for the grasses are luxuriant and highly nutri

AMERICANS IN THE CANADIAN NORTHWEST.

water.

THE SYSTEM OF BRANCHES.

"The most important branches of railway soon to be opened are those running across the eastern part of the island connecting Santiago de Cuba with the Bay of Nipe at the extreme end, another further up from Jugaro to San Fernando, and two smaller lines forming a connection with Sancti Spiritus and Holguin, respectively. When these works are finished, as they soon will be, the whole island will be opened out and provided with excellent railway facilities for both commercial transportation and passenger traffic. A direct trunk rail connection will then be established between Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and the most important seaboard cities will be connected by branch lines, and the whole system will develop a vast extent of new and attractive country for settlement and cultivation, all of which will add largely to the attractions Cuba offers to tourists, for it will make many interesting places and districts easily ac cessible which have heretofore been difficult to reach and rarely visited."

AN ENORMOUS CANAL.

A WRITER in the Magazine of Commerce tells

of the proposed great canal traversing Russia and connecting the Baltic with the Black Sea. This canal would start from Riga and end at Cherson, near the Crimea a length of 1,607 kilometers. The average depth would be 26 feet. "By keeping to this line, some of the most important towns of central Russia, such as Riga, Dunaburg, Kiev, Yekaterinoslav, and Cherson, would be served directly, while those on the tributaries of the Dnieper and Duna would come within easy reach by the deepening of these tributaries."

The canal would enable Russian men-of-war and large steamers to pass through the heart of Russia, thus strengthening enormously the naval position in the Black Sea. As to the cost of this great undertaking, the writer says that "an American syndicate has declared itself ready to undertake the work and finish it in five years, and at a cost of £32,500,000 [$162,500,000]. The construction of such a network of canals would constitute Russia the country best served with inland waterways in Europe. They would bring its most distant districts near to the sea,' and the enterprise obviously means an important development of the world-traffic,' as well as of the land itself."

6

of arable land in the Canadian Northwest, and allowing one-eighth for pasture and other purposes, there are left about 65,000,000 acres for growing crops. Taking the average yield per acre for all grains of last season as a basis,about twenty-nine bushels,-it is apparent that this district may grow some 2,000,000,000 bushels of grain of all sorts yearly, to say nothing of various other products. Mr. William R. Stewart writes in the April Cosmopolitan on "The Americanization of the Canadian Northwest," and shows the conditions and reasons of the great migration that has been and is going on from the United States into Manitoba, Alberta, Assiniboia, and Saskatchewan.

Mr. Stewart says that this American invasion of the Canadian Northwest really had its beginning in the advertising done some five years ago by the Canadian government with the purpose of peopling this great western territory. Free lectures were given both in the East and the West, bureaus established in several cities from which large quantities of literature were distributed, Canadian maps were placed by permission in American schools and colleges, attractive advertisements were inserted in newspapers and periodicals, and exhibitions of western agricultural products made at the State and county fairs. This was done with the object of dis abusing the American mind of the belief that western Canada was a land of frost and snow. The farmers of Iowa and Indiana found that these statements were really true; and as they could sell their farms at what was a fancy price as compared with the cost of land in the Northwest Territories, they sold them and moved to Canada.

One of the noteworthy industrial results of this American invasion is the introduction of flax-growing on a great scale in the provinces. Canadians thought it unwise to cultivate flax, as they believed it hard on the land and a great weed-protector. But the Americans have shown that with land selling at twelve dollars an acre and yielding an average of fifteen bushels to the acre of flax, the newly bought farms have paid for themselves during the very first year. Flax can be sown and harvested in ninety days, and with the rich soil and long daylight of the Canadian Northwest, it constitutes an ideal crop for that country.

Manitoba was the earliest settled of the Northwest Territories. People began to move there in a desultory way as long ago as thirty years. When the Canadian Pacific Railway was com pleted, in 1883, a great impetus was added to its

growth. In that year, 260,000 acres were planted in wheat in Manitoba, yielding 5,600,000 bushels. In 1902, the acreage in wheat had increased to 2,720,000, and the yield was estimated at 65,790,000 bushels. Besides this, there were 1,350,000 acres sown to oats and barley, producing a crop of more than 52,000,000 bushels.

While wheat is the staple product of the northwest, the growth of other grains is conducted on an immense scale, and cattle-raising and dairying are also important industries, and are steadily increasing. Manitoba alone produced more than a million dollars' worth of butter and cheese last year, and large creameries are being established at central points.

The best ranching section is in Alberta, in the so-called Chinook belt. The tempering Chinook winds melt the snow in an incredibly short time, and the hillsides afford excellent grazing for cattle. The Peace River country also possesses many thousand acres of as fine grazing land as there is in the world. Mr. Stewart adds: "It is not only the northwest of Canada which is being invaded by American settlers and American capital, but the entire Dominion is becoming Americanized, though the inflow is naturally more marked in particular localities. The agreement recently made between a Chicago syndicate and the Canadian government, looking to the colonization by the former of two million acres of land in what is known as the New Ontario,' is only one of many evidences of the fact. Under this agreement, the Canadian government receives fifty cents an acre, which is the regular price for settlement land, the patent being issued direct to the settlers. It is the expectation of the syndicate that fifty thousand people will be brought into the new country during the next few years."

AMERICAN CHILDREN OF LABOR.

WILLIAM

WILLIAM S. WAUDBY, special agent of the United States Department of Labor, says, in an article in the April Frank Leslie's, that the last census will show 1,750,000 children in the United States from ten to fifteen years of age reported as engaged in gainful occupations. The most important part played by child labor is in the cotton and woolen mills. This writer says that the mill managers often refuse to employ a single man, while if the next applicant be a man with a wife and five children, they are all employed at once, being valuable to the mill from the fact that the entire family are workers as well as consumers.

Mr. Waudby shows a very dark picture of the conditions of child labor in the mills and the

coal breakers, and discusses the regulations which will most quickly do away with the worst abuses. He considers the New York law for the government of establishments employing children one of the best that has yet been formulated. "The issuing of permits requires not only discretion, but also involves considerable work on the part of the inspector. First, an affidavit stating the date and place of birth of the child must be made; then the permits are issued in triplicate, -one being given to the child, to be kept on file in the establishment where it is employed, one sent to the chief factory inspector at Albany, and the third kept in the local office. A ledger

is also kept where the names of the children to whom permits have been issued are alphabetically arranged. These permits give a complete description of the child, in order to prevent fraud in their use; but occasionally fraud is practised. The fact that the inspector is associated with the health office gives him ready access to the registry of births.'

THE KIND OF LEGISLATION DEMANDED.

Mr. Waudby reviews the laws in various States, which differ in great degree. He says that, according to reliable information, there are over one thousand children between the ages of six and fourteen employed in five cotton mills in South Carolina which stand within a mile of the State Capitol. There are all sorts of laws in the Western States, and no legislation as to the hours of child labor prevails in Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Texas, or the District of Columbia.

"I do not believe that laws should be passed regulating any of the social or industrial affairs which can be settled by our own common sense and mutual agreements, but in this question of child labor there appears to be no other way of checking the desires of the employer, on the one hand, for cheap labor and the necessities of the parents (or their greed, in many well-substantiated cases) to force their children into the shops, the factories, and the mines. The com pulsory registration of the date of birth, and the presentation of this certificate, would do away with the misstatements as to the child's age; furthermore, a certification of the school attendance, together with an examination as to educa tional fitness, should be made, and the legal age of employment raised in all the States to that of sixteen years at least.

"The labor organizations generally favor the limitation to sixteen years, with the educational restrictions. Tinkering with this problem cannot be carried on forever; the social conditions require a thorough overhauling."

MR

THE COMING AUTOMOBILE.

R. HENRY NORMAN, editor of the English World's Work, contributes an article to the April number of the American publica. tion of the same name on "The Coming Automobile," in which he traces the influence on the railway, on society, and on the individual of practicable and cheap auto-cars.

A GREAT RADIUS OF ACTION.

Mr. Norman calculates that the owner of a pair of horses in the country may have a practical, every-day radius of movement of about ten or twelve miles, and even to drive twelve miles away and back to make a visit is a tiring proceeding for man and beast. He calculates that a carriage and pair means $2,000 a year in town and $1,500 in the country. Mr. Norman thinks that a big automobile should not cost less than a carriage and pair, and a small one not less than a horse and carriage; but he thinks that the cost of maintaining automobiles has been exaggerated, and gives statistics of one automobile owner who drove his large car nearly five thousand miles last year at a total cost of $575, and of another man who went 1,648 miles on a small car with an entire expenditure of only $22.50. He regards it as certain that an automobile costs less to keep than a carriage and horse, and the radius is far greater. With a ten-horse-power car the radius of the whole family is easily thirty miles, with a possible fifty miles. Thus, he figures out that our horse-andcarriage man can move over an area of 452 square miles, while the automobile man has a sphere of activity of at least 2,827 square miles.

WHAT THIS MEANS.

Every friend within three thousand square miles can be visited, any place of worship or lecture or concert attended, and business appointment kept, the train met at any railway station, every post and telegraph and telephone office within reach, every physician accessible, any place reached for golf or tennis, or fishing or shooting, and with it all fresh air inhaled under exhilarating conditions. It is a revolution in daily life. With an automobile, one lives three times as much in the same span of years, and one's life, therefore, becomes to that extent wider and more interesting."

FOR BUSINESS PURPOSES.

Mr. Norman believes that business automobiles will soon be universal. Commercial travelers will take their samples through the country in suitable motor cars, and the farmers will send their produce to market at a fraction of their

WILL THE RAILWAY DISAPPEAR ?

Mr. Norman is not only convinced that there will not be a horse left in New York or London within ten years, except a few kept for pleasure and police purposes; he is also inclined to hazard the opinion that the motor will kill the railway. "Why should the community pay a huge sum per mile for a special roadway for electric cars and a huge generating station, when selfpropelled motor omnibuses of equal speed, comfort, capacity, and economy can use the common road, and, by their ability to be steered round obstacles, not interfere with the rest of the traffic? I am convinced that municipalities would consult their own interests by carefully considering the introduction of motor omnibuses before embarking upon the heavy initial cost of an electric railway system which may quite likely be obsolete before their depreciation fund has been charged a dozen times."

THE EXTENT OF THE INDUSTRY.

"In 1902, Great Britain imported motor 3 and parts to the value of $5,512,310, and exported only $657,405. The value of the American output of motor vehicles for 1902 is officially reckoned at $25,000,000. In the same year, France exported motor cars to the value of $5,310,200. Two firms manufacturing pneumatic tires in France turned out, in 1902, $4,100,000 worth, and each of them has $400,000 worth of goods in the charge of agents. Seventy French firms manufacture motor cars, and their combined output last year was 12,000 cars. The industry employed 180,000 workmen, earning, on an average, $360 a year each."

gramme, forgot to provide working capital, inasmuch as he required a poverty-stricken university to house and teach three hundred new scholars without providing a penny to equip them with teachers, house-room, or apparatus. It is as if a philanthropic millionaire were to bequeath to a friend whose small income was mortgaged to its last sixpence a dozen splendid carriages and a stableful of hungry horses, and expect him, out of the atmosphere of an historic tradition, to build stables, feed the noble creatures, and create and pay the requisite staff of trained stablemen. Accordingly, in May last, the university found itself the richer by three hundred future scholars, together with the bracing knowledge that its own funds were nil, the staff of the colleges already doing full time, the colleges manned to overflowing, and the world crying out, What good fortune! What wealth !'"

WHICH HAS WAKED UP OXFORD.

Nevertheless, he says that Oxford is bravely preparing to make room for the three hundred Rhodes scholars.

"That Oxford will somehow absorb the Rhodesians and not the Rhodesians Oxford is as true as that the sun will rise to-morrow, and, after all, that is the only important matter; and so the don, after a shrug of his shoulders at the curious ways of the curious, passes on to a generous confession that if Mr. Rhodes had done nothing else he had done yeoman service in focusing the public mind on the unlimited possibilities latent in the oldest of our universities. An imperial Oxford! that is a conception which may well fire the mind and elevate the sentiment of every British citizen, from Gibraltar to Vancouver; and an imperial university we may slowly build up if we are not in too great a hurry."

college finance so framed and worked as to secure efficiency-financial and intellectual? Is it so framed as to combine the new needs of the university and the empire with those of the old? 5. Is Oxford welcoming as they deserve the new studies which have arisen since 1880, without forgetting the extended borders of the old ? 6. Is her machinery so devised as to supply the public services the professions-as they have altered, with the men trained as they ought to be trained in the number that is required? 7. What is being done to assist the army in providing it with educated officers? 8. Are the colleges tapping the social strata which will supply the recruits that Oxford requires for all that she hopes to do?

"In a word, is the university to her utmost possibility educating capable men (and women ?), creating and employing the best kind of teachers, fostering the best knowledge? The present writer, at any rate, who is not of those who be lieve that Oxford has stood still, or is sunk in sloth, far from it, certainly could not answer these and similar questions with an unhesitating affirmative, and he is convinced that scarcely one competent person who knows the facts would do so either."

POST-GRADUATE SCHOOLS AND NO CHURCH TESTS.

He then goes on to explain what he thinks Oxford should do under each of these heads. We have not space to follow him throughout the whole of his recommendations, but will quote one or two. He says:

"Post-graduate schools do not exist. Oxford, then, must create them-schools in economics, sociology, archeology, art, and all the branches of science that science demands; they may have courses of one, or two, or three years, they may provide degrees and classes, honors or pass, they may be few or many, but come they must if liberal education is to be saved and the just claims of knowledge and research are to be met. For they are, and must be, part of the machinery which she provides as a seat of learning. Fur thermore, Oxford must frankly sacrifice the last dike of the Anglican tradition which still closes the B.D. and the D.D. to all but the Anglican."

DEMOCRATIZE THE UNIVERSITIES.

Considering that Blackwood has ever been a most unyielding champion of all Toryism, this last admission is significant indeed. The paper concludes with an earnest and eloquent appeal to Oxford to cease to draw her students from the aristocratic classes, but to attract to her halls students from all classes of the community.

"The future of our race, if we would but act

upon our beliefs, rests beyond all controversy on a national determination at all costs to see that not a single brain in the nation is starved or lost. It is no use blinking facts to-day, hundreds of brains are starved, stunted, or lost -Oxford does not command the respect and confidence of more than a section of the nation. But with 1903 Oxford can begin at least to plan and dig the foundations of a university, national as the term has not been understood save in Scotland."

WITH THE THEOSOPHISTS.

PIERRE LOTI continues in both the Febru

ary numbers of the Revue des Deux Mondes his striking travel articles on India. He takes us this time on the road to Benares to visit the Theosophists of Madras, and he clothes the subject in his well-known exquisite style. In the house of the Theosophists he found a warm welcome, especially from two men,-the one a European who, wearied with agitations and uncertainties, had taken refuge in the detachments preached of old by Buddha; the other a Hindu who, after winning high honors in the universities of Europe, had returned to India with a certain contempt for our Western philosophies. M. Loti asked them to give him proofs of their statement that something of man's individuality resists for a time the shock of death. They replied that they could not offer visible proof, for the perception of those who were improperly called the dead required special senses and special temperaments, but in their library there were books which gave well-accredited details of apparitions. M. Loti was disappointed. He asked about the fakirs, and received the unexpected reply that there were none. The Hindu went on to explain that there were plenty of mendicant fakirs, but the old class of "seeing" fakirs, possessed of real power, had died out, though the records of them remained in the library.

THE THEOSOPHIST PHILOSOPHY.

After further talk, M. Loti was sent on to the Theosophists of Benares. Then, follows an inimitable description of the Temple of Jugger. naut and the Taj. At length he comes to the House of the Wise Men, where he was warmly received, and where they say to him with a calm certainty, "Our philosophy begins where yours ends."

M. Loti describes in exquisite language these sages working at the arcana of Brahminism, which includes conceptions too lofty for our degenerate comprehension. Their flesh is nourished by no other flesh, and by long medi

tation and prayer they have acquired delicacies and subtleties of conception which are unknown to us; and yet they say in all modesty, "We do not know anything, we understand with difficulty, we only seek to learn."

MRS. BESANT AND MME. BLAVATSKY.

Then M. Loti gives us a picture of Mrs. Annie Besant, with her still charming countenance under her white headdress, living detached from the world, with bare feet, frugal as the wife of a Brahmin, and austere as an ascetic. On her M. Loti counted to open for him a little the gates of knowledge, for he felt that there were fewer barriers between her and him, inasmuch as she had been formerly in his world and his native tongue was familiar to her. He spoke to her of Mme. Blavatsky, the sad memory of whom sufficed to render him skeptical; but Mrs. Besant pleaded that the intention was so excellent as to excuse Mme. Blavatsky for having attempted to work miracles in order to convince the outside world. Mrs. Besant went on to say that Theosophists had no dogmas, and that M. Loti would find among them Buddhists, Brahmins, Moslems, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox,-in fact, people of every faith, or none. "What is necessary in order to be one of you?" asked M. Loti, and the answer was-to take an oath to consider all men as your brothers without distinction of caste or color, and to treat with the same regard the most humble workmen or princes; to take an oath also to seek truth by all possible means in the anti-materialistic sense. "It is in an esoteric Brahminism under its most ancient form," Mrs. Besant continued, "that we find peace and light. It seems to us to contain the highest expression of truth which it is given to man to know." There is much more of the same kind, but we cannot leave the subject without noting the unforgettable description which M. Loti gives of the animals and birds which depend on these sages for their sustenance, and which are exquisitely free from the terror and shyness inculcated in them by sad experience in other lands.