tions in regard to Canadian interests. On the whole, it must be said that the outlook is not favorable to a treaty covering all the questions.

Indian Schools

The Outlook agrees heartily with the "Congregationalist," which in its issue of January 12 protests against the petition of Cardinal Gibbons for the reopening of the question whether National funds shall be appropriated for the maintenance of Indian schools under church control. The whole administration of Indian matters has been an anomaly, due rather to lack of foresight than to any deliberate wrongdoing. We had, in the first place, to deal with the Indians as foreign nations, and we have been slow, perhaps culpably slow, in adapting ourselves to the changed conditions in which they are no longer foreign nations, but alien and subject races in our own land and under our authority. While they were foreign nations they were proper subjects of foreign missionary service, and the schools which were organized were necessarily parochial schools. Within the last few years the Government has come to recognize the fact that they are not foreign nations, but members of the American Nation, and entitled to the rights and subject to the responsibilities of other Americans. Among these rights now universally recognized is the right to a public-school education; and under President Harrison's administration this right was fully recognized, at least in theory, and under General Morgan, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs, a system was initiated, the object of which is to provide secular education for all Indian children of school age residing on the reservations and not provided for by the common schools of the State. One denomination after another has accepted this conclusion and either withdrawn from teaching altogether or carried on its schools by its own funds. The Roman Catholic Church is the only one which has not accepted this principle. Five years ago Congress, seeking to avoid sudden revolution, voted to decrease gradually the amount appropriated to the Roman Catholic Church by twenty per cent. each year, until at the expiration of five years the appropriation should cease. The time for this cessation has now come, and there is no reason why the decision arrived at five years ago should be set aside or even the question reopened. As our readers know, The Outlook

has no hostility toward the Roman Catholic Church, but we urge churches, associations, and individuals to send in to the Committee on Indian Affairs their protest against any continuation of the policy, so absolutely unAmerican, of supporting by National funds sectarian or ecclesiastical crganizations.

Commercial Progress

The trade reviews of the year 1898 are, with few exceptions, extremely optimistic. The number of commercial failures (12,192) was less than in any year since 1892, and the volume of bank clearings was ten per cent. greater than in that year even. The gains in bank clearings have, indeed, been greatest in the speculative centers, and more than half of the business on the New York Stock Exchange is now in the securities issued by trusts and industrial combinations, whose number has rapidly multiplied. But, quite apart from this distinctively speculative business, investment securities proper command the highest prices in recent years. As regards sections, the West has shown the greatest prosperity, though every part of the North, save New England, has made material advances. In the South, where two-thirds of the families are engaged in agriculture, and cotton is the "money crop," the unprecedentedly low price for cotton prolongs the depression. In New England, also, the relative lack of progress is partly due to the state of the cotton industry; but the branch which has suffered most is the woolen business, for which great prosperity was anticipated from the new tariff. Secretary North, in his annual review for the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, says that "in general dullness and non-employment the year has been only less notable than 1894." The advance in the price of woolens caused by the tax of twenty-two to thirty-three cents a pound on scoured wool has led, he says, to the widespread substitution of cotton and shoddy for all-wool fabrics. In the iron trade, last year was one of unprecedented production. The output of pig iron was nearly twelve billion tons, or nearly two billions more than in any previous year, and nearly three billions more than the output in Great Britain. The ex ports of iron manufactured goods exceeded $100,000,000. The foreign trade of the year, as was anticipated, broke all records. The exports were about $1,250,000,000, or over eighty dollars for every family in the country;

while the imports ($633,000,000) were but liitle more than half these sums. The net imports of gold were $140,000,000; and this contribution, together with the increase of the gold product in this country and the reduction of the funds in the Treasury caused by the continuance of the deficit, have added more than $200,000,000 to the volume of money in circulation. This is a result which is gratifying to all parties to the bimetallists because they believed that business prosperity demanded an increase of circulation, and to monometallists because this demand of their opponents has been met without the remonetization of silver.

New Incidents in the Dreyfus Case

It is the unexpected which always happens in the Dreyfus case. The latest

seriously marred the influence of M. de Beaurepaire's action. The spectacle of a judge descending from the bench, abusing his colleagues, and joining in the glorification of the army is not one which the friends of France can look upon with any satisfaction. The fact that M. de Beaurepaire's appeal seems to be reacting upon himself is, however, a distinctly favorable indication of the turn of affairs. Unluckily, public opinion is likely to be inflamed again in the near future by two additional trials: one, of the author of a book called "The Army Against the Nation;" the other, of the editor of “La République Française," who is charged with having insulted the memory of LieutenantColonel Henry by suggesting that Henry was the real traitor.

of the Civil Section of the Court of Cassation of M. de Beaurepaire, who has left the bench apparently for the purpose of taking a hand in the Dreyfus discussion as a partisan. He accuses one of his colleagues, Judge Loew, the President of the Court, of appointing M. Bard, the reporter, because of his partiality to Dreyfus, and accuses other magistrates who were to conduct other branches of the inquiry on the same ground; and he declares that the rehabilitation of Colonel Picquart amounts to a declaration of Dreyfus's innocence. He further accuses Judge Loew of hostility and aversion to the generals of the army, and of expressing approval of the attacks on the General Staff. He has gone further and published a statement which he calls " An Appeal to the Deputies," in which he urges them to take the Dreyfus case out of the hands of the Criminal Chamber of the Court, and order a real and solemn inquiry. If the Court of Cassation is not competent to conduct such an inquiry, the outsider wonders what tribunal in France could discharge that function. The balance of the appeal is made up of an expression of grief that five or six magistrates have put themselves on record against the army, with the suggestion that this prejudice is directed at "the poor officers whose uniform is the garb of sacrifice, who work devotedly for the loftiest aim which exists;" and the appeal closes with a declaration that the army is worthy of respect from the highest to the lowest rank. This appeal bears on its face all the signs of the demagogue; and these signs are so evident that they have

The appointment of Mr. Joseph H. Choate as Ambassador to England has been expected for some time past; and although the appointment has not yet been confirmed by the Senate, it has been confirmed by the people with singular unanimity. Wherever Mr. Choate is known, his fitness for the high position to which he goes is recognized. He has not had, it is true, diplomatic training; he has never been in public office, although he has on various occasions discharged public functions; but his whole life has been a preparation for the handling of difficult and delicate questions. He is one of the leaders of the American bar, by virtue, not only of his power over jurors, but also by his influence with judges. His quickness, resourcefulness, and charm of manner have made him a conspicuous figure for years past in a profession which never lacks men of ability and dignity. Inheriting a name associated with eloquence and legal learning, Mr. Choate has enriched instead of diminishing its associations. Like his uncle, Rufus Choate, his activities and interests have gone outside his profession. He has been a prominent Republican in this city for many years; and although it cannot be said that he has initiated reform movements, it is certainly true that he has been in sympathy with them, and that on a number of occasions he has taken an attitude which has allied him with the independent element in his own party.

As a citizen he has been constantly called

upon to advocate various educational and philanthropic movements and causes, and the grace of his speech and its persuasiveness have been generously given. If Mr. Choate has a failing, it has been in an occasional irresponsible use of wit and satire; but his social instincts are so fine and his perception of the bearing of questions is so keen that his wit is likely to be tempered by the sense of responsibility; and as a representative of the United States to the other branch of the English-speaking race, he will not only continue the best traditions of a long line of distinguished ambassadors, but will interpret the kindlier feelings, the social ties, and the sense of a common heritage and work of both peoples. His gifts as a speaker will be of special service because his chief duty is likely to be the fostering of the ties between the two countries by interpreting the American feeling and character in a country in which both have been often misunderstood.

The Philippine Problem

An "Old Soldier," a a letter published in another column, gives the reasons for his belief that we must conquer the Filipinos if we are to exercise governmental functions in the Philippines. It is to be said in support of his view that so eminent and conservative a citizen as ex-Senator Edmunds holds the same opinion. In a published letter he says that "the people of the islands, who are carrying on the rebellion in order to be free and independent, do not desire to be annexed and become a territorial dependency of any kind of the United States; and that they intend to resist annexation appears to be indisputable ;" and he adds that this proposition, with others which precede it, "will not be disputed by any intelligent person."

Nevertheless we think that Senator Edmunds and the "Old Soldier" assume too much.

It seems to us very easy to state the two fundamental principles by which the United States must be governed in its attitude and action toward the Philippine Islands. The first of these principles is that we are, as a Nation, responsible for peace, order, and good government within those islands. If the Philippine army is allowed to take possession of Manila, to sack the city, plunder the houses, and murder unoffending citizens, we shall be to blame. The second principle is

that we are not to conquer a reluctant and recalcitrant people and hold them in subjection by our force of arms. We want no territory annexed to the United States against the will of its inhabitants; we want no people as citizens of the United States who are citizens under compulsion.

How to reconcile these two principles, and how to apply them, is the problem in the Philippines. If we knew the facts, the application would not be difficult; but we do not know the facts. We do not know whether the Filipinos desire independence, or annexation, or colonial connection, or a protectorate; it is doubtful whether the Filipinos themselves know. They know that they wish to be free from the domination of Spain. They are free from the domination of Spain. Whether they wish to assume the responsibilities and run the risks involved in independence is a question which many of them have probably not even considered, a question on which probably very few of them have a well-settled and intelligent conviction. At all events, we do not know what those convictions are, if they exist.

Aguinaldo and his armed forces may represent the public sentiment of the best citizens in the Philippines; they may represent the property and intelligence of those islands. In his proclamation he may be speaking for those who have a right to direct the destiny of the islands. This is certainly conceivable. Apparently Senator Edmunds and the "Old Soldier "think that this is not only probable but certain. If they are right, if Aguinaldo and his armed forces do represent the intelligence, the thrift, the virtue of the Filipinos, they have a right to try the experiment of independence, even though it should prove disastrous to them. Certainly the American people have no desire to thwart their attempt and forbid their endeavor.

On the other hand, if any trust at all can be placed on the newspaper reports, it is certain that Aguinaldo has been paid by the Spanish Government in times past to lay down his arms and withdraw from the country. His previous fighting was not for liberty but for personal acquisition. This fact leaves him under well-grounded suspicion of being not a patriot but a blackmailer, of representing, not the intelligence, thrift, and virtue of the Filipinos, but their bandits and their plunderers. If this is the case, the United States has no right to abandon the islands to him and his men-at-arms. It has no right to

yield to the demands of a blackmailer: neither to purchase exemption from his violence nor to surrender the interests of the islands to him for purposes of plunder.

It is not possible for the seventy millions of people in America to determine this question. They cannot take the answer for granted, as ex-Senator Edmunds seems to have done. They cannot evolve the answer out of their own consciousness, as the "Old Soldier" has done. They cannot determine it by balance of probabilities on vague and contradictory reports in the daily press, some of them history, more of them rumors. They must leave this question of fact to be determined by their representatives-primarily by the President of the United States, secondarily by the officers whom the President of the United States has appointed, and who are in command in the Philippines. Thus far the course of the President and the course of the officers in the Philippines have been such as to entitle them to the confidence of the American people. The people have the right to assume that neither the President nor the officers of the army and navy desire, on the one hand, to open a war of conquest, nor are willing, on the other hand, to abandon a people, for whose protection America is responsible, to armed forces whose object may be plunder and whose leader may be an irresponsible and unprincipled adventurer; the American people have a right to assume that the President, and the officers in the Philippines who are representing the President, are giving their best thought to the study of this problem, and are endeavoring to be guided in their action by those principles of liberty and justice which are incorporated in the American Constitution, and, in the main, illustrated by the life of the Nation.

It is a mistake to suppose that a great democracy consisting of seventy millions of people must know all facts and determine all questions for themselves. Democracy simply involves the doctrine that the people have the right to select the men who shall ascertain the facts and shall apply to the solution of national problems democratic principles. Until some reason is given for the opinion that the President, his advisers and his representatives, are false to American principles, it is safe to trust them. If they shall prove false to American principles, it will then be time enough to reverse their policy and appoint other officials in their place.

The Public Health

The fact that society is a living organization, and that government, as the form of that organization, like every other living thing, is constantly adjusting itself to new conditions, is strikingly brought out by the expansion of authority in the direction of the prevention of disease. Researches in bacteriology have not only scientific value, and value as reducing the death-rate, but they are affecting our conception of the functions of government and enlarging the governmental powers. The time is not distant when every drop of water and of milk admitted into any community will be rigidly supervised; for water and milk are avenues of approach for the most insidious and deadly diseases. Water is dangerous unless thoroughly supervised; and as our conception of government and our practice of the art of governing become more intelligent and thorough, public control of the conditions under which milk and water are produced and served will become more rigid and exacting.

This broader conception of the functions of government in protecting the governed will be invoked sooner or later by the new view of consumption, one of the most deadly and widely prevalent of diseases. It is not so many years since it was supposed that consumption was an inherited disease, and that it was also incurable; we now understand that it is not an inherited disease— although conditions which are favorable to its development are sometimes inherited— that it is entirely curable in most cases, and that it is highly contagious. The latter fact people at large are slow to believe; hence the great difficulty of arresting the progress of the disease. In Italy, which a century ago was devastated by consumption, the mortality from this cause has been reduced over eighty per cent. by rigid restrictions. It is now known that consumption, or tuberculosis, is due to a bacillus, which cannot be conveyed from a sick to a well person by the simple process of respiration, but which is contained and given from the invalid in expectoration. Communities which have been exempt from consumption, such as some places in the Alps, but in which consumptives have gathered in considerable numbers, have developed the disease among the natives; while, on the other hand, communities in which the personal habits of the invalids have been

rigidly supervised have been freed from the disease, or have been entirely exempt from it. The Board of Health in this city, as in many other cities, has made expectoration in public places an offense against the law, not only on the ground of decency, but also for sanitary reasons. Expectoration on the part of those afflicted with consumption in any form must be under conditions which physicians now readily meet, and for which they have provided. The inroads of this disease are so serious and the sacrifices of human life which it exacts are so great that government action will not be very long deferred. Public health demands that it shall be treated as a highly contagious disease.

In England a National Association has been formed for the purpose of enlightening people at large, and of awakening and directing public opinion; and this association is receiving the support of many of the most prominent and distinguished people in the United Kingdom. The programme is a very simple one. It is proposed to teach the public, in the first place, that consumption in all its forms is highly contagious; that expectoration in public places must be prevented; that milk, which is equally the medium of typhoid and of consumption, must be sterilized. It is further proposed to establish a number of sanitariums. There has been a great growth of interest in the subject in this country of late years, and various sanitariums have already been established where the dis ease is being very successfully treated, espe cially if taken in its earlier stages. In this State a Senate committee has reported that consumption is contagious, and recommended that the State establish a hospital or hospitals for the treatment of cases of tuberculosis, the same to be located somewhere in the forest preserve in the Adirondack Mountains, the site to be selected by the Trustees approved by the Forest Preserve Board. An accompanying bill provides for an appropriation of $200.000, the appointment of a commission to locate a site (the Governor to appoint), and the appointment of examining physicians, two in number, in each of the cities of New York, Buffalo, and Syracuse, to examine patients and commit them by certificate. Patients able to pay, or having relatives able, must do so.

In the matter of cure by climate there has also been a change of view. Formerly, warm and sheltered places were sought; of late years, high, open places have been preferred.

The Isle of Wight and the Mediterranean have given place to the high Alps, and in this country to the Adirondacks and the Rocky Mountain region. But physicians are rapidly coming to feel that it is not so much the climate as the habit of life which effects the cure; and that in proper localities-that is to say, in localities which are not exceptionally damp or unfavorable—the same results can be secured as in the higher altitudes, if patients will live in the same way-if they will give up all responsibility, throw aside all work, and live out-of-doors. The real cure for consumption is undoubtedly plenty of pure, fresh air; and hosts of men and women on the verge of decline are restored to health simply by getting out-of-doors, and spending the greater part of the day in the open air, keeping proper hours, and refraining from overwork. The great majority of invalids, in favorable localities at least, could be successfully treated at home if they had the courage and the persistency of will to secure and to maintain the same conditions of rest, irresponsibility, and open-air life which they would secure in the woods or mountains.

Beauty and Immortality

Referring to a recent editorial in these columns, a correspondent writes:

"Art lost to the soul which craves the image of its own beauty and the emblems of its own

immortality." May I ask what you mean in the clauses I quote? I ask because I am preaching to an agricultural people here on the frontier; who, by reason of the overwhelming materialism in which they are caught, seem to be losing some soul faculties; and find myself struggling fiercely to hold the vision-without which I shall die. I feel, dumbly enough and without knowing why, that the expression and appreciation of beauty is an essential part of salvation; and, vaguely enough, I feel, rather than perceive, that behind your words lies a thought that would help me get a clearer view of myself. My soul is constantly stirred by sensations that sweep down upon me from every quarter, but there is not the reaction that might come from an adequate interpretation. I am in the midst of spiritual forces much like a pagan in the midst of the great natural forces that swept down upon him. They overwhelm me.

Human development is so irregular and so frequently interrupted by outbreaks of passion or inroads of barbarism that men have never yet, in large masses, at any one time, grown symmetrically and in harmonious completeness. No race has yet appeared which has been strong enough and clearsighted enough to sustain itself on ascending