OUR KIN ACROSS THE SEA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2274, 5 February 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

OUR KIN ACROSS THE SEA.

fl'.Y ,1. 0. FIRTH.] VIII. THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Who are these men and women, with some of whom it has been my privilege to mink'e for a season, too short to know them fully, but long enough to feel that they are a great people, with many great virtues and some great faults ? In the. preceding chapters I have told my readers how they have built great cities ; how they have won great stores of gold and silver from the mountain and the mine ; how they have spread over their boundless plains, and have covered them with a vast network of iron. It was of this people that Sydney Siuith in 1820, wrote in the Edinburgh Review, as follows : —

"The Americans are a brave, industrous, and acute people; they ha e hitherto given no indications of genius, and made no approaches to the heroic, either in their morality or character. During the thirty or forty years of their independence they have done absolutely nothing for the sciences, the arts, for literature, or even for the statesmanlike studies of politics or political economy." The witty, if not wise, reviewer might as well have said that Washington in his infancy gave no indication of military or administrative genius ; that Prescott in his childhood gave no promise or historic ability : that Washington Irving and Longfellow in their boyhood did absolutely nothing for literature of poetry ; that Franklin ana Morse in their youth achieved nothing for science; and that Lincoln, when splitting rails in Illinois, did absolutely nothing for the political progress of this country, nothing for the rights of man. It is well to remember, if the Edinburgh reviewer had forgotten, that—in the first forty years of their independence —Americans were engaged in ceaseless struggles with their savage Indian foes ; in planting isolated homes in their trackless forests ; in exploring their mighty rivers and their illimitable prairies.

If the reviewer had been more correct in measuring the circumstances, he would have been more just in his criticisms. Had he realised their difficulties and their position, he would have seen that a people engaged in the necessary, and not less necessary than heroic, work of building up a young , nation, incurred no opprobrium, and deserved no censure, because they did not write poems when they were handling the rifle; because they did not chisel statues when they were wielding the axe ; because they did not erect grand temples when they were building log huts. The founders aud pioneers of the United States s;iw, what the cynical reviewer did not see, that they were laying the foundations of a great nation, which in the coming time might at least give the promise, wheu it hud the opportunity, of developing the arts both of peace and war. The promise it has, as I think, so far fulfilled, as to place the United States in the foremost rank of modern nations. WHO ARE THE AMERICANS ? Who, then, are this people who, in the first ceutury of their existence as an independent nation, have built up this Great Republic ? And what are the lateu t forces which have enabled them to develope so great a measure of energy and enterprise in so short period ? The most potent of thoso forces is that Americans, in literature, religion, laws, and life, are English; that, like Englishmen, they sprung from no one race. What strain of blood flows in the veins of the Englishman of to-day ? Is it British, Celtic, RomaD, Saxon, Danish, Norman, Teutonic ? It is no one of these : it is all of them, coursing in one mingled, masterful stream through the arteries of our national life, producing that great race which has located itself in so many countries; which holds so many points of vantage throughout the world ; which bids defiance to every extreme of climate; which has planted its laws, its literature, its religion, ita home life, and its free institutions in all lands discovered by English enterprise, or conquered by English, valour. What the irruptions of Roman, Saxon, Norse, and Norman did for England, the great migrations of English, Scotch, Irish, Scandinavian, and Teuton have done for America. England for ages has ,been the safe asylum, the restful havenj the free'.arena for the persecuted, the distressed, and the enterprising of many nations. In like manner the Great Republic has received with open arms the millions upon millions of men, •whom successive waves of migration have swept from the poverty and the despotism of Europe to seek and to find prosperity and freedom in the United States of America. MANIFEST DESTINY. Before the great Civil War the lines of Amerioan policy were broadly drawn. The North had the true idea of National Life. It maintained an unwaveriug fidelity to the " Union of Free States," reuniting in a grand Federated Nation, careless, for the time, of the duration of shivery, but determined at all hazard?, that it should extend no further. The South, more aristocratic, yet with far narrower and more selfish aims, placed "Slavery" first, "The Union" second, ready to sacrifice not only "the rights of man," but their altar also, on the black altar of slavery. Never in the history of mankind has been witnessed so great a struggle, or a contest with graver issues more clearly defined. The modern world watched the terrible struggle with an absorbing interest befitting the magnitude of the contest. In truth, great as were the issues, their far-reaching influence are even yet not fully measured. Had two Nations emerged from the Titanic contest, the continent of North America in each succeeding century, would have become an arena as bloody as the Continent of Europe has for ages been, and the English-speaking race, instead of drawing closer its bonds of sympathy and racial affinity, instead of steadfastly and surely—-if silent and slowly—preparing to unite in one grand Federated Dominion with its commanding positious, its continental areas, its varied prodHcts, its thousand islands, its banners gleaming on every oceau and on every sea —would have delayed through centuries of blood and tennoil its glorious mission of securing the PEACE 01' TUB WORLD, THK HAPPINKSS OV HUMANITY. For let there he bat once firmly established the United States of England, and her free children throughout the world, there will have been struck a greater blow at tyranny, war, misery and ruin, than has ever been struck since the rounder of Christianity proc!aimeil " peace on earth and goodwill to ■nan." NOT IN VAIN. The wide dispersion of the Englishspeaking race over the world is a phenomenon too remarkable either to be accepted an a matter of course, or to be regarded merely as an evidence that the imperial spirit animates the Englishspeaking division of the human family. In a universe, in which nothing lives or dies in vain; in which no flower blooms, or insect crawls its day, and dies; in which no grain of sand, no mountain mass exists in vain; in which no tlewdrop sparkles, no ocean heaves, without exerting a lesser or a larger influence : such a term as "in vain " has no meaning. No word of God returns unto Him void ; nor is any action of His, small or great, done in the universal realm of Nature over which He reigns without accomplishing His purpose. If this be so, ifc may well be asserted that no man, no nation, ever existed or faded away in vain. Can, therefore, such a development as the wide dispersion and dominion of the Englishspeaking race have beeD permitted without being intended to exert an influence upon the destiny of the human family greater than that exerted by any other people, ancient or modern ? In this view it may not be without interest to consider certain problems which are now being presented for solu-

tion by the great division of the Enaliehspeakina race dwelling in the United States of America. CRUCIAL QUKSTIONS. Lut me shortly pass under review some of the qm-stions which a long course of reading and a close personal inquiry during a hundred discussions with Americans of all classes, during iny recent visi , . to the States, have enabled me in a measure to examine. These questions are not all of equal importance. Some of them may appear at first sight to concern only the people of the United States, but that is not really so. For the progress of industry, the backward or forward march of opinion, the development of Democracy under new conditions, the effect of ceaseless toil on life and energy ; the aspirations, the objects—the ideals and the reals—of this young, vigorous, earnest, masterful nation are, I venture to think, full of interest to men of English blood all over the world. With a warm admiration for the noble institutions of this great country, with a deep sympathy for the difficulties and dangers which are—as I think—confronting its people, I should fail in my [ duty to them, I should betray the sacred principles of freedom which belong not to them only, nor yet to their English brethren, but to humanity at larue, it' I permitted a spirit of cowardice or flattery to prevent my speaking what I believe to be truth. POLITICS. Americans are subject to a delusion so enrious that it would be ludicrous did it not involve consequences so serious to the legitimate working out of the theory of a real Republic, which may be taken to be " Government by the People for the People." This delusion consists iu the popular idea that Americans are the freest people "on this planet;" that they have no aristocracy, no classes; that their political institutions, and their modes of working them are absolutely the wisest, the purest, and the best to be found in any nation. Theoretically—wich the exception of the majority of the English colonies—that is true. Practically it is not so true as every well-wisher to the success of the Democratic princiole would desire it to be.

It is only fair to say regardiug this delusion, that the scales are already falling from the eyes of many beholders. Americans are beginning to find that they have "classes" of very distinct and pronounced types ; and that, if they have no "House of Lords,' with its hereditary splendours and mild functions; that if they have no "Queen," who reigns but docs not rule; they have aristocrats and " kings" of various breeds : "cattle kings," "timber kings," "silver kings,' and "railway kings." These " kings " are new men, with the garish splendours of parvenus, and, often, with little that is "gentle" in their rule or in themselves. The variety last named —the "railway kings"—it is said by Americans themselves, leave to the smaller producers the least value possible of the produce they raise, which will allow them to live, taking the balance for transit charges. These " railroad kings" occasionally have little quarrels before the public, "carrying people and merchandise at little figures, but not doing that "little" lone. For having done "that much," to show Americana how free they are, the railroad rulers clasp hands again, aud make the "rings" and " kings" closer and stronger than before.

To Englishmen and English colonists American politics are a puzzle. Theoretically the American Constitution possesses every element of freedom. It claims (theoretically) to provide for the government of the people by the people. It has no reigning family, no aristocracy, no priviligc-d classes. But yet, owing to various causes, this noble promise and flower of freedom is steadily developing a condition of things grievously disappointing to every well wisher to American institutions. Two greatparties—RepublicanandDemocrat — apparently rule the destinies of the nation. The " figure-head" politicians at Washington are selected by Republican or Democratic Conventions. The " convention" is nominated by the " caucus," the '■ caucus" in its turn being nominated and controlled, in some cases, by secret irresponsible "rings," mothers, by "political bosses."

The "caucus " registers the decision of the " ring," or "boss." The "convention," after no end of talk and voting, obeys the commands of the "caucus," and puts out " the ticket," or list of candidates, for the election of which the people vote, or such of them as care to play a part in the farce. Meantime the newspapers, with some exceptions on each side, collect and print day by day every story, true or false, every calumny, however black or dirty, every private or social scandal, and hurl them with rancorous venom at the heads of the candidates opposed to them. To use the words bf an eminent New York divine, which I heard spoken from a pulpit in Minneapolis,'"What man of sensibility, what man of honour, has the moral courage to run the gauntlet of such a tempest of foul black-mouthed abuse ? What wonder, if many of the best men in the United States are displaying less and less inclination to wade through these foul waters of lies and slander." What wonder, if this be so, if the " politics " of this noble country are steadily drifting into the hands of professional politicians, mercenary charlatans, and brazen-faced rogues, who are adepts in the science of what is known in America as " covering up the tracks," which means, in plain words, hiding the corruption they practice ? What wonder if venality and corruption pervade nearly every avenue to power, and obstruct almost every avenue to justice ? What wonder if the " rings," to use an Americanism, "do their stealing" with comparative impunity? What wonder if this great country, so loud in its talk about freedom, should be deprived of so much of its reality ?