singularly unfitted for the rule of dependencies, because it has no proper machinery for controlling provincial governors; so that when it finds regions which are hardly fit to be established as States, it nevertheless gives them a practically all but complete self-government as Territories. Administrative posts set up in a dependent country would certainly be jobbed, and the dependent country itself probably maladministered. Nearly all the work which the Federal authorities have had to do of this kind has been badly done, and has given rise to scandals. Hence the only form annexation can with advantage take is the admission of the annexed district as a self-governing State or Territory, the difference between the two being that in the latter the inhabitants, though they are usually permitted to administer their domestic affairs, have no vote in Federal elections. If Chihuahua and Sonora were like Dakota, the temptation to annex these provinces and turn them into States or Territories would be strong. But the Indo-Spaniards of Mexico have, in the seventy years that have passed since they revolted from Spain, shown little fitness for the exercise of political power. They are hardly more advanced in this direction than the Moors or the Samoans. They would be not only an inferior and diverse element in the Union, but a mischievous element, certain, if they were admitted to Federal suffrage, to injure Federal politics, to demoralize the officials who might be sent among them, and to supply a fertile soil for all kinds of roguery and rascality, which, so far as they lay within the sphere of State action, the Federal Government could not interfere with, and which in Federal affairs would damage Congress and bring another swarm of jobs and jobbers to Washington. Eight millions of recently enfranchised negroes (not to speak of recent immigrants from Europe) are a heavy enough load for the Anglo-Americans to carry on their shoulders without the ignorance and semi-barbarism of the mixed races of the tropics.

One finds in the United States, and of course especially in Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, many people who declare that Mexico will be swallowed, first the northern provinces, and the whole in time. It is "manifest destiny," and the land and mining-claim speculators of these border lands would be glad to help Destiny. But the general feeling of the nation is strongly against a forward policy, nor has either party any such interest

in promoting it as the Southern slave-holders had fifty-five years ago in bringing in Texas. It is therefore not a question of practical politics. Yet it is a problem which already deserves consideration, for the future in which it may become practical is not distant. It is a disquieting problem. The clearest judgment and the firmest will of a nation cannot always resist the drift of events and the working of natural causes.

I have already observed that the United States Government formerly desired and seemed likely to acquire some of the West India islands. The South had a strong motive for adding to the Union regions in which slavery prevailed, and which would have been admitted as Slave States. That motive has long since vanished: and so far as the South has now an interest in these isles it is that they should remain outside the line of American custom-houses, so that their products may not compete free of duty with those which the South raises. All the objections which apply to the incorporation of Northern Mexico apply with greater force to the incorporation of islands far less fit for colonization by the Anglo-American race than are the Mexican table-lands. One islet only, Navassa, between Jamaica and San Domingo, belongs to the United States.

There is, however, one spot beyond the limits of the North American continent in which Americans have, ever since 1843 (when there was for a time a risk of its being occupied by England), declared that they feel directly interested. This is the island group of Hawaii, which lies 2000 miles to the southwest of San Francisco. Great as this distance is, the Americans conceive that the position of these isles over against their own Western coast would be so threatening to their commerce in a war between the United States and any naval power, that they cannot suffer the islands to be occupied by, or even to fall under the influence of, any European nation. No European nation has of late years betrayed any design of acquiring such an influence, while Great Britain and France have expressly renounced it. However, the United States Government, wishful to provide against emergencies, has endeavoured to purchase land at Pearl River in Oahu, reputed the best harbour in the group, with the view of establishing a naval station there.

To forecast the future of the Hawaiian Isles is by no means easy.

The population is at present (census of 1890) 89,990, of whom 34,000 are native Hawaiians (besides 6000 half-castes), 15,000 Chinese, 12,000 Japanese, 8600 Portuguese (recently imported to work the sugar plantations), and about 12,000 persons of European or American origin. Among these the Americans stand first in number; Englishmen come next and Germans third. The control of affairs has been practically in the hands of the whites, American and British, though Portuguese as well as native Hawaiians enjoy the suffrage. Things went on well since, from the time when, in the days of the late King, an unscrupulous Prime Minister was expelled by a sort of bloodless revolution, until the rising of 1892, when (apparently with the connivance of the person then representing the United States) Queen Liliuokalani was with equal ease dethroned. The provisional government then offered the islands to the United States, and even concluded a treaty providing for their annexation, which President Harrison submitted to the Senate.1 Before the Senate acted upon it, a new President came into office and withdrew the treaty, intimating his disapproval of any "acquisition of new and distant territory," a disapproval in which public opinion seems to have joined. At present, though nothing has been constitutionally settled as to the future form of government, peace and order are not seriously disturbed. The ruling white population, which is of a good type, and has hitherto kept free from scandals such as gather round the politics of San Francisco, may well, either under a restored monarchy or a republic, continue to administer the islands with success. But as the native race, which Captain Cook estimated at 300,000, has sunk since 1866 from 57,000 to 34,000 and is likely to go on declining, it would have been difficult, even had no revolution intervened, to maintain a native dynasty, or indeed a monarchy of any kind: and the tendency to seek annexation to the United States must in any case have been strong. There may not, however, be in the future, any more than now, a preponderating wish in the United States to

1 It has been doubted whether the President and Senate are entitled under the treaty making power given by the Constitution to acquire for the United States territories lying far away from the North American continent.

acquire the islands and admit them to the Union as a State or Territory. Their white population is at present far too small to make either course desirable the registered voters were (in 1893) about 1800 persons of European or American stock, with 9554 natives and half-castes; -the presence of a large Asiatic population would, in view of recent Federal legislation against the Chinese, raise serious difficulties; and in case of war with a naval power the obligation of defending them might be found burdensome, although they are not quite so distant from the American coast as some of the Aleutian isles, acquired when Alaska was purchased. It is, however, certain that the Americans would not stand by and see any other nation establish a protectorate over them.

The fate of Western South America belongs to a still more distant future; but it can hardly remain unconnected with what is already by far the greatest power in the Western hemisphere. When capital, which is accumulating in the United States with extraordinary rapidity, is no longer able to find highly profitable employment in the development of Western North America, it will tend to seek other fields. When population has filled up the present territory of the United States, enterprising spirits will overflow into undeveloped regions. The nearest of these is Western South America, the elevated plateaux of which are habitable by Northern races. It may be conjectured that the relations of the vast territories in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia,' for which the Spaniards have done so little, and which can hardly remain for ever neglected, will one day become far closer with the United States than with any European power.

1 These three countries have a total area of about 1,500,000 square miles, with a settled population not exceeding 5,500,000, besides an unascertained number of uncivilized Indians.

CHAPTER XCV

LAISSEZ FAIRE

A EUROPEAN friend of a philosophic turn of mind bade me, when he heard that I was writing this book, dedicate at least one chapter to the American Theory of the State. I answered that the Americans had no theory of the State, and felt no need for one, being content, like the English, to base their constitutional ideas upon law and history.

In England and America alike (I pursued) one misses a whole circle and system of ideas and sentiments which have been potent among the nations of the European continent. To those nations the State is a great moral power, the totality of the wisdom and conscience and force of the people, yet greater far than the sum of the individuals who compose the people, because consciously and scientifically, if also by a law of nature, organized for purposes which the people indistinctly apprehend, and because it is the inheritor of a deep-rooted reverence and an almost despotic authority. There is a touch of mysticism in this conception, which has survived the change from arbitrary to representative government, and almost recalls the sacredness that used to surround the medieval church. In England the traditions of an ancient monarchy and the social influence of the class which till lately governed have enabled the State and its service to retain a measure of influence and respect. No one, however, attributes any special wisdom to the State, no one treats those concerned with administration or legislation as a superior class. Officials are strictly held within the limits of their legal powers, and are obeyed only so far as they can show that they are carrying out the positive directions of the law. Their conduct, and indeed the decisions of the highest State organs, are criticised, perhaps with more courtesy, but otherwise in exactly the same way as those of other persons and bodies.