OUR KIN ACROSS THE SEA.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2280, 19 February 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

OUR KIN ACROSS THE SEA.

[BY J. C. FIRTH.]

IX. AMERICAN POLICE. The American citizen is undoubtedly a Patriot, though after a somewhat narrow and sellish fashion. He is proud of hii country, and in many respects he has good reason to be so. In his inner consciousness he is devoted to the " real ' ami to the " ideal." His "real" is the "dollar;" hia "ideal" "his country." The "dollar" he worships with a pagan devotion, and he pursues the "cult" with unwearied personal ardour. His country he regards as so great, so free, and so firmly established, that he appears to think he may safely abandon its interests to those whose business it is " to make politics pay." Then, when corruption has made the political atmosphere too " hot" for comfort, the " silent majority " opens its month, thunders from a thousand pulpits and ten thousand platforms, gets up, in fact, a gnnuine political thunderstorm, which clears the air, and the "political rogues/' to use an Americanism, are "up a tree;" or like monkeys going to sea on the back of a whale, get washed off, when the nation breathes freely, the country goes on as before, and tho " silent majority" settles down once more, to pursue the "almighty dollar" with its accustomed ardour. American polity may be separated into two broadly-marked divisions, Isolation and Protection to Native Industry. ISOLATION. American foreign policy may perhaps in some respects be narrow ; may be more or less rigidly confined;to their own interests, and be circumscribed by the views they hold of the lines on which their national life should run. In this they differ only from other great nations, in that they have resolutely refused to have a foreign policy at all, and havß confined themaelvea to their idea of " America for the Americans," leaving other countries to take care of themselves. But however narrow we may think their ideas of national work and duty may be, they are unquestionably carrying them out with a vigorous determination nnd a concentrated energy, before which raauy obstacles disappear, but which are certainly developing difficulties that will need a sounder policy and a wider sympathy to conquer. The Monroe doctrine of " America for the Americans" may have, I think, a much wider significance than its author probably intended. For a great nation to have no foreign policy, to feel no interest in the doings of the great world outside itself, however extensive its territories, is to dwarf the intellect and narrow tho sympathies of its people. "Happy the land that Is without a history," sounds well, but may be nothing better than the small drivel of a man without a soul. To cultivate farms, to build cities, to make railroads, boots, and toothpicks, may be all necessary and meritorious occupations. If these be all, they may be done by big people with little souls. But they ought to form, and really do form, only a very small part of the nobler life of a nation really greal. To many Americans tho world practically began with the discovery of America. Columbus, as a Maori would put it, "fished up the New World," and why bother with the Old. To ignore practically the great events of Greek and Roman story, to refuse to trace the migrations, the struggles, the sufferings, the achievements of the men of the olden time, is to despise the teaching of the past, to refuse the lessons of wisdom which the experience of the Past offers us, and can only result in our own great loss and damage. One word expresses both the cause and effect of such a condition, namely, ISOLATION. Let me briefly indicate the consequences of Isolation, "individually, social,* and national. What is the end of an Australian shepherd, isolated by long distances from his fellows? Insanity. What the condition of a little village whish will have no dealings with its neighbours? Unprogressive stupidity. What must ultimately be the condition of a country which builds an iron wall of Protection round its shores ? What must be the condition of a nation which so isolates itself, yet looks for a "good will" from other nations, which it refuses to show to them ? What other word than so odious a term as "intense selfishness"can be found to express it ? PROTECTION. Since the civil war of 1865, a distinctive feature of American Policy has been Protection to National Industry. This has been secured by imposing exceedingly heavy duties on two-thirds of all British products, as well as on those of other nations, ranging from 25 to 120 per cent., whilst, availing itself of the fatuous craze of one-skied Free Trade, dominant in England. America shipped in 1884 to Great Britain, free from duties, products mainly agricultural, to the value of eighty-six million pounds sterling ; importing in the same year, British home products to the value ouly of twenty-four million pounds sterling ; upon a very large proportion of which heavy protective import duties were levied. "Under this system, manufactures in the United States have been greatly stimulated, to the great profit of the small class of manufacturing capitalists, and to the great loss of the rest of the people, by doubling the cost to them of many articles of necessary and common use ; with the compensation afforded to agricultural producers, of the opportunity to ship their products to Great Britain—free. Whilst the undue stimulus to over-production by the agriculturists in the United States cannot be said to have benefited them, it is certain that it has greatly contributed to the ruin of British agriculture, and to the great diminution of the British Home Trado. This cannot long continue. PATRIOTISM. The great Civil War, though it cost the people much, welded North and South into a strong nation. When that great struggle ended, the Republican Party, which had carried it through, imposed the Protective Policy upon the nation. Nothing but the profound patriotism which animates Americans could have induced the great majority of the people to submit to a system of taxation, in the belief, that though it added to the wealth of the few, and greatly increased the cost of living to the many, yet, that it would ultimately redound to the progress of the nation. If great sacrifices of this nature have been made in the United States, I warn " our kin across the sea " that the two million democratic voters added to British constituencies by Mr Gladstone's recent legislation, may possibly adopt the logic, and follow the exainple of their American cousins; and demand the imposition of import duties more or less heavy on American products, now admitted free to British ports. Should the United Kingdom, with the great circle of British colonies and dependencies, H '■ompelled to adopt the defensive policy of protecting themselves from the heavy imposts levied upon their products by the United States; the narrow selfishness of the action of the Republican purty during the last quarter of a century, in thus calling for a retaliatory policy, will be responsible, for what may appear to be a directly backward step in the comity of nations, but what may really be, in its results, a decided step in the direction of absolute free trade amongst the various sections of tho English-speak-ing race, and may be a great onward movement iu the march toward universal peace and goodwill amongst mankind. LAWS OV HEALTH AND LIFE. The most friendly observer of the American people can, I think, arrive at no other conclusion than that they recklessly disregard, in various ways, the laws of health and life. The extent and variety of dishes at table, the general habit of drinking iced water, the universal consumption of sweetmeats, the excessive heating of houses, the general prevalence of excessive cigar smoking : in all these, Americana show a singular die-

regard of the laws of health. The general prevalence of what I may term excessive shaving, I venture to think,.is not conducive to health. "The "barber" in the States is no small institution. So far as I eaw, some gentlemen over 45 wore their beards. Under 30, nothing appears to be worn but the moustache. There is, I think, a strong tendency amongst younger men, to make a clean sweep of everything. Generally speaking the Nation may be said to he closely shaved, and I could not avoid the conclusion, that far too many acres of shaving are done every morning in the United States. There can, I think, be little question, that but for this barbarous custom the men of tho United States would be generally a handsome race. Thft excessive variation of temperature —from 90deg. to lOOdeg. F. in summer, to 20deg. and 30deg. below zero in winter —must, I think, have a bad effect upon the general health. It is a disadvantage from which there is no escape, and will always be a set-off amongst the many advantages which settlement in the United j States offers to immigrants. The habit of "overwork" has, I think, a more severe and dangerous influence upon health than all other causes combined. Of this demon of "overwork," I shall treat under a separate heading. I noticed a general distaste for athletic or equestrian exercises—apart from driving in buggies or "sulkies." Australasians and Englishmen generally, owe much of their robust health to their love of horses and outdoor sports. It may with truth be said that they are too ardent in their devotion to cricket, football, horse-racing, and athletics generally ; but Americana certainly err in the opposite direction. Beyondthe national game of " baseball" they have, so far as I could see, practically no other out-door game. During my stay in Chicago, a city of 700,000 inhabitants, I witnessed in the noble Lincoln Park a game of football and a gatife of cricket, at neither of which were present more than 50 spectator* ; whilst, shortly beforn my departure for America, a game of football was played between two rival clubs near Auckland, a city of 60,000 inhabitants, at which 10,000 enthusiastic spectators were present, many of the ladies wearing the colours of the clubs they favoured. Whether this singular departure from tho traditions and practices of the parent race is due to climatic influences, or to the overweening pursuit of what they call " the almighty dollar," I know not. Earnest, generous, brave, hospitable, and of conspicuous ability, one cannot but regret this general disregard for the laws of health and life. That indigestion, dyspepsia, catarrh, bronchial affections, heart disease, the premature decay of vital energy, a too general low tone of health, and no end of ills, to which flesh need not be heir, are the natural results, can excite no surprise. Well may Americana say with Burn*, "Oh, wad some power the giftie gie us, To sea ourael's as ithers see us, It wad frae mony a blunder fee us And foolish notion." OVERWORK. Overwork is one of the sins of the age. Above every other people, Americans are the greatest sinners. Life under high pressure appears to be their general condition. Look into the faces of the men you meet in the streets of their gre.at cities. What do you see? A resolute determination and concentrated energy in the pursuit of lofty and noble ideals ? No. You see men driven along by the fear of—to nse a well understood American term—"going under." Hunted by the demon of a ruthless competition, you see men everywhere absorbed by this ignoble pursuit of "dollars;" you see abundant evidences of the fierce struggle between the " millions and the millionaires." In this struggle for existence, this instance of the results of the popular dogma, " the survival of the fittest," you see men bald at forty, worn out at fifty. Sunday and week day, night and day, the race is run at top ppeed. City men go down into untimely graves; their places filled by youths from the free, fresh air of country homes, who, in their turn, become prematurely old and diajtefore their time. It may well be asked, " Is the game worth the candle ?" Reason and common sense answer, " No." Can the pace continue ? I think not. Take a young, healthy, well-bred horse full of stored-up energy and spirit, which, with reasonable treatment, will enable him to work throughout the term of his natural life. Suppose you put him on his mettle, and tax his energies beyond his strength, he may be good for a "spurt," but he will be dead beat in a long day's run. Overtax and overwork the most willing and the most superb horse, and however distinguished his early career, however renowned his victories, is it not too common a fate, under such treatment, for a noble animal, so full of promise in his fiery youth, to sink into a feeble and prematnre age. A well-bred healthy American trotting horse will trot a mile in two minutes and nine seconds. Will he do the next mile in similar time, and the next ? No. He cannot maintain the pace. If pushed, he breaks down, and becomes a ruin. Of course, none but a fool could so utterly disregard the laws of life in his case. And yet, in what does a man differ physically! Nature has imposed certain well-defined laws of life upon him. If these laws are observed —well. If not—the penalty is inflexibly exacted, and premature decay follows. Now, it is clear to every observant man who visits the United States—it is perhaps equally clear to observant Americans themselves—that steady, persistent, unreasonable overwork, continuous and hard, is the present actual condition of Americans of nearly all classes. Hand and brain, mind and body, are everywhere being overtaxed. No country cm point to such a marvellous hundred years' record as the United States of America. If we look at the deeds of this magnificent young giant, in arts, in inventions, in industrial works, in its great cities, in its vast railway works, in its marvellous agricultural conquests of the boundless wilderness— while we admire such astounding victories —we may well say, in the Pyrrhic spirit; " Many more such victories won, and the winners will be undone." Can any mortal nature continue to bear such a nervous tensiou, such a deadly strain, as all this hard work involves ? If the first century of the life of this great nation has made such a crowded and brilliant record, what will the next century achieve? Will the work be done, or will the workers be worn out ? May not the toilers under high pressure suffer a recoil, and die before their time, victims of overwork. Will not this nation itself become feeble before its youth is gone ? When presenting this view to Americans I have more than once been reminded that "England needed ten centuries" to attain her present position, and have been asked, "How, then, could two or three hundred years mark the limit of the wealth, power, and achievements of the United States ?" In reply to this query, I pointed out, that in England life and work were slower than in the United States. I reminded my friends that n flower which springs up and matures in a day often withers in a night. I cited the example of ancient Greece, which I make no apology for repeating here. Greece lived a glorious life, but a short one. The bright array of its warriors, its legislators, and its philosophers, like a lightning gleam across tho page of history, has not ceased to illumine and electrify every succeeding age. Within two or three centuries, were crowded its immortal tragedies, its most brilliant victories, its peerless statues, its wondrous temples, its undying literature—in a word, Greece, by its miracles in pnetry, prose, and marble, achieved a renown, that even in the fragmentary decay in which these monuments of her glory have come down to our times, they far surpass in their splendid beauty, in their un-

equiilled grandeur, the achievements of every other nation. For two or three centuries Greece astonished the world like a brilliant meteor, nnd then her great deeds were ended, and her people disappeared from the arena of nations. Her vital force, her mental vigour, her physicnl energy even, all had been exhausted in' the mipreine efforts of the two or three centuries during which she filled the world with her renown. GeniuH, unregulated, superlative trer.ius, is never very far from insanity or inanity. By some subtle law, of which we know nothing, the geniu* of a peoplo seems to burst forth like a volcano, which, for a time, may nhake the earth with its vibrations, or illumine both earth and sky with the splendour of its fiery corrusoations, and then subsiding—with exceptions all too few —it leaves little more than black lava streams and desolate wastes, to mark the force and extent of its irresistible action. The truth is, during the past century the genius of man has called into active existence, two forme of energy—steam and electricity—two subtle forces, whose extent and energy we have not yet learned to measuro or control. Before these developments of Nature's unknown and measureless energry, we otand face to face. We regard them as the indication and result of our own intensified and developed mental power. . But are we not in danger of forgetting, that mental development must rest upon, and, in the last resort, must spring from physical strength. Whilst we have stimulated—intensely vtimulated—the flame of our mental lamp, where is the oil to keep up the increased combustion? What of our bodies? Are they stronger: have they a greater stored up physical energy than our ancestors possessed ? We work harder :do we sleep better than they? Are we not steadily destroying the healthy balance between mind and body, without which the robust health of either cannot be long maintained ? What of the heart diseases and nervous affections of which we are the slaves and the victims, and of which our fathers knew nothing? May wenota3 well reflect that, in calling into action Nature's stupendous forces, we may have raised a devil we cannot by—a Frankenstein standing with drawn sword to destroy us ? The Orientals tell a story from which our Age may draw a wholesome moral. A fisherman had toiled all night and taken nothing, when as morning dawned, he felt his net drag heavily. Joyfully drawing it ashore, he found to his disgust nothing more than a copper pot. Turning from the shore disconsolate and weary, he was sorrowfnlly wending his way homeward, when he remembered seeing an inscription on the cover. Thinking the copper vessel might after all, contain a store of gold or silver, he returned to the shore, and with some difficulty removed the cover. To his disappointment the vessel was empty. Soon, however, from the empty pot he observed a thick vapour rising, which, spreading over sea and land, slowly condensed into a gigantic demon. The poor fisherman trembled in mortal terror before the demon. " Prepare to die," said the demon. " What have I done ?" groaned the trembling fisherman. "I have sworn to kill the man that dragged me from the deep, and thy time has come," replied the demon. " Since thou art so ungrateful as to destroy me, let me, at least, say my last prayer." " Let thy words be few, for thy time is short," growled the demon. Whilst the poor fellow prayed, an inspiration came to him. Rising to his fpet, he said : "I will not believe so mighty a demon ever dwelt in that small pot. Kill me, if thou wilt, but do not lie to me." "I will not lie to thee," replied the fiend. " I will re-enter the vessel." SKSlowly the terrible demon dissolved into a thin haze, which covered the land and the sea as before, and then gradually settled down into the copper vessel, from which it had emerged a little while ago. Instantly the fisherman put on the cover, and fastening it down, dragged the copper vessel once more into the sea, and returned joyfully to his wife and children. The demons we have dragged from Nature's depths stand confronting us. We call them our slaves, and we have compelled them to give us great stores of convenient things, and gold and silver, and apparel and luxury. Have they given us more sunshine in our lives, or more health, or more happiness in our homes ? Are they not becoming our masters ? Are they not presenting to us a cup filled with weariness, discontent, misery, anarchy ? What is the remedy ? I know not. Let others answer. CANADA. I made a short journey through a portion of the Canadian dominion. I fouud myself in another atmosphere. Here at least men seemed to "live." The contrast between life and work in Canada, and in the United States was very marked. Everything I saw in Canada seemed slow, measured, sure. It is the fashion in the States to sneer at this slow progress. The American city of Detroit, with its 250,000 inhabitants, is frequently contrasted with Windsor and its 6000 people on the Canadian side of the frontier; and comparisons, very unfavourable to Canada, are constantly drawn therefrom. Those who draw such comparisons appear to me to ignore certain inexorable laws of life, certain laws of the conservation and dissipation of energy, which, neither in the life of individual man, nor yet in the broader, deeper, vaster current of the life of a nation, can be disregarded with safety. The balance must, sooner or later, be struck. It appeared to me, if the present conditions of ceaseless toil on the one hand, and reasonable labour on the other, be continued for two or three centuries, that the United States will hare arrived at the limit of its progress ; whilst Canada will be in the strong youth of a vigorous development. NIAGARA. What a scene! What a world of waters ! What an overpowering roar ! What can possibly be said of a spectacle so grand, so unparallelled, so stupendous, so enthralling, so overwhelming? What pen or pencil can portray this volume of mighty waters? Crashing down into the fathomless depths below, at the rate of fifteen hundred million cubic feet a minute, what mortal man can comprehend its vastnese ? What mortal voice be heard in its resounding roar ! If thou wouldst in some feeble way, make thy puny accents articulate ; if thou wouldst measure thy boasted strength against the resistless might of this Niagara—watch, the autumn leaf, as it silently descends on the breast of the mighty torrent at thy feet. It floats and flickers for an instance on the glassy brink, then is seen no more. So, thy puny voice and feeble power are lost in its Infinity. _________^^