"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 some British 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 the common 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 of South-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 the Economist, 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 real free 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."



APPENDIX.

NEWFOUNDLAND'S RESOURCES.

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 a very 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 her man-power. Most certainly, Viscount Wolseley would not do so; and I think Major-general Dashwood, from whose interesting little book, "Chipplequorgan," I have 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 Company at 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 a home market 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 American home market alone would be more profitable to Newfoundland than all its connection with England can ever be.

J.F.

* * * * *

THE END