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it all. We should emerge from the embargo without seriou injury. So much for the impregnability of the Republic. To day Fortune rains upon her. For the first time in her history she has become the greatest exporting nation in the world, eve the exports of Britain being less than hers. Her manufacture are invading all lands, commercial expansion proceeds by leap and bounds; New York has become the financial centre of th world. It is London no more, but New York, which is to day the financial centre. This, however, is not yet to b claimed as permanent, but it promises to become so ere long unless the Republic becomes involved in European wars throug Imperialism. Labor is in demand at the highest wages paid in th world; the Industrial supremacy of the world lies at our feet Two questions are submitted to the decision of the America people: First-Shall we remain as we are, solid, compact, im pregnable, republican, American; or, Second-Shall we cree under the protection, and become, as Bishop Potter says, "th catspaw," of Britain, in order that we may grasp the phantom o Imperialism?

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If the latter be the choice, then it is submitted that we mus first begin quietly to prepare ourselves for the new work which Imperialism imposes.

We need a large regular army of trained soldiers. There is n use trying to encounter regular armies with volunteers-we hav found that out. Not that volunteers would not be superior t the class of men we shall get to enlist simply for pay in the regu lar army, if they would enlist there and be trained, but becaus they are not trained. Thirty-eight thousand more men are to b called for the regular army; but it is easy "to call spirits from th vasty deep "-they may not come. The present force of the army i 62,000 men by law; we have only 56,000, as the President tells u in his message. Why do we not first fill up the gap, instead o asking for legislation to enlist more? Because Labor is well em ployed and men are scarce in some States to-day; because me who now enlist know for what they are wanted, and that kind o work is not what American soldiers have been asked to perform hitherto. They have never had to leave their own country, muc less to shoot down men whose only crime against the Republi was that they too, like ourselves, desired their country's inde pendence and believed in the Declaration of Independence-i

Americanism. The President may not get the soldiers he desires, and whom he must have if he is not to make shipwreck of his Imperialism. There is very grave reason to doubt whether the army can be raised even to one hundred thousand men without a great advance in pay, perhaps not without conscription.

But surely before we appear in the arena in the Far East we must have a large regular army.

The second indispensable requirement is a navy corresponding, at least in some degree, to the navies of the other powers interested in the East. We can get this in twenty years, perhaps, if we push matters, but this means building twenty ships a year. The securing of men trained to man them will be as difficult a task as the building of the ships.

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When we have armed ourselves thus, but not till then, shall we be in a position to take and hold territory in the Far East "by the sole power of our unlorded will," as we should hold it, or not hold it at all. To rush in now, without army or navy, trusting leave. to the treacherous shifting foundation of anybody's "protection," he was or "neutrality," or "alliance," is to court defeat, and such humil-t iation as has rarely fallen to the lot of any nation, even the poorest and most madly or most foolishly governed. It is not good sense.

This ends the subject upon which I undertook to write, but there remains the practical question: What shall we do with the Philippines? These are not ours, unless the Senate approves the Treaty; but, assuming that it will, that question arises.

The question can best be answered by asking another: What have we promised to do with Cuba? The cases are as nearly parallel as similar cases usually are. We drove Spain out of both Cuba and the Philippines. Our ships lie in the harbors of both. Our flag waves over both. To Cuba the President in his message renews the pledge given by Congress-she is to be aided to form a "Free and Independent Government, at the earliest possible moment."

The magic words "Free and Independent" will be accepted by the people of Cuba and our soldiers hailed as deliverers. So well assured of this is our government, that only one-half the number of troops intended for Cuba are now to be sent there.

Even if we were tempted to play false to our pledge, as the enemies of the Republic in Europe predict we shall, the aspirations of a people for Independence are seldom quenched. There

are a great number of Americans, and these of the best, who would soon revolt at our soldiers being used against the Cubans fighting for what they had been promised. The latest advices I have from Cuba are from a good source. This necessity is not likely to arise. Cuba will soon form a government, and, mark my prediction, she will ask for annexation. The proprietors of Cuba who will control the new government, and many Americans who are becoming interested with them in estates there, will see to this. "Free sugar" means fortune to all. Will the United States admit Cuba? Doubtful. But Cuba need not trouble us very much. There is no 'Imperialism" here no danger of foreign wars.

Now why is the policy adopted for the Island of Cuba not the right policy for the Philippine Islands? General Schofield states that 30,000 troops will be required there, as we may have to "lick them." What work this for Americans! General Miles thinks 25,000 will do. If we promised them what we have promised Cuba, half the number would suffice, as with Cuba-probably less-and we should be spared the uncongenial task of shooting down people who were guiltless of offence against us.

If we insist "the slaves are ours because we bought them," and fail to tell them we come not as slave drivers, but as friends to assist them to Independence, we may have to "lick them" no doubt. It will say much for the Filipinos if they do rebel against "being bought and sold like cattle." It would be difficult to give a better proof of their fitness for self government.

Cuba is under the shield of the Monroe doctrine; no foreign interference is possible there. Place the Philippines under similar conditions until they have a stable government, when eight millions of people can be trusted to protect themselves. The truth is that none of the powers would risk the hostility of eight millions of people, who had tasted the hope of Independence. "Free and Independent" are magical words, never forgotten, and rarely unrealized.

Only one objection can be made to this policy. They are not fit to govern themselves. First, this has not been proved. This was said of every one of the sixteen Spanish Republics as they broke away from Spain; it was said even of Mexico within this generation; it was the belief of the British about ourselves. There is in the writer's opinion little force in the objection. In the Far East I have visited the village communities in India, to

find even there a system of self-government dating back for two thousand years. In no country, not even the most backward, are not to be found government and "orders and degrees" of men.

The head men of tribes and others of lesser authority are often selected by the members. In the wild lands of the Afridisa tribe in India which has just baffled seventy thousand soldiers, native and British, the largest army ever assembled there there is a system of self-government, and a rigid one. Human societies cannot exist without establishing, as a rule, peace and order in greater or less perfection.

The Filipinos are by no means in the lowest scale far from it-nor are they much lower than the Cubans. If left to themselves they will make mistakes, but what nation does not? Riot and bloodshed may break out-in which nation are these absent ? certainly not in our own; but the inevitable result will be a government better suited to the people than any that our soldiers and their officers could ever give.

Thus only can the Republic stand true to its pledges, that the sword was drawn only in the cause of humanity and not for territorial aggrandizement, and true to the fundamental principles upon which she rests: "that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed; " that the flag, wherever it floats, shall proclaim "the equality of the citizen," "one man's privilege every man's right "—" that all men are created equal," not that under its sway part only shall be citizens with rights and part only subjects without rights-freemen and serfs, not all freemen. Such is the issue between Americanism and Imperialism.

ANDREW CARNEGIE.

THE LITERATURE OF ACTION.

BY EDMUND GOSSE.

AT the moment when I write these lines there is noticeable through the British Empire a very strange alertness of concentrated attention. Sir George Robertson tells us that when Chitral was being besieged, the garrison, in the midst of its patient labors, was suddenly transfixed in silence by a subterranean sound, the muffled, vibrating thud of a pick. The enemy were mining the gun-tower. Something of that sudden silence lies upon England as I write. It has dawned upon us that we may find it absolutely necessary to rebuff and chastise an intolerable. intrusion upon our rights; we hate the idea of war, but our very existence as a nation may require us to entertain it. That is the attitude, the feeling in the air; everybody is listening to the sound of the pick axe. In this tension, home politics are forgotten. The nation has but a single thought, the possibility of the need of one great act of self-preservation. My own memories go back, faintly, so far as to the Crimean War; never, in all those variegated years, have I seen anything approaching the attentive silence of to-day. The lion has straightened his front paws, and rises, and listens.

All may-and we are humane enough and sensible enough to hope that all will-pass by, and the lion sink again into his fur. But this attitude of undaunted expectancy is very remarkable, especially in a people little given to a display of the emotions. And the absolute unanimity of it is more than curious. In this solemn pose there are no parties, no dissensions; the nation watches, gravely, with a single heart. It has struck me, in this taut moment of time, when a man can hardly plunge himself into the delectable waters of poetry and the fine shades, that it might