturers of your Sheffield constituency. While still among us in the flesh, you said on April 23, 1863, on some trouble: "It may lead to war; and I, speaking for the English people, am prepared for war. I know that language will strike the heart of the peace party in this country, but it will alsostrike the heart of the insolent people who govern America."

And on June 30, 1863, you said: "The South will never come into the Union; and, what is more, I hope it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America while she was united ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. Eighty years made the republic such a power that, if she had continued as she was a few years longer, she would have been the great bully of the world.

"As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union.... I say, then, that the Southern States have indicated their right to recognition. They hold out to us advantages such as the world has never seen before. I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Unionshould not take place."

The United States have given England the war you hoped for,—not a war against soldiers and sailors, who, unlike those who followed Colonel Pepperell and Washington and Isaac Hull and Grant and De Grasse to victory, require the protection of a contagious diseases act, but a war of protective tariffs.

The State which gave its name to the pirate ship "Alabama" now votes for tariffs to exclude the iron, steel, and coal of England. Sheffield is in sackcloth and ashes because Pennsylvania has taken away from her the Russian order for armor plates, and countless millions of British dollars are invested in American factories, giving high wages to tariff-protected American workmen instead of sweaters' wages to the beer-sodden lunatics who sing to your honor the Tory strain,—

"By jingo, if we do,We've got the ships, we've got the men,We've got the money, too."

In almost every case in which a British investor has lost his money in the United States it can be proved that someBritish expert or financial agent earned a large sum by inducing him to invest.

At any rate, these immense investments in American railroads, loans, and lands, have one great advantage for the United States. They bind over England to keep the peace toward us. There is no more unpatriotic, no more unmoral, no more cowardly man than the British financial agent and money-lender. If only the security is good, he will rather lend money at 4-1/8 per cent. for the most devilish than at 4 per cent. for the most divine purpose. It is due to the influence of the money-lending class that England has so completely lost the grip of heart and brain on her imperial duties.

It is said that John Bull pays a tax of $700,000,000 a year to the liquor interest, to say nothing of the indirect damages resulting from the fact that the liquor interest is the chief supporter of the brothel, the baccarat table, and the Tory Democracy. The beerage has proved of late years also a highway to the peerage; and it has also served to deplete the pockets of a good many British fools, who were misled into the insane delusion that they could earn as much from the profits of American guzzling as from those of British beer-drinking. America has been infested for some time by a crowd of Englishmen, who came here hunting options on American breweries, which they sold at a high price to their English dupes. In one case some breweries, which cost the owners less than $2,000,000, were sold in England for $6,000,000, the Englishmen and Americans who managed the transaction making enormous profits at the expense of their dupes.

On investigating the published accounts of some twelve American brewery companies in which Englishmen have been induced to invest more than $41,808,000, I find that the depreciation in selling price of shares, taking the highest rates of November, 1894, was no less than $21,917,280, or 52.42 per cent. on the paid-up capital; and, taking thecommon stock alone, the loss exceeds over seventy per cent. on the paid-up capital.

I am glad of it. The Englishman who, knowing the influence of this infernal traffic on his own countrymen, would make money by extending its curse to the United States, deserves to lose his money quite as much as the Tory investors in the Confederate Loan deserved their loss. Now suppose this $70,000,000 thus invested in "Alabama damages," Confederate Loan, and American breweries had been put into Newfoundland roads and railways, what would have been the result? An immense amount of traffic which now must pay toll to American railroads would have gone over purely British lines, all the way through British America to China and Japan. All the mining and agricultural lands of Newfoundland might have been developed. The French shore question would have ceased to occupy the diplomatic wiseacres, because the people would have found so much profit in other employments as to care nothing about French competition in the cod and lobster fishery. Newfoundland itself would have become an impregnable arsenal for the British navy, commanding the entrances to the St. Lawrence, and, in case of war with the United States, giving that navy the power of practically blockading all the Atlantic coast.

All this has been thrown away, because the British Jingo supports a Tory cabinet, which, while making theatrical demonstrations of imperialism, neglects imperial duties and betrays imperial interests.

And look even at sober free trade Manchester, the community which is supposed to understand the worth of money better than any other in the world. Has it really gained by its Jingo policy? Professing to be the stronghold of free trade, it rejected the great free-trader, John Bright, when in Sir John Bowring's war he asked for justice to China. It rejected Mr. Gladstone when he sought the suffrages ofSouth-east Lancashire that he might relieve Ireland from the insolent domination of an alien church.

And now the great makers of cotton machinery are coming from Lancashire to establish factories in New England, and her spinning and weaving mill corporations are losing their markets and their profits. Of eighteen such corporations whose shares are quoted in theEconomist, the highest November prices of common stock show a loss of $2,553,294 on the paid-up capital. Supposing that, instead of supporting the Jingoes, Manchester had sent men to Parliament who would support a wise and conservative policy in the colonies, Newfoundland included, would it not have been better for her interests, to say nothing of principle?

The Newfoundlanders in Boston, Mass., held a public meeting there on the 16th of February, at which the Rev. Frederick Woods, their chairman, said: "If we could only take our old island, and lay her at the feet of Uncle Sam! I wish we could." And every suggestion of annexation to the United States was applauded by the Newfoundlanders present.

The Newfoundlanders on the island desire annexation just as much, but they dare not say so, for they are starving; and those who venture to suggest separation from England would be punished by the withdrawal of charity, if not by even sterner means.

They are justified in their desire; for England has been disloyal to them, and holds the island by no better right than that by which Turkey holds Armenia.

Let that England, who expects every man to do his duty, do her own. Let her, first of all, relieve the suffering.

Second. Let her press on the completion of the railroad at English expense to Port aux Basques as quickly as possible, and subsidize a mail line between England and the American Continent by way of a Newfoundland port, holding the railroad property as security for money expended.

Third. Let her modify her fiscal system so as to give a realfree trade, not only to the Newfoundland fisherman, but also to those of Great Britain and Ireland, so that the foreigner shall not be able to deprive British subjects either of their home or foreign markets. A small import duty on all fish imported into the British Isles, except from Newfoundland, and a bounty on the exports equal to that given by France, will suffice.

Fourth. Let her aid the unfortunate victims of her Lord Clan-Rackrents to find comfortable farms and holdings in those parts of the French shore and along the railroad which are suitable for settlement.

If she does this, she may derive some comfort from at least one passage in her Prayer Book,—"When the wicked man turneth away from the wickedness that he has committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive."

Providence, R.I., U.S.A., Feb. 18, 1895.

Since I wrote the foregoing pages, some papers have come into my hands referring to Major-general Dashwood's attacks upon the credibility of those who are trying to make the resources of Newfoundland known in Great Britain.

Much depends on the point of view from which a man writes; and I can only say that, if the distinguished Major-general is right,from a purely British point of view, in depreciating the island and its resources, he thereby furnishes avery strong argument why Great Britain should, for a reasonable compensation, cede this island to the United States. I am perfectly sure that the majority of the 200,000 inhabitants would not have the slightest objection to exchange the Union Jack for the stars and stripes. But I do not think that, in making this exchange myself, I have abandoned my old English habits of thought; and so I would mention some reasons why, even if I were still a fellow-citizen (or should I say subject?) of Major-general Dashwood, and were as much bound as he is to place the interests of the British crown above every other interest of my life, I should for that very reason differ with him in opinion, first of all, from a strategic point of view. We must not, because my distinguished fellow-citizen, Captain Mahan, has so brilliantly painted the sea-power of England, forget also herman-power. Most certainly, Viscount Wolseley would not do so; and I think Major-general Dashwood, from whose interesting little book, "Chipplequorgan," Ihave learned that he came with his regiment to Halifax after the "Trent" affair, will agree with me that it would then, in case of a war with the United States of America, have been very convenient if Newfoundland had been peopled by half a million hardy farmers, woodmen, and miners, in addition to its few fisher-folk. England has to take undergrown and underfed boys into her army now; but, if the sturdy Irishmen who have been driven to the United States by famine and eviction had been provided each with the "three acres and a cow" of Joseph Chamberlain's speeches in the valleys of the Humber or Codroy Rivers, surely the experience of Louisbourg and a hundred well-fought battles since then may tell us how much more they would have contributed to Britain's honor and interest than they do now as American voters. The south-western part of Newfoundland reminds one very much of old Ireland in its climate and its physical features, and certainly is quite as well fitted to sustain a sturdy peasantry of small land-owners.

The best answer to the distinguished officer's objections may be found in the official reports of the geological survey of Newfoundland, published by Edward Stanford, Charing Cross, London. The present director of that survey, Mr. James P. Howley, F.R.G.S., has replied in part to Major-general Dashwood's remarks in a letter written a fortnight ago, from which I extract a few passages. The Major-general said at the Royal Geographical Society that the timber of Newfoundland is all scrub, and fit only for firing. Mr. Howley writes: "Our lumbering industry is in a most flourishing condition. Ten large saw-mills are in full swing, besides several smaller ones, around our northern and western bays. Large shipments of lumber were made last summer to the English markets. Messrs. Watson & Todd, of Liverpool, England, purchased 3,000,000 feet of lumber in the island last summer; and the market quotations in the Liverpool trade journals will be the best index to the value of the lumber. The Exploits Milling Companyat Botwoodsville purchased $25,000 worth of stores in Montreal to be used in the winter's lumber-felling operations. They calculate on cutting 100,000 pine logs. Though the mill has been ten years in operation, the lumber shows no signs of exhaustion; while the other and far more abundant products of the Newfoundland forests, such as fir, spruce, birch, tamarack, etc., have scarcely been touched.

"The Benton Mill, owned by Messrs. Reid, contractors for the Northern & Western Railroad, though scarcely a year in existence, has put out 3,000,000 feet of first-class lumber."

As to the coal fields, Mr. Howley, referring to his own official reports for 1889, 1891, and 1892, as published by Stanford, writes:—

In the Bay St. George coal fields 16 distinct seams were discovered, ranging from a few inches up to several feet in thickness: the Cleary seam has 26 inches good coal; Juke's seam, 4.6 feet; Murray seam, 5.4 feet; Howley seam, 4.2 feet.

In the Grand Lake carboniferous area 15 distinct seams were discovered, also ranging from a few inches to several feet. Two seams on Coal Brook show 2.4 and 3.5 feet. On Aldery Brook, three seams show 2.6 feet, 3.8 feet, and 14 feet of coal. At Kelvin Brook 3 seams contain 2.6 feet, 3.8 feet, and 7 feet.

Specimens have been submitted to experts in connection with the Colonial Office, and have been found, in some cases, superior to the Cape Breton coal. So much for the report of a man who understands his business, and has had better opportunities than any other living man of studying the question.

For myself, I may say that during twenty years of travel, in which I have been from the Gulf of Mexico to Ottawa, and from the Straight Shore of Avalon to the Muir Glacier of Alaska, I have studied every State which I have visited with a view to its attractions for British emigrants, and,before the passing of our present absurd immigration laws, have been instrumental in transferring many skilled operatives from the foul slums of Manchester and Salford to the healthy and pleasant factory villages of New England.

I need hardly say that Newfoundland is not the right place for such men; but, under a just and wise imperial government, it can be made a happy home for thousands of hardy Scotch and Irish peasants, who need not, in crossing the ocean, change their political allegiance. But England must first do her duty.

She must build her railroad from Port aux Basques along the French shore to Bonne Bay, or further north, so as to give the people a means of communication which shall not be impeded by the French treaty rights; and she must arrange her tariffs so as to defend her fishermen against the unjust discrimination of foreign bounties. As an American, I can have no interest in saying these things to Englishmen. If Major-general Dashwood is right, so much the better for us.

Our Whitneys are awakening new life amid the ruins of Louisbourg, although the Duke of York and those who followed him as proprietors of the Sydney coal fields could do so little with them; and so, if England cannot help Newfoundland,America can, and can serve herself well at the same time. Take the fishing for an instance. The French bounties do not hurt the Massachusetts fishermen, because we have ahomemarket which the Frenchmen cannot touch, and seek only a foreign market for the very small quantity that our own people do not consume. And to share in this Americanhome marketalone would be more profitable to Newfoundland than all its connection with England can ever be.

J.F.

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