ing lines are taken, while in prison. The verses were read with deep feeling by the old Chartist: We plow and sow; we're so very, very low But too low the bread to eat. Down, down we go-we're so very, very low- But not too low to pay. Later the Spectator fell into conversation with this interesting old man, and found that, working at his trade of tailor, he had known Charles Kingsley, and his shop had furnished data for "Alton Locke." In 1848 he had spoken at a great meeting gathered by a report that the Irish were rising in arms, and was tried and imprisoned for two years for using these words, which he repeated for the Spectator with the explanation that they had been stigmatized by the judge at his trial as being "dangerously inciting on account of their poetical fervor:" So the time has come at last, the time long dreaded by some, but by all true lovers of liberty long looked for the time when our own land, our dear land, land of our birth, cradle of mirth and misery, child of impulse, nurse of the brave, parent of beauty, land of the patriot, the martyr, and the slave; the spurned, the joyless, the alone among the nations-Ireland is in arms! We live and we love, and our tyrants shall learn No longer debased by our toil; When each man shall take what each man shall make In the pit, the mill, or the soil. Or this from the "Chant of the Firemen," by that strenuous, unhappy spirit, Francis Adams: 'Tis we make the bright hot blood Of this throbbing, inanimate thing; Or anything but meek, Round, round, round in its tunnel The shaft turns pitiless strong, While lost souls cry out in the darkness, "How long, O Lord, how long!" This song of the firemen who drive England's great fleets over the seas, in these days when sails are mere ornaments, suggests the deeper currents of their thought, or rather feeling, as to their terribly exhausting work. It furnishes an interesting parallel to the triumphant Britainism of Kipling's "Seven Seas." This is the bitter cry of the Britons whose mothers might have sung the "Song of the Shirt," or Charles Kingsley's "Rough Rhyme on a Rough Rhyme on a Rough Matter." Competition's curse forms the theme of some of these English songs of labor, and "Socialism" with many of them stands for the Day of Jubilee." Thus is it with these two, written, the first, "Comrades," by W. H. Dowding, a cabinetmaker, the other, "All for the Cause," by William Morris: In our longing hearts we pray Then 'twixt lips of loved and lover, solemn thoughts of us shall rise; We, who once were fools and dreamers, then shall be the brave and wise. There amidst the world new-builded shall our earthly deeds abide, Though our names be all forgotten, and the tale of how we died. Life or death, then, who shall heed it? what we gain or what we lose? Fair flies life amid the struggle, and the Cause for each shall choose. Some of these poets have seen and felt much of oppression and misery, and there is in their verse a warlike gleam that is quite in opposition to the peaceful yet earnest spirit of this Social Reform Club. The Club does not sympathize with Francis Adams's militant Anarchism, but there is so much of pathos and power in his "Songs of the Army of the Night" that the Spectator quotes a few lines to show his rare quality: The stricken men, the mad brute-beasts, are keeping No more their places in the ditches or holes, The bayonets of the Army of the Night! Rank follows rank like billows to the shore. Onwards we tramp, towards the hills and light, On, on and up, the Army of the Night! These songs of labor have scarcely any of them struck the note of a wide popularity, however acceptable they may be to the labor lyceums and the social reform clubs. They are nearly all of them sung to borrowed tunes, when they are adapted to music. Is this the reason for their limited vogue? Must the really popular song be mated from the begin ning to its own music? Or is it the nature of the reform songs to appeal to the few, and is the workman who sings "My Girl's a High Born Lady" the truer representative of his class? These questions the Spectator leaves for answer to the Philosophers. The Hawaiian Question To the Editors of The Outlook: In commenting on the President's message in the issue of December 2 you with fairness admit that "the indifference or opposition of the native Hawaiian population, if it exists, we do not regard as a necessarily fatal objection. In this, as in all cases, we must treat with the de facto government; and, in our judgment, in the de facto is also the de jure government." You continue: "Apart, however, from this question, America must, in this matter, primarily consider her own interests and her own duties, and from these she must not be swerved by sentimental considerations. Our problems are already sufficiently complex, our territory already sufficiently extended, and our population already sufficiently heterogeneous. The work of statesmanship should be concentrated on unifying the present nation, rather than on extending its territory, increasing its population, and adding to the difficult questions which confront it." The assumption here is that there is for us, at present, no Hawaiian problem, and that annexation will create a problem. Whereas the fact is that Hawaii is already a problem, and one that has engaged the attention of American statesmanship during a period of fifty years. Annexation. we claim, instead of adding to the difficult questions which confront it," will rather dispose of one already confronting the Nation. Some would have us abandon the group of islands to their fate, which certainly would be a shirking of responsibility on the Nation's part, in view of our past relations with them. The position of The Outlook is further stated in the issue of December 18: "Shall we take a new partner into our concern, when only a minority of the inhabitants of the new State [?] have had an opportunity to say whether they wish to come in or not; when there is very good reason to believe that a large proportion, if not an overwhelming majority, do not desire to come in; and the reason why their vote is not taken on the subject is that they are supposed to be not intelligent and moral enough to vote? When by immigration laws we are attempting to exclude from the United States the unintelligent and immoral who come singly or in groups of ten or twenty, is it wise to bring in, by an Act of Congress, thousands of such citizens, either to be deprived of suffrage-the only considerable fraction of our people that are so deprived, except our own aborigines-or else to be endowed with the suffrage and given an equal participation in the Government with native and intelligent Americans?" In this editorial The Outlook seems to have modified its stand regarding the de facto, which in this case is admitted to be the de jure, Government. The Outlook believes that the annexation of Hawaii would be inconsistent with our policy of the restriction of immigration. This, we maintain, is the objection of a theorist, and for the following reasons: First, even if the whole population of the Islands should come to the States, the addition would be only one-tenth of one per cent. Second, as a matter of fact, there is not likely to be a single immigrant from Hawaii as a result of annexation. One who is at all acquainted with the native Hawaiian knows that he would have no motive to leave and every motive to remain in Hawaii. The proposed treaty provides that the Chinese and Japanese already in the islands shall not come to America, and the other inhabitants will not be likely to leave good positions with brighter prospects under annexation for uncertain employment in America. Of Third, why does The Outlook persist in discussing the admission of Hawaii as a State, when the treaty provides that it is to be a Territory, and no intelligent annexationist claims that it will be ready for Statehood within thirty years? Without this assumption the dilemma regarding the suffrage disappears. There are thirty-three thousand aboriginal Hawaiians, as against three hundred thousand of our own aborigines. the former, the more intelligent already have. the suffrage, and it will gradually be extended to all who attain the standard of competence. The forty thousand Orientals are disfranchised, as are the hundreds of thousands in our own land. There is, then, no proposition carrying with it frightful "hazards involved in receiving such a partner into the union of the States." The proposal is rather to take in an apprentice who has already a claim upon our consideration, and leave the question of ultimate partnership to be determined by the development of the apprentice himself. The Outlook disparages the importance of the islands as a coaling station from the naval point of view. In this it is at variance with the unanimous opinion of naval experts. If our navy is purely an expensive ornament, then why does The Outlook advocate its co-operation in presenting our claims before the Turk? Far-sighted statesmanship desires the Islands, not only for their present importance, but for the value they are destined to acquire in the future development of the commerce of the Pacific. Formerly The Outlook advanced as an argument against annexation the fact that the Hawaiian planters would receive a bounty from the present high tariff on sugar. But The Outlook in another place lamented that from the same source $12,000,000 per year would go to the planters of sugar in Louisiana. Should not the whole weight of the argument be directed against the tariff rather than against the treaty? Personally, I trust that the people of the United States will realize that in helping their small kinsman in the mid-Pacific it will at the same time dispose of a problem of its own in its own best interests, and lay the foundation of a less separatist and narrow policy in matters of international import. JAMES BISHOP THOMAS. Cohasset, Mass. [1. In our judgment, Hawaii presents no problem to the American people, if we are content to mind our own business, and not imagine that we increase the greatness of the Nation by simply extending our territory. It is not a part of our business to assume responsibility for another nation, two or three thousand miles away from us in the Pacific Ocean. 2. The reception of the Islands into the United States does, ipso facto, bring the whole Hawaiian population into the United States. If they all remain in Hawaii, they will still be inhabitants of the United States the instant Hawaii becomes itself a part of our National territory. 3. Our Constitution makes no provision for holding colonies in perpetuo, nor does our form of government adjust itself to any such condition. We have quite enough to do to solve the problem of our Indian Territory, without creating another problem by the creation of a Territory for which we are responsible in the center of the Pacific Ocean, a majority of whose inhabitants are alien to our life and civilization.-THE EDITORS.] A Billy-Boy By William Canton Author of "The Invisible Playmate" and "W. V., Her Book" FOUR-YEAR-OLD does not look back, but for a minute in the new sunshine of the morning it seemed a most wonderful experience. Yesterday the world was a long street of tall houses in the midst of a maze of streets; to-day, after a sweet mossy sleep, it was a sunny road coming from between grassy banks and great trees, and widening out to make room for a dozen gardens and brown-tiled cottages on either side. There were green fields running up and sloping down, as far as one could see. Who would have thought there could be so much grass in all the world? But stranger than the fields were the woods. They grew in a muffling ring all round the sky; they ran up hill and down dale; and where they did not press together in crowds, they loitered about in twos and threes; that between the woods and the fields it was an enormous green space with a sunny road running through it and playing at hide and seek among the bushy hollows. Over all there was a fresh blue sky with silvery clouds, but though Billy-boy was conscious of this in a dim way, he only discovered it afterwards. SO It was in this wonderful new country that he was to be left with the gamekeeper and his wife till he grew brown and plump and strong, and then his mother was to come and take him home. There was a storm of sobs at parting, but before the tears were dry the little man had been bribed into smiles; and then with an invisible hand Nature drew him to her enchanted bosom and found him companionship. Who can describe the glamour which falls on a child, or explain the play of illusions by which he contrives to make himself happy? Henceforth Billy-boy's life was a long daydream, in which everything was alive and had stories to tell, and in which there was no perception of time or of the sequence of events. For instance, what seemed the first of all his impressions must really have been gradually acquired much later. The Sunny Road ran two ways-like most roads, but Billy-boy did not know that. Up-hill it wound away on the ridge of the downs to London Bridge, where, as you know, the children sing and dance in a ring all day long in summer. Down-hill it ambled along through the woods and across the meadows and over the dark pine ridge to the south till it reached the Sea, and you saw the white ships sailing to and fro. Sunny Road southwards was the way of romance and adventure; the carts that came up the slope appeared to have come all the way from the Sea, and the carters must have talked with the sailors in the ships, only Billy-boy did not like to question them. It was enough to watch the carts go by, and dream; it was specially good to see them on a wet day when one could not live out-of-doors. At the foot of the gamekeeper's garden another road branched off from the Sunny Road, and was bordered by green banks covered with bracken and tufts of heather. If you were not going to the Sea or to London Bridge, you followed this road, for it just went rambling on and on to any place you might want to go to. Billy-boy never found a name for it, but I always think of it as Wishing Gate. There was a strip of woodland along the left-hand side, and the village children took Billy-boy there to play with them beneath the trees. Their favorite spot was underneath an old larch whose boughs swept the ground on three sides and formed a snug house full of green shadow. Here the youngsters made a ground-plan of rooms and passages with pebbles and pieces of stone, and visited each other after they had decked their hats with wild flowers and plumes of bracken. Sometimes, too, they played at school, and sometimes at shop; sometimes they simply. nursed their dolls and chattered; but whatever they did, it was just like being in fairyland. Occasionally some of the bigger boys and girls climbed up into the trees, laughing and shouting to each other. Billy-boy longed to be big enough to go with them. There was nothing he wished more for than to be able to hide high up among the thick green leaves. He loved the trees, and liked to listen to the low, soft voices in which they were always sighing or singing to each other, and he often wished that they would reach out their strong green arms and lift him up to them. When he was not with the children, you would generally find Billy-boy in the paddock with the retriever Captain. Captain was chained to his kennel because he was so savage and dangerous; but at first sight Billy-boy had gone up to him, put his arms about his glossy neck, and entered into brotherhood. He shared his bread and butter with Captain, showed him the matchbox in which he kept his big brown furry caterpillars, hung pansy or nasturtium chains about his neck, and arranged in front of the kennel all the shells, bits of glass, and colored pebbles he had gathered. What delight the little man took in those jewels of illusion! He would wet the dull pebble, and, lo! the shy color came gleaming to the surface; or he would hold up the fragment of glass to the sun, and then he and Captain became the joint owners of a rainbow. He reconciled Captain and Mrao, the cushiony and companionable cat. Once, as he sat by the kennel, Mrao brought a live fieldmouse as a tribute of friendliness, and Billyboy took it and stroked it softly and then let it go free. Though he knew he was very strong, Billy-boy was extremely gentle to all the wild creatures. Now and again he would catch a grasshopper and try to tame it, but the curious springy creature would escape at the very moment he fancied he had succeeded. With the slow, twisty-shelled snails he held long parley, asking why they made tracks of silver wherever they went, and telling them how good it was for them to have little houses which they could carry about with them. It was a very shocking thing to see a thrush pounce down on one of them after a shower and split its shell to pieces on a flat stone. The gamekeeper's pigeon who lived in a doll's house on the top of a pole would never have been so cruel! Once on the road called Wishing Gate Billy-boy saw a squirrel for the first time. It ran a yard or two up a tree and looked out at him with its soft bushy tail curled up its back and over its head. It chattered for a moment, then jumped a yard or two higher, looked out again, and finally disappeared. Sometimes, before he fell asleep, Billy-boy would tell himself stories, and this adventure with the brown nut-cracker delighted him beyond measure. "Once," he would say, "I went down the road, and a squirrel popped out of a tree; and he saw me and shouted Hullo! and I shouted Hullo! and then he ran away." A fouryear-old's stories are amazingly brief and artless. Billy-boy told the children about the squirrel, and they went with him in search of it. Peering up vainly into every tree, they trotted along the road till they came to the top of a rise from which they looked down on Willowmere. Billy-boy uttered a cry of delight. The sun was glittering on the lake among the hoary willows; the road ran along it; and far away beyond, on the top of Juniper Hill, the great sails of a windmill, silvery-white in the sunshine, were whirling round and round. They were like the bright arms of angels waving to him to go to them. He stood gazing with eager eyes and open lips. “Oh, if you were not so far-so far away!" Many a night after that he cried out joyfully in his sleep, for he saw the white arms beckoning to him, and voices called to him across the shining water, "Come to us, Billy-boy; come to us, Billy-boy!" One memorable afternoon Billy-boy saw the villagers standing at their doors or out in the middle of the road all staring up into the sky. He looked up too, and high above him, like a great golden moon in the heavens, floated a large balloon, with people in the car. It drifted slowly over their heads in the beautiful summer air, and the soft wind steered it gently to the south and the Sea. What a vision of beauty it was! The little man watched it as it glided away and away, growing smaller and smaller, till at last it crossed the dark pine ridge and sank down out of sight. When it had vanished he looked up overhead once more, and discovered the vast blue luminous depths of heaven. Then, in some strange way, it seemed to him that he and the children and the village and the woods and all the earth were part of a wonderful blue balloon which was drifting away and away like the golden one. It must have been about this time that Billy-boy was greatly perplexed by a nursery rhyme which the gamekeeper's wife used to recite to him: Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn! The sheep's in the meadow, the cow's in the corn Where's the little boy that looks after the sheep? He's under the haystack fast asleep. There was a haystack in the paddock, and Billy-boy was certain, in his own mind, that this was the haystack of the rhyme. Time and again he ran round on tiptoe to surprise little Boy Blue, but he never found any one |