coast decreased by about 130,000 tons, while that on the Pacific coast increased by about 125,000 tons. Everything points to a large increase, within a few years, of our share in that commerce on both sides the Pacific basin, which has already reached a total of twenty million tons annually. In five or ten years, or at least within a generation, there will be railways in China, the Nicaraguan Canal, a fairly complete American railway system from Alaska to Chili, and the transAsiatic railway completed. Then the present $5,000,000,000 of Pacific Ocean commerce will doubtless be doubled in amount.

The writer of this article remembers when, the foreign trade with Japan amounting to less than $10,000 a year, men sniffed and sneered at the idea of the Mikado's Empire ever being worth the attention of first-class European and American trading houses. Now Japan is a factor of nearly first-class influence in the new world-problem. Her industrial movement is no sudden spasm. It is based on the healthy growth of democracy, which moves to the realization of the noble political ideals. If only her constitutional, political, and her industrial expansion proceed at an equal rate and are kept pure by a steadily improving morality, then Japan will be a great controlling power in the Pacific, and pretty sure, with fair treatment by us, to work in harmony with "the Anglo-Saxons," by which we mean speakers of the English language. Thirty-five years ago, Japan had not so much as one tall chimney in the way of associated industrialism, nor an iron rail, nor a steamer. To-day she has hundreds of cotton-mills, with nearly a million spindles, employing 25,000 operatives. Instead of sending out a few curios, she now exports silk, tea, tobacco, woven goods, matches, various manufactures, and coal. Her foreign commerce amounted in 1897 to nearly $200,000,000. The national revenue has doubled in twenty years, and the general wealth tripled since foreign commerce began.

On the other side is China, which has regions capable of producing everything, and a population that can be educated into appreciation of almost all that Occidental skill and experience can supply. China's conversion and regeneration will come from without, but the child is already born who will live to see the Empire threaded with railroads. Yet, some day, she will change from being a passive instrument of the ambition of Russia and France, and will become an

active agent. The industrial revolution has already begun, and both her exports and imports are changing. She has coal, iron, petroleum, natural gas, sugar-cane, tobacco, indigo, cotton, all sorts of good supplies. The reign of Confucius will not last forever. The next "cycle of Cathay" will mean more to the world than ever Mr. Tennyson dreamed.

India has also changed. Her traditional products of opium, indigo, and spices are now in the shadow compared with her raw and manufactured cotton, jute and jute goods, oil, seeds, wheat, rice, wool, timber, and coal. Korea's foreign trade, which a decade ago was nearly nil, amounted in 1897 to $11,755,625.

It is more than probable that Britain, assisted very probably by the United States, will maintain "the open door" in China. This means that, despite all that Russia or France may do in conditioning Chinese trade and development north and south, the richest part of China, the valley of the Yang-Tse, with an area of six hundred thousand square miles, inhabited by the most naturally industrious and commercial people in the East, will be our open market. flows into the Pacific, and at its mouth," the coming Far East," has an annual foreign trade of nearly $80,000,000.

The Great River already Shanghai New York of the

To-day, of the lands bordering on the Pacific, Anglo-Saxon nations hold Alaska, British America, and the United States, while the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes are now the ruling flags in the central Pacific. British peoples rule New Zealand, Australia, Hong-Kong, parts of New Guinea and Borneo. France holds land in Annam between Siam and the China Sea. Germany has part of Samoa and the port of KiaoChau in China. The Dutch possess Sumatra, Java, Celebes, Lombok, and other islands forming Insulinde or Island India, whose inhabitants number nearly 34,000,000 people. Alarmists have started the story that he Netherlands Government contemplates building a steel-clad fleet in order to protect its oceanic possessions against probably American aggression. As matter of fact, however, the proposal to do so was made be fore the Hispano-American war broke out, and was rejected in the last session of the StatesGeneral. The Netherlands have no fear of the United States, but of Germany. only.

One striking fact which includes a series

of events that belong to our history in the Pacific Ocean is our friendship with Russia. Being so deeply rooted in the past, this must condition our future development there. It must also remain a permanent element in consideration of a possible alliance with English-speaking nations. Surprising to many Europeans is this mutual sentiment between an absolute despotism and a democratic republic. Yet this friendship has roots that go back in time as far as William Penn and Czar Peter. In 1671 the founder of Pennsylvania-the man who anticipated in his writings both the Czar's irenicon and that federation of nations which may yet comeheld an interview and talked in the Dutch tongue with the Russian autocrat, who, to civilize his people, became a mechanic and ship-carpenter. Again, in the days when George the Third and the corrupt Parliamentary ring forced the American Revolution and applied for twenty thousand Russian soldiers to fight our fathers, Queen Catherine refused to lend a single mercenary, and proposed and consummated the Arnold Neutrality; and both actions touched the hearts of our fathers. From the very first appearance of the American whalers and merchant ships in the Pacific Ocean the friendship of the Russians was manifest. The first treaty with the United States and Russia, in 1824, was exceedingly liberal, declaring the navigation and fisheries of the Pacific free to people of both nations. In 1830, when Commodore Matthew Perry was sent in the new ship Concord to bear John Randolph of Roanoke as our first Minister to Russia, the Czar wished to engage American naval officers, as he afterwards employed American engineers to build his railway. Friendly relations steadily deepened between the two countries, until, as we all remember, a Russian fleet was sent to assist us in our Civil War, in case of hostile interference by Great Britain. In both countries emancipation took place, the serfs being liberated in 1861, and the slaves being set free in 1863. Both eman cipators, the absolute Czar and the republican President, falling under the hands of the assassin, both nations were united in sympathy and sorrow.

Major Shaw, of the United States First Artillery, who first opened American trade with China; our commercial captains who first carried the American flag round the world; our missionaries and first diplomatists, were pioneers of the world-movement now

centering in the Pacific, in which also our naval history is so glorious. This is concerned not only with battles and bombardments, with chastisements of piracy, treachery, and cruelty to the shipwrecked, with war and the shedding of blood, but also with noble works of science and humanity. On land, by the energy and pluck of Marcus Whitman, the missionary, the Northwest slope, Washington and Oregon, became ours, and, later, Fremont and Kearny won for us California. Then Commodore Stockton hoisted our flag and formed a provisionalgovernment. In the South Pacific, our whal ing fleets and industry, Porter's achievements in the Essex with the British ships Phoebe and Cherub and temporary occupation of the Marquesas Islands, the naval exploits in Chinese waters of Foote, Tattnall, and others, the fights with pirates and their extinction, the treaties made by the sailor-diplomatists Perry and Shufeldt with Japan and Korea, with two brilliant episodes at Shimonoséki, and the expedition under John Rodgers in Korea, the exploring expedition of Wilkes and his discoveries on the Antarctic Continent, the exploring expedition of John Rodgers through Behring Strait, the cruises of the Shenandoah and Ticonderoga, the deep-sea sounding of the Tuscarora, the exhibition of man's greatness in the hour of death at Samoa, make brilliant chapters in the history of the United States navy in Asiatic waters, crowned by Dewey's achievements at Manila.

Space does not allow us to more than hint at the story of America in the Pacific, which grandly deserves a volume. Suffice it to say that for over a century we have had an army of pioneers who scarcely dreamed of the magnitude of the movement they were leading. Now, in the ordering of that Power not ourselves, the main army of the American people have come up with the advance guard. In the new evolution of history in the Pacific, shall we lead or be led ?

If we read the past aright, the American people will not follow; they will lead. No theoretical objections or academic warnings will repress the instincts of national develop. ment. The same motives which have for a hundred years impelled them will drive them now into new enterprises, of gain indeed, but also of desire for mutual benefit between man and man, of education, of moral uplift, of spiritual blessing. Nor in these will they fail or be discouraged until they have set righteousness in the earth,

having learned their power, to take a hand in shaping their own future, and may extort fair opportunities if denied, while they will appreciate just treatment and profit by it.

A subordinate but formidable element is the Moros, or Mohammedan Malays, redoubt able warriors, characterized by inhuman cruelty, against whom the Spaniards have been able to prevail only by gunboats and machine guns. They have a propensity to "run amuck," with the notion of securing the greater felicity in heaven the more Christians they can slay before being dispatched. The Spanish Governor of Sulu, whom Professor Worcester describes as an exemplary officer, kept the peace with the Moros by a policy of strict but merciless justice. They called him "papa," and obeyed his commands with profound respect. His successor, a less energetic and cautious man, they surprised and slew with most of his troops. Governor Arolas gave the two Americans this rule for safety outside the walls of Sulu: "If you meet armed Moros outside the town, order them to lay down their arms and retire; if they do not instantly obey, shoot them." Our countrymen did better, however, by the aid of a strong Moro escort, and did all the hunting in the forest that they wished to, with the added excitement of being shot at from ambush. They even managed to "get in " with the Moros so as to be privileged to witness a wedding, and to converse with a pandita, or priest, from whom they got much curious information about the Moro type of Mohammedanism. As to these people, who are numerous on the coast of Mindanao and in some of the smaller islands, Professor Worcester thinks it certain that, to get on peaceably with them, "their religion must be let alone," and they themselves held in check with a strong hand for many years to come. For this a considerable military force will be required, and a policy of "absolute justice combined with relentless firmness."

Next come the pagan Malays, of numerous tribes and diverse characters, many of them peaceable, others warlike and given to headhunting, but happily not formidable in numbers. It does not appear that these wild tribes constitute a more serious factor in the

Philippine problem than the once dreaded Apache Indians presented in our own Southwest. Much lower than these are the Negritos, supposed to be a remnant of the aborigines whom the Malay invaders supplanted a black race of dwarfish size, and

tending to die out. There are also some half-breed tribes, a cross of Malay and Negrito. Altogether there are reckoned over eighty tribes or varieties in a population of at least eight millions, five millions of them inhabiting the chief island, Luzon, in area nearly equal to the State of New York.

Our readers are familiar with accounts of the natural resources of these islands a vast storehouse of wealth awaiting, it would seem, simply the conditions which only a just and stable government can secure for opening it up. But the labor problem involved is a serious one. Professor Worcester says that "the man would be foredoomed to grievous disappointment" who should undertake any large business enterprise in reliance upon the delusive statement that laborers can be hired cheaply and in any desired number. In some islands, he says, it is necessary to import laborers, and pay advance wages before they begin to work. If they desert before working out their debt, the planters have no remedy, and most planters lose much money thus. One of the most humane and just of these preferred to hire men who drank and gambled and were fond of cock-fighting, as these "had more wants than the moral and sober native," and would work more days in the year for the means to satisfy them.

The most radical and difficult question in the Philippines is presented by the relig ious orders. Among these only the Jesuits stand for morality and education. Professor Worcester, himself a Protestant, declares that they are " a power for good." They were expelled in 1768, and allowed to return in 1852 on condition that they should restrict themselves to educational work and missions among the savage tribes. As for all the rest, collectively known as the friars, they are, according to the testimony of that loyal Catholic, John Foreman, in his book "The Philippine Islands," a very bad lot. The parish churches and schools are in their hands, but, with some bright exceptions, they are characterized by "ignorance and brutish licentiousness." Their evil and inhuman practices were a main cause of the recent insurrection, and the cruelties and wrongs they inflicted have resulted in an unappeasable hatred of the whole class, and a demand for their expulsion from the islands. Here comes in the difficulty. These corrupt orders have by their extortions accumulated great wealth and landed estates. The power of organized capital to resist encroachment on "vested