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maturing of grain in what is now the winterwheat section of Kansas and Nebraska was undoubtedly much retarded by the cold; but it was believed by the Department of Agriculture, late in May, that the prospects of an average crop were still fair in most of the winter-wheat area, barring a continuance of the unexampled cold weather.

Effect

In the spring-wheat section, faron the Wheat ther north, the weather was a Market. more serious factor, in so far as it threatened to interfere with plowing and seeding to an extent that would inevitably reduce the yield. As reported to Washington, however, the cold did not prevent the usual farming operations of the season to any serious extent, although in many places there was a delay of a week or two in getting in the seed. In Western Canada, a wheat region of growing importance, which a Canadian writer glowingly describes in this number of the REVIEW, the cold was so intense as to delay plowing very generally. A decrease in the Canadian wheat crop for the current year may be regarded as very probable. The ravages of the "green bug," an insect heretofore slightly feared in our grain belt, were reported in May as causing serious damage to Kansas and Nebraska wheat. These reports, however, were declared by the authorities at Washington to be highly colored and unwarranted by the facts. But at any rate they affected the Chicago wheat pit to an appreciable extent, and, in conjunction with the admitted wheat shortage of every European

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From the National Press Assn., Washington.

STATUE OF GEN. HENRY W. LAWTON. (Unveiled at Indianapolis, on Memorial Day, May 30, 1907.)

country except France, an advance in speculative prices soon set in which has had no parallel in this country since the spring of 1898. During April and May there was a rise of from 20 to 21 cents. Foreign markets shared in this excitement to some extent.

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PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT DELIVERING THE OPENING SPEECH OF THE JAMESTOWN EXPOSITION.

industrial age.
He reiterated his belief that
it is our business as a nation to put a stop to
corporate abuses, but at the same time exalted
temperateness of spirit in all attempts to re-
form such abuses. He said:

phasized the importance of putting into practice the well-worn precepts regarding liberty, fraternity, and equality, as applied to the conditions of our modern American life. Some time ago it had been arranged that the PresiOur purpose is to build up rather than to tear dent should deliver the address on Memorial down. We show ourselves the truest friends of Day at the unveiling of the statue to General property when we make it evident that we will Lawton in Indianapolis. General Lawton, it not tolerate the abuses of property. We are will be recalled, had served with distinction steadily bent on preserving the institution of private property; we combat every tendency to- in the Civil War and the war with Spain, in ward reducing the people to economic servitude; 1898, and died in the line of duty in supand we care not whether the tendency is due to pressing the insurrection in the Philippines. a sinister agitation directed against all property, The President's Indianapolis speech was

or whether it is due to the actions of those members of the predatory classes whose anti-social power is immeasurably increased because of the very fact that they possess wealth.

A few days later, speaking at the unveiling of the statue of General George B. McClellan, at Washington, the President again em

largely devoted to a discussion of the Government's relation to railroad investments. Extended extracts from that part of the President's Indianapolis address appear on pages. 725-8 of this rumber of the REVIEW OF REVIEWS.

From the National Press Association. Washington. THE WASHINGTON MONUMENT TO GEN. GEORGE B. M'CLELLAN.

Labor Troubles.

(Unveiled on May 2, 1907.)

The most serious labor disturb ances of the month of May were developed at points as far apart as New York and San Francisco. At New York the 'longshoremen, whose work it is to load and unload the cargoes of the great transatlantic liners, went on strike for higher wages and succeeded in causing serious delay to traffic, which could only be overcome by the employment of large numbers of "strikebreakers." For a few days there were 12,000 of these 'longshoremen idle along the docks of New York. There were naturally a few violent conflicts between the striking laborers and those who took their jobs, but on the whole the conduct of the strikers, and especially of the strike leaders, was exemplary. In San Francisco there was a general strike of street-railway employees, the iron-workers, and a few other industries. Here there was much violence, and it was even thought necessary at one stage to call out the militia. The disorder was abated before this step was actually taken, but not before a number of strikers had been shot and mortally wounded by the strike-breakers, whom they had attacked.

A gift of $1,000,000 has been Another Useful Gift to South- made by Miss Anna T. Jeanes, ern Education. of Philadelphia, for a fund to be devoted entirely to rudimentary schools for Southern negroes. All who have followed the work of the graduates of Hampton and Tuskegee are aware that dotted over the Southern States there are hundreds of small village and rural schools which receive little or no aid from the State school systems, but which in many communities form the sole educational equipment for the colored race. The gift of this fund, which will be administered by Principal Frissell, of Hampton, and Principal Booker T. Washington, of Tuskegee, is most timely. We may be assured that every dollar of it will be made to count, and that a great uplift will be given almost immediately to the cause of negro education.

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A New Postal

A new postal convention between Arrangement the United States and Canada with Canada. went into effect on the 7th of last month. Hereafter, according to its terms, papers and magazines sent to Canada from Great Britain will pay only one-half as much postage as those mailed to Canada from this country, whereas formerly an English publication paid eight times as much as an American. Both these rates were obviously unfair, although it is difficult to see just what is gained by attaining fairness to British publishers at the expense of justice to American. According to a Canadian public man, whose words are quoted in one of the prominent weeklies of the Dominion, Canada was, under the old arrangement, almost prohibited from developing a periodical literature of her own.

The cheap New York magazine traveled as freely through our mails as through the American, as freely through Ontario as Michigan, while all the postal revenue went to Washington, and not a cent to Ottawa. All these publications were crammed with advertising, none of it Canadian. We were a sort of cheap annex to the republic,-an extra stretch of country thrown or to make good measure in all in "to boot things having to do with literature and publishing.

Even if this were true, it is difficult to see how the new arrangement will be much of a British periodicals have never in consolation. the past treated Canadian topics more comprehensively or fairly than have our own. For example, we may modestly refer to the series of articles in the present number of this magazine.

Mr. Bryce Asks for Our Poets.

It is not often that a distinguished foreigner when asked for his opinion of American life and the material conditions surrounding it ventures to break away from the conventional tribute to our immense material prosperity, the vastness of our national domain, and the commercial enterprise of our citizens. The British Ambassador, Mr. James Bryce, however, after paying the usual number of graceful compliments to our good qualities (and paying them in an unusually fascinating way) has ventured to probe a little below the surface and to touch us on one of our weak spots. In speaking, several weeks ago, about the celebration in England of the birthday of the poet Swinburne, Mr. Bryce lamented the dearth of poetry in English literature to-day. Then suddenly he asked: Who are your poets in America?

Who are writing your songs and stirring your heart, or isn't your heart being stirred? Nothing is more important than that each generation and each land should have its own poets. Each oncoming tide of life, each age, requires and needs men of lofty thought who shall dream and sing for it, who shall gather up its tendencies and formulate its ideals and voice its spirit, proclaiming its duties and awakening its enthusiasm, through the high authority of the poet and the art of his verse. Any generation is indeed bereft among whom poetic inspiration might seem to be dying out. However much we enjoy and prize the old singers, new ones are needed to express the ever-changing attitude of man to nature and life. There are immortal themes,-but changing accents and altering modes of art.

Not a Despair.

It does not follow, however, Mr. Cause for Bryce continued, that because a generation is without great poets, therefore there is no poetical possibilities in the life it leads. "It does not follow at all that there is no song because the bird is not there to sing it. There are times of brooding and times of labor." The same criticism or comment applies, in Mr. Bryce's opinion, to the present state of the drama in English-speaking countries. Admitting the material scenic splendor of the stage in England and the United States and the vast wealth lavished upon theatrical representations, Mr. Bryce lamented the fact that the present age has failed to produce a dramatist of the first magnitude. He could not explain the situation. He referred to it as one of the mysterious workings of nature.

You cannot attempt to prophesy the appearance of genius. It will emerge in accordance with no laws which we can detect. Favorable, even insistent and clamorous, conditions do not beget it.

Nor when it appears is it likely to take the course conditions would seem to have made inevitable for it. It ought to revive the drama, but instead, perhaps, it paints pictures. It ought to compose poetry, but lo, it promises to invent machinery.

on Canada.

Provincial politicians may not Some Significant Articles recognize the fact, but a fact it nevertheless is, that the destiny of the Dominion of Canada is not only the biggest thing in present-day British imperial politics, but likely to become very nearly the largest factor in our own international relations during future years. Our trade, diplomatic intercourse, and social and sentimental connections with our neighbor to the north have already an importance which does not receive its due consideration from American citizens generally. This REVIEW has endeavored to set forth the importance of these actualities and possibilities with our neighbor nation. Accordingly, we have secured from a number of representative Canadians some highly significant articles which appear in this number and to which we commend our readers' special attention. There are few situations in the world to-day more fascinating or swiftly kaleidoscopic in their changes than the development of the Canadian West. Mr. John W. Dafoe, editor of the Manitoba Free Press, of Winnipeg, who writes our article, "Western Canada: Its Resources and Possibilities," knows the situation perfectly. Whether there is a menace or a promise for the future of our grain-fields and the products of our Middle and Far West in the proposed scheme for a Hudson Bay route to Europe, REVIEW OF REVIEWs readers will find Miss Laut's article on that subject of help and interest. Canadian-American trade intercourse and the mineral resources of the Dominion are other topics treated in con

tributed articles this month.

CanadianAmerican Cordiality.

The general reciprocal feelings of Canadians and Americans may be said to be of the best, and Ambassador Bryce's visit to Canada shortly after his arrival in Washington has been more than sufficient to offset the ruffled feelings of the Newfoundlanders toward us because of the still clouded fisheries situation. It is interesting to note, in passing, that a substantial agreement between the United States and Great Britain has been reached for the negotiation of a treaty covering all matters relating to the boundary-water disputes between this country and the Dominion. Even

Sir Wilfrid Laurier's strong, independent attitude at the colonial conference in London on the matter of Canadian-American trade does not presage any loss to American business. There are many things, said the Canadian Premier, which Canada could exchange, concession for concession, with the United States, but the Dominion, in general, stands with the motherland. Canada is prepared, he continued, to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in order to make trade flow, not north and south, but east and west. Even being hard pressed by the revolutionists and hundreds of millions of dollars, however, desiring the moral support of the United cannot offset natural laws, and, commercially States, entered into an agreement with Capas well as politically, the destinies of the tain Dillingham, of the American Navy, by United States and Canada must ever remain the terms of which Dominican custom-houses closely bound together. were to be occupied by Americans, and the foreign indebtedness of the country paid by these American officials out of the customs receipts. This convention, or treaty, was rejected by the United States Senate. Оп March 31, 1905, however, a modus vivendi was agreed upon. An American collector was placed in charge of the custom-houses and 55 per cent. of the custom receipts were deposited with a New York bank, to be turned over to the foreign creditors of Santo Domingo.

Dominican Congress on May 3, marks a new departure in the relations of the United States to the smaller republics of the Western Hemisphere, it will be well to recapitulate briefly the history of our treaty relations with Santo Domingo. In the latter part of the year 1904, it will be remembered, while our Government was pressing for a settlement of the claims of American citizens against Santo Domingo, a revolution broke out in that republic. President Morales

Peace in
Central
America.

What the

This did not save Morales, howUnited States ever. He was defeated by the Engages to Do. revolutionists. The result, however, was highly beneficial to the finances of the little republic. Up to the present more than $3,000,000 has been deposited in the New York bank to the credit of Santo Domingo, and this will be used in discharging

Active hostilities in Central America have finally been terminated by the real treaty of peace, signed at Amapala, on April 24, by the envoys of Nicaragua and Salvador, and the situation in Honduras has been improved by the organization of a provisional government. The several treaties ending the present troubles will be reconsidered and embodied at a later date in a new instrument to be discussed at a coming conference at Corinto. A threatened war between Mexico and Guatemala, arising out of a disagreement over the extradition of some Guatemalans who had committed crimes on Mexican soil, was avoided through the dignified moderation of the Mexican President. The authenticity of the interview attributed to President Diaz, however, in which he suggested a joint Mexican-American protectorate over Central the foreign debt. The Dominican Minister America, has been denied. A confederation of the five republics, each one with the status of a state under American protection, is also being discussed. It cannot be said that the time for such a joint movement on the part of the two larger republics of the continent has actually arrived. But, as the wars between these republics increase in frequency, it seems more and more possible. that such a protectorate is the only practicable remedy for the intolerable state of affairs which has so long existed in Central America.

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of Finance (Señor Frederico Velasquez), by hard work during the past two years, has succeeded in getting the European creditors of his country to consent to a 50 per cent. reduction in their claims, for cash. A prominent New York banking-house has undertaken to advance the money for this purpose, accepting 5 per cent. fifty-year bonds in return. The new treaty provides for the appointment, by the President of the United States, of a receiver of customs to collect the Dominican revenues as long as the bonds already referred to are outstanding. The treaty also guarantees the protection of the United States to the receiver and his assistants. It further pledges the Dominican Government not to increase its public debt or to modify its import duties without the consent of the United States. Europe, in general, regards the treaty with approval.

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