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especially in Montana and Idaho, there are in some places extensive forests, though of trees inferior in size to those of the Pacific coast. The population of these Territories is therefore certain to increase rapidly, especially when the fertile lands of Dakota have been filled up.1 But that population is likely to remain less dense, and less stable in its character, than the Dakotan. It may therefore be doubted whether even Montana, which has the largest area and much the largest quantity of good land, will be fit to become a State for many years to come.

Washington Territory, situated on the shores of the Pacific between Oregon and British Columbia, is in these respects more fortunate. That part of it which lies west of the Cascade Range has a moist and equable climate, much resembling the climate of western England, though somewhat less variable. Many of the familiar genera and even species of British plants reappear on its hillsides. The forests are by far the finest which the United States possess, and will, though they are being sadly squandered, remain a source of wealth for a century or more to come. I have travelled through many miles of woodland where nearly every tree was over 250 feet high. The eastern half of the Territory, lying on the inland side of the mountains, is very much drier, and with greater extremes of heat and cold; but it is in parts extremely fertile. To all appearances Washington, which had in 1880 a population of 75,000, having more than trebled since 1870, will by the end of this century have at least 800,000, and long before then have been admitted as a State.

Utah was, before the arrival of the Mormons in 1848,

1 In 1880 these three Territories had only about 92,000 people between them.

a desert, and indeed an arid desert, whose lower grounds were covered with that growth of alkaline plants which the Americans call sage-brush. The patient labour of the Saints, directed, at least during the pontificate of Brigham Young, by an able and vigilant autocracy, has transformed the tracts lying along the banks of streams into fertile grain, vegetable, and fruit farms. The water which descends from the mountains is turned over the level ground; the alkaline substances are soon washed out of the soil, and nothing more than irrigation is needed to produce excellent crops. After this process had advanced some way the discovery of rich silver mines drew in a swarm of Gentile colonists, and the nonMormon population of some districts is now considerable. As Utah had in 1880, 144,000 inhabitants, it would long ago have been admitted as a State but for the desire of Congress to retain complete legislative control, and thereby to stamp out polygamy. This object seems at last not unlikely to be attained, and although much of the Territory is likely to remain barren and uninhabited, enough is fit for tillage and for dairy-farming to give it a prospect of supporting a large settled population.

New Mexico, with an area larger than the United Kingdom (population in 1880, 120,000), is still largely peopled by Indo-Spanish Mexicans, who speak Spanish, and are obviously ill fitted for the self-government which organization as a State implies. Water is too scarce and the soil too hilly to make agriculture generally available. The same remark applies to Arizona, the sides of whose

1 The so-called sage-brush plants are not species of what in England is called sage (Salvia) but mostly belong to the order Compositae, which is unusually strong in America. Something like a third of the total phaenogamous genera of the United States have been estimated to belong to it.

2 There are also about 10,000 Indians, some of them settled and comparatively civilized. It is here that the so-called "pueblos" are found, so interesting to the ethnologist.

splendid mountain groups are barren, and most of whose plains support only a scanty vegetation. Both Territories are rich in minerals, but a mining population is not only apt to be disorderly, but is fluctuating, moving from camp to camp as richer deposits are discovered or old veins. worked out. It seems doubtful, therefore, whether any one of the five mining and ranching Territories (Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona) is likely to be formed into a State at any presently assignable date. The time must come when the increase of population in the region immediately to the east of the Rocky Mountains will turn a fuller stream of immigration into these less promising regions, and bring under irrigation culture large tracts which are now not worth working. No one can yet say when that time will arrive. Till it arrives it will be for the benefit of these Territories themselves that they should remain content with that limited and qualified form of selfgovernment which they now enjoy, and under which they can practically legislate for their own peculiar conditions with sufficient freedom.

Europeans may, however, ask why the theory of American democracy, which deems all citizens entitled to a voice in the National government, should not at least so far prevail as to give the inhabitants of the Territories the right of suffrage in congressional and presidential elections. "Does not," he may say, "the fact that each sends a delegate, though a voteless delegate, to the House of Representatives and two delegates to the National Nominating Conventions (to be hereafter described) imply that the unenfranchised position of the residents in a Territory is felt to be indefensible in theory?"

This is true. If it were possible under the Federal Constitution to admit Territorial residents to active Federal

citizenship that is to say, to Federal suffrage-admitted they would be. But the Union is a union of States. It knows no representatives in Congress, no electors for the Presidency, except those chosen in States by State voters. The only means of granting Federal suffrage to citizens in a Territory would be to turn the Territory into a State. This would confer a power of self-government, guaranteed by the Federal Constitution, for which the Territory might be still unfit. But it would do still more. It would entitle this possibly small and rude community to send two senators to the Federal Senate who would there have as much weight as the two senators from New York with its six millions of people. This is a result from which Congress may fairly recoil. And a practical illustration of the evils to be feared has been afforded by the case of Nevada, a State whose inhabitants number only about 40,000, and which is really a group of burnt-out mining camps. Its population is obviously unworthy of the privilege of sending two men to the Senate, and has in fact allowed itself to sink, for political purposes, into a sort of rotten borough which can be controlled or purchased by the leaders of a Silver Ring. It would evidently have been better to allow Nevada to remain in the condition of a Territory till a large settled and orderly community had occupied her surface, which is at present a parched and dismal desert, in which the streams descending from the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada soon lose themselves in lakes or marshes. On

a review of the whole matter it may safely be said that the American scheme of Territorial government, though it suffers from the occasional incompetence of the Governor, and is inconsistent with democratic theory, has in practice worked well, and gives little ground for discontent even to the inhabitants of the Territories themselves.

CHAPTER XLVIII

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

THIS is the place for an account of local government in the United States, because it is a matter regulated not by Federal law but by the several States and Territories, each of which establishes such local authorities, rural and urban, as the people of the State or Territory desire, and invests them with the requisite powers. But this very fact indicates the immensity of the subject. Each State has its own system of local areas and authorities, created and worked under its own laws; and though these systems agree in many points, they differ in so many others, that a whole volume would be needed to give even a summary view of their peculiarities. All I can here attempt is to distinguish the leading types of local government to be found in the United States, to describe the prominent features of each type, and to explain the influence which the large scope and popular character of local administration exercise upon the general life and well-being of the American people.

Three types of rural local government are discernible in America. The first is characterized by its unit, the Town or Township, and exists in the six New England States. The second is characterized by a much larger unit, the county, and prevails in the southern States. The third combines some features of the first with some of

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