ors of England and the Continent must go abroad for their investment. They, and not the Americans, have developed Australia and Borneo, India and Ceylon, Java, Sumatra, and all else in the East. Philippine trade conditions will be developed and improved. That is inevitable. "But," continues Mr. Robinson, "I can see no ground upon which to rest any beliefs or hopes that the mere flying of the American flag will immediately change customs and natures which are the result of three centuries of Spanish rule and the effect of life under a tropical sun. I believe there is but one wise view to take of the Philippine Islands as a field for commercial exploitation. That view is the strictly conservative. To the sanguine and the enthusiastic this seems pessimistic; but enthusiasm is a poor working basis for commercial enterprise. It is supposed to be a patriotic sort of thing to paint these islands in glowing colors as a place of endless value, of untold wealth. But patriotism is patriotism, and business is business."

The labor question, in Mr. Robinson's mind, is one of exceeding seriousness. He thinks the American cannot work in the Philippines, and the native will not labor with that degree of regularity and diligence on which commercial and industrial success so largely depends; that the industrious Chinaman, in combination with American brains and American capital, would readily turn the islands into a beehive of production and profitable industry, but it is most unlikely that those of the present generation will live to see that combination played. As to American colonization, he believes it improbable. Even were it possible to endure the exertion, the American could not and would not compete with the native in the matter of wages or in profit obtainable from small holdings; the wealth of the few might be profitably invested if labor conditions could be successfully controlled, but it is hard for Mr. Robinson to see where the many will derive any benefit whatever from the possession of the islands. He admits that the market for American

products will be extended and thus the American wageearner benefited indirectly, but contends that there are a number of facts which greatly modify the general proposition.

Mr. Robinson has constituted himself a committee of one to stand in this adverbial relation. He makes an excellent modifier. In fact, he modifies conditions so much and so sharply that if we are at all of a sensitive nature our glamour of Oriental opportunity so far as the Philippines are concerned is dissipated, our fond dreams of the future fade into practical nothingness, our cheerful optimism is rudely shocked, and it will necessitate several hours' reading of the New York Sun as an antidote to bring us safely back to that Nirvanic state where we believe and trust implicitly in the wiseness and goodness of the Administration which snatched from the nerveless hand of Spain "La Perla de la Oriente." Yet, though Mr. Robinson emphasizes the con rather than the pro side of the Philippines argument and occasionally somewhat weakens his style by adopting a tone that might be called flippant, he has, on the whole, given us a book that is well worth reading. Such quotations as have been taken from the work do not always appear in the exact words of the writer, although many of them do, nor are sentences quoted necessarily in the order in which Mr. Robinson has written them. It has, however, been the intention to give the substance of the Robinson view-point as accurately as practicable and to avoid misstatement. If that view-point represents what may be termed the Opposition, at least we may credit the author with sincerity of purpose; and even if we do not agree with him in his argumentative moods, we can at least appreciate him for the information and pleasure he has given in telling us something about "The Philippines: the War and the People."

PUBLIC LIBRAR

ASTOR, LENOX AND

TILDEN FOUNDATIONS.

I

WHY DO NOT ENGLISHMEN BECOME
NATURALIZED AMERICANS?

REFER, of course, in the above caption, to those Eng.

lishmen who come to this country with the idea of residing here. Now, of those who have thus "come to stay," it is computed on good authority that there are some 75,000 who have never exercised the right of citizenship in this country, and this mostly in New England and New York. I do not care for the accuracy of the figures; it is enough if it be conceded (as I think it must) that Englishmen, as a rule, are averse to swearing away their allegiance to Queen Victoria.* In fact, the figures would be much larger indeed if a careful estimate, based on good investigation, were made. I know scores of Englishmen whom I have tried to induce to take out their papers, but who have invariably refused. And these very men are the quickest to criticise things American and tell us how we should guide our national affairs so as to insure success.

Being a practical man myself I have been not a little. surprised at the ignorance of political ideas displayed by these same Englishmen, who talk, write, and influence American politics without undertaking any of the duties and responsibilities of citizens. Now I take it that the truth of the two following propositions is self-evident:

(1) It is the duty of every male over twenty-one, enjoying life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the United States, to exercise the rights and responsibilities of a citizen.

(2) The ballot is the only legal and tangible sign of the fact that this first duty has been performed.

* This article was prepared before the Queen's death.-ED.

As the second of these propositions is more open to ques tion than the first, I may be permitted to enlarge a little on it. Citizenship, to begin with, is not a sentiment, more or less connected with abstract ideas. Constitutions, declarations of independence, proclamations of liberty, and so forth, are only the material warrants for our rights as citizens. Where these warrants are not accompanied by the consent of the governed there is neither independence, liberty, or even the possibility of a free constitution. Russia has no citizens for this reason. The fallacy of many writers on American institutions-specially those who refuse to exercise the ballot in this country-lies in confounding these material warrants with the real warrants, the chief of which consists in the right vested in the citizen himself to vote. The ballot is the only real sign and seal of citizenship. The exercise of the power to vote is the only tangible evidence that the rights and responsibilities of citizenship have been assumed in good faith. The rest is all on paper.

Again, the ballot is the only test of political freedom and influence. The ballot is the law-making power; it is the power that unmakes laws. In a free country there is no power superior to the practical will of the people as expressed in the ballot-boxes of its popular campaigns. With all the mistakes, injuries, corruptions to which this power has been made heir through conniving men, no means can compare with it for getting at the political judgment of a nation. More powerful than a free press is the power of a free ballot. It is the absolutely sovereign influence in the State. Men, therefore, who do not exercise this power not only discount their own influence, but they do a positive injury to the country they live in.

Moreover (and in a wider sense than I have time or space here to define), the ballot, implying as it does the right and duty to vote, is an infallible objective test of a man's interest in public affairs. The man who stands outside the ranks may see more of the war with political error, but he knows

nothing, and can know nothing, of the strife itself in which the whole meaning of citizenship consists. His interest is purely individual, and absolutely futile so far as any influence on the judgment of others goes. No American citizen is going to take his ideas from one who is not standing shoulder to shoulder with him, sharing the burdens of polit. ical responsibility. No reform can be pushed by the nonnaturalized resident of America with any promise of success. The Englishmen, therefore, who refuse to throw off their allegiance to the Queen cannot expect to receive anything but the cold shoulder when the talk turns on the serious business of governing this nation. We had some experiences in the Civil War (which occurred, however, before my time) calculated to show that probably the most dangerous men in a country like this are the Englishmen who refuse to become American citizens.

Lastly, citizenship, through the ballot, shapes all our national policies. All discussion, speaking, writing, all slinging of printers' ink, is quite preparatory, and propædentic to that royal moment when each man, having made up his mind, says through the ballot-box that this or that is his judgment. I repeat that the corruptions of the ballot-box, stuffing, false counting, and so forth, do not in the least alter the fact that policy and national enterprise are determined at the polls where the people cast their votes. Ideally and practically the right of judgment is expressed, and it is an exalted function, the highest, indeed, enjoyed by the citizen in a free state. If any man refuse to exercise this right, he and we alike are forced to conclude that his interest in the perpetuation or reform of the national institutions is purely platonic, having no reference to practical policy or practical usefulness.

These truths seem so obvious to almost any one that one is surprised that Englishmen (who are among the most intelligent portion of the communities where they reside) persistently dodge the practical logic of their truth, namely, to