and Edward F. Albee, theatrical managers, and many another. The rivers of genius have watered Maine no less abundantly than its lace-work of natural rivers and streams.

These and the host of others who belong in the same category, represent an output of brains and brawn, of moral courage and physical daring, high moral ideals, patriotic endeavor, and noble aspiration, which, could it be rendered in terms of dollars and cents, would far exceed in value Maine's output in granite and lumber, of ice and potatoes, great as that is. Maine is first of all a producer of men and women.

The Mecca of Vacation-Seekers Much might be said of Maine as a rest resort and the paradise of the hunter and fisherman. Here, in ever increasing numbers, the "tired business man," that object of special solicitude on the part of the theatrical manager, comes with his family; and in hotel, cottage, or camp, on the seacoast or by river or lake, or in the "silent places" of the great woods, finds healthful change and relief. While the wicked may not cease altogether from troubling, the weary man can be. relatively at least, at rest. For the sports

men, Maine is superabounding in allurements. There are wild geese, woodcock quail, plover, partridge, and almost every kind of duck found in North America in the heavens above-at greater or less elevations; moose, deer, bear, and rabbits, on the earth beneath; and trout, bass, togue and salmon in the waters under the earth. Not far from 2800 licenses for hunting have been issued to non-residents in a single year, while the multitude coming into the State annually to try "fisherman's luck," no man can number. It is estimated that fully a half-million of people visit Maine every year for purposes of recreation or sport-a total that is twothirds that of the State's entire population.

But Maine welcomes all comers, its returning sons and daughters and the stranger alike, and gives them access to all of its best. Its latch-string is always out; and at this time when it is celebrating the completion of one hundred years of Statehood, those who have ever enjoyed its hospitality will join with its absentee sons and daughters, its children at home, and all its friends everywhere, in wishing it health and prosperity for centuries to come.

Hail, "hundred-harbored Maine"!

At the present time a 20 per cent. perference in tariff exists as between Canada and the British West Indies, but despite this a leading student of the problem declares "that for every dollar's worth of goods the United States purchases from British Guiana, the latter country buys $7.27 worth from the United States, while with regard to Canada the position is that for every dollar's worth Canada purchases from British Guiana the latter only buys forty-one cents' worth in return." This is more or less the position of the other colonies as well, and Chief Justice Rowan Hamilton, of the Leeward Islands, was recently quoted to the effect that annexation either to Canada or the United States must ultimately ensue.

Political Relations of the Colonies The position of these West India colonies to-day, in their political relations with Great Britain, is somewhat similar to that of the American Colonies before they combined and secured their independence, or that of the Canadian, Australian, and South African colonies before they united into the federacies which they embody to-day. Canada formed such a union half a century ago and abundantly proved its advantages; Australia followed twenty years back, and South Africa's union was effected within the past decade. Each of the West Indian Colonies is distinct apart from the others, with its administrative and legislative machinery adapted to its special circumstances, and it deals directly with the "Colonial Office" in London, the popular designation of "the Department of the Secretary of State for the Colonies," which exercises jurisdiction over all the overseas possessions of the British Empire.

These West India territories are the only group out of all the British dependencies not integrated, and to-day, when new unions are being born in the Old World and when Canada, Australia, etc., are being recognized as full-fledged states, conditions are bring ing home to the West India Islands the disadvantages of their several isolations and a political step forward by them is to be expected.

Proposed Commercial Union with Canada

Such a step can be in three directions: the formation of a confederacy among themselves, their absorption by Canada, or their annexation by the United States. The former is not considered feasible by the

closest observers, because it is believed the islands could not "stand on their own feet," politically and commercially, owing to the vast preponderance of the colored population, backward in these respects as such communities are everywhere. Advocacy of closer association with Canada takes two forms. One is that in regard to trade matters there should be a commercial union between Canada and the West Indies, such as exists between the United States and Porto Rico, with a 50 per cent. preference for British imports entering the West India Islands, and a general tariff as against all other countries. The argument in support of this proposal is that, as a result of the commercial union between the United States and Porto Rico, with no tariff either on imports or exports of goods passing between them, and the full American tariff imposed on everything imported into Porto Rico from elsewhere, the exports of Porto Rico have grown in twenty years from $8,000,000 to $74,000,000, and the imports from $9,000,000 to $63,000,000.

Difficulties of Political Union

The second phase of a Canadian alliance is a constitutional union or the acquisition of the West India Islands, though it is recognized that grave difficulties exist in the way of making this complete in every detail. Among the chief obstacles urged against Canada's acquiring these islands as a territorial appanage are that this would (a) import into Canadian politics a color question in addition to the race and religious issue which the French of Quebec now constitute; (b) bring into existence a naval-defense problem for Canada of a new and acute form; and (c) involve the creation of administrative machinery and ruling classes for regions thousands of miles from the seat of government.

As to the political phase of the subject it is noted that if full autonomy were granted to the West Indies, the great majority of whose people are of the colored races, it might mean that the political destinies of Canada would be determined at some future date by the outcome of an election in these possessions, and a saving clause is therefore suggested by which the people of these islands would not enjoy a full "Dominion" franchise, but might be represented in the Canadian Senate by men of white or colored blood living in the Islands and brought to Ottawa to serve as their mouthpiece.

The naval phase of the subject is that Canada would have to assume the naval obligations which Britain now shoulders as far as the West Indies and the adjacent Atlantic are concerned. Something like $25,000,000 a year would be required to take over Britain's naval duties in the Western Atlantic. Much of this money would be over and above whatever may be proposed, under existing conditions, as adequate for the Atlantic defense of Canada.

The administrative aspect of the matter is that Britain has created, as a result of centuries of experience in the governing of oversea territories, special classes of officials who have achieved results in that regard such as no other nation has yet attained, and it is men of this type who direct affairs in these West India Islands at the present time; and the traditions and records of the service are such that there is greater assurance for the well-being of the subject peoples under this form of administration than under any experimental machinery which Canada might devise. There is also the fact that Canada is a vast country, only partly populated even now, seeking population from Europe for the filling of its own vacant spaces and having in its own problems ample work for all desirous of improving the status of government within that Dominion. The acceptance, therefore, of virtual sovereignty over the West India Islands, thousands of miles away, populated mainly by people of color and vulnerable to any assailant enjoying even temporary control of the seas, is a proposition at which even the most imperialistic statesman might look askance.

Arguments for American Acquisition

The United States in the matter of the acquisition of the British West India Islands has the advantages of (a) proximity, (b) growing trade, intercourse, (c) familiarity with the "color" problem because of its Southern States, (d) an adequate navy to undertake the defense of the islands and (e) a national ascendancy in the region where these territories are situated. To realize the advantages proximity affords, one has only to look at the map, for the various southern ports of the United States afford the nearest and cheapest way of reaching the islands and would enable the problems of their administration and progress to be solved with the least difficulty.

Regarding the trade problem the imports of agricultural products and manufactured

goods into the British West India Islands last year were valued at about seventy million dollars, of which Canada furnished only 10 per cent., while of Canada's imports of tropical products, totaling about $110,000,000, only one-fourth came direct from the West Indies, the remainder coming through the United States, and paying toll to American traders, as well as helping to maintain the exchange barrier at its highest level, to the general detriment of Canada. Of the exports from the British West Indies, reaching some sixty-five million dollars per year, Canada takes at present only about twentytwo million dollars' worth, much of the remainder going to the United States, while the latter nation has actually a larger trade with the West India Islands (under all flags) than with the whole of South America or with China, though the latter has 400,000,000 people.

A side light on the commercial situation is thrown by the fact that these various West India Islands are unwilling, individually, to take any action tending towards a closer accord with Canada, fearing retaliation by the United States. For instance, Jamaica, while accepting, with the other islands, the 20 per cent. preference for her exports to Canada, which the latter's tariff provides, declines to give a corresponding preference to Canada's imports into Jamaica lest America retort by a discriminating tariff on Jamaican bananas, sugar, and other products, arguing that 70 per cent. of Jamaica's trade is conducted with the United States and that the volume and value thereof are steadily increasing.

At the same time it is not to be seriously supposed that Britain and Canada will allow the West Indies to pass under another flag without exhausting every effort to retain them. The strategic value of some of these islands, such as Bermuda and Jamaica, is very great; and may become still greater in future years. The islands have been associated with some of the greatest naval exploits of the Empire and they furnish a substantial market for British products. Canada, too, has in them an assured market for certain of her products and could to-morrow absorb the entire sugar production of the group-about 300,000 tons. It is urged that the New Canadian Government Merchant Marine, a fleet of state-owned and state-operated steamships, which will soon total seventy bottoms, should be utilized to develop trade with the West Indies.

CONSERVATIVE Republican Congressman who has sat almost continuously in the lawmaking body since 1874 and a progressive Republican Congressman serving his first term were two of a group recently assembled in a Washington club to dine and talk about affairs national and international, terrestrial and celestial, utilitarian and idealistic. The veteran and the neophyte disagreed on almost all subjects but one, namely, the moral cowardice of the rank and file of Congressmen. "On a viva voce vote, they register one opinion; on an aye and nay vote they will instantly reverse their positions," they agreed in saying.

A plain civilian noting their sole topic of agreement, asked whether what was described by them as "cowardice" was surprising in view of the altering conditions of lawmaking, the much increased pressure which the lawmaker has to resist, and the highly developed punitive mechanism which competing groups of "interests" have developed. These they use in punishing Congressmen and Senators if they run counter to their demands. He also had the temerity to ask whether society had been deliberately training men for lawmaking or executive positions who had the ethical insight and moral will sufficient to resist the newer forms of group pressure. For in passing let it be said that Presidents, as well as Senators, are complaisant.

Increasing Group Influence

This incident garnered from a modest post-prandial "matching of minds" would not be quite complete without this additional statement, namely, that the veteran lawmaker admitted "on the side" for the benefit of the civilian's inquisitive mind, that he, the civilian, was quite right; that laws were now largely shaped by forces with their group headquarters ever multiplying in the capital; that the legislator of to-day does tend to become more and more the object of a group competition fiercer than he is trained to re

sist; and that consequently the record of diminishing legislative initiative and independence of thought and action makes steadily for waning prestige of Congress as over against the executive.

Headquarters of All "the Interests"

No extra-constitutional, informally tolerated and yet formally questioned phase of practical political reconstruction is going on now comparable in significance with the planting at the nation's political center of the administrative headquarters of the "interests," whether capitalistic or proletarian, agricultural or industrial, educational or philanthropic, commercial or scientific. Millions of dollars already have been invested in elegant quarters, and more are to follow. The scale of expenditure for plant and "staff" is generous; indeed it excites the wonder of foreigners-as for instance the American Federation of Labor's headquarters and the reactions of delegates to the recent International Labor Conference of the League of Nations, who inspected it and were profoundly impressed.

Multifarious "Causes"

By assessment of thousands of organization members it is possible to plan for ornate, imposing, capacious buildings, and then use them for administrative propaganda and conference purposes. They have ample supplies of literature, and card-indexed records of the careers, morals, investments and even the private hobbies and secret passions of public men of to-day and to-morrow. Their permanent administrators are expert men drawn from the field who have proved their capacity working in State or local campaigns. Sometimes it is equal suffrage for women they want, sometimes prohibition of the liquor traffic, sometimes new rates of pay as public employees, sometimes larger appropriations for the Department of Labor or the Department of Agriculture, and occasionally they desire ampler appropriations,