There are other signs of commercial and industrial progress, but the above is condensed and striking. The large cities of Japan I found filled with industrial energy, while in the country districts through which I traveled the click of the shuttle and the whir of the spinning wheel may be heard in almost every cottage. Manufacturing seems to run right along the lines of agriculture. The mulberry tree, the silkworm, the filature, the spun thread, the woven cloth, the dyeing and the finishing of habutai, handkerchiefs, and crapes are not infrequently combined in one establishment. The background of real handicraft, with labor so cheap and so industrious as in Japan, carried on in the country districts, will be hard to beat, especially when aided by the latest modern machinery.

Japan has an industrial army that has gone into the conflict of nations with whatever implement it had at hand. It has not waited until every man was equipped with the latest modern appliances, but has begun making excellent articles with the tools within its reach. In Osaka, it is no exaggeration to say, I saw the methods of a thousand years ago, side by side with the latest and most ingenious labor-saving devices. The quotations from the Rice Exchange were being waved by flags from peak to peak, within a stone's throw of the Post Office Building, where could be heard the click of the telegraph instruments, and the "hello" of the telephone girl in her kimono. In the magnificently equipped cotton-spinning and weaving factories, in paper mills, in some of the large silk factories, in the clock and watch factories, in the machine shops of Japan, I have seen the most modern English, German, and American machinery, and forces of men and women as thoroughly organized and as fully equipped as any on earth.

On the other hand, within the shadow of these immense establishments in the Osaka district, where tall chimneys remind one of Manchester, Philadelphia, and Chicago, thousands of human beings labor with tools so crude and implements so antique that you are taken back to the cities of the ancient world.

These tremendous contrasts, to my mind, show the courage of the Japanese. He simply throws away the old device when he can secure the new. Like all good workmen, however, he does not stand idly by waiting for the better implements. He pounds away at his rice, runs off beautiful silken threads from the ancient spinning wheel, plies the hand dextrously at all occupations, as he did a thousand years ago, wholly oblivious of the hum and rattle of the modern machinery in the surrounding factories. He cannot afford to stop, but he is none the less awaiting his turn to secure the newer machine. When Japan is fully equipped with the latest machinery, it will, in my opinion, be the most potent industrial force in the markets of the world.

ROBERT P. PORTER.

THE CANADIAN ELECTIONS AND THEIR RESULT.

BY J. W. RUSSELL.

THE recent Liberal victory in Canada resembles the overthrow of an established order rather than one of those periodical changes which we look for in the ordinary working of party government. From September 17, 1878, until June 23 last the Conservative party ruled the Dominion. At no time in that period, except during the past year, had there been an opposition strong enough to prevent the Conservative leaders from imposing their policy upon an obedient majority in the House of Commons. During a part of their eighteen years' lease of power a partial acquiescence in the protective system, which had given political control into the hands of the Conservatives, had begun to spread even among the ranks of their opponents. In the general election of 1887 the Liberal leader promised that the protective tariff, the so-called "National Policy," would not be interfered with in the event of his success; and ever since then some concession more or less necessary has been made to the cry of alarm raised against a too sudden disturbance of protection. Questions of emotional patriotism, radiating from the feeling of attachment to the mother country, had been dexterously interwoven in the web of beliefs and practices which had secured Conservative success; and, rightly or wrongly, these questions had on more than one occasion exerted a decisive influence in the exigencies of party struggle.

The causes which led to the defeat of the Conservatives, as well as the change of Canadian policy resulting from it, are eminently worthy of notice. Standing midway, as Canada does, between the democratic federalism of the Republic and the limited monarchy of Great Britain, interest must increase in the contemplation of her commercial, industrial, and political aims.

Americans cannot be indifferent to the growth of an Englishspeaking power on their northern border, though, in recent years, they may have viewed its progress with mixed feelings, whose dominant tinge has been imparted by the attitude of Canadian Toryism. This election opens up to them a possible change of view.

The two main issues of the contest-tariff reform and the Manitoba school question-have for some time received a considerable share of public attention. They touched essential factors in the young life of the Dominion, and had compelled discussion of a strenuous and exciting character. The vigor or languishment of national industry, freedom or bondage in the expression of electoral opinion, the letter of the Constitution against its spirit-these were the broadly opposed meanings which the campaign presented to the Liberals; on the other hand, the Conservatives stood for the maintenance of protection, opposed any change supposed to involve commercial dependence upon the United States with its corollary of political dependence, and advocated the coercion of Manitoba in restoring the system of separate schools which had been abolished by that province in 1890.

In 1878 a Liberal Government, under the premiership of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie, was defeated on the protective issue, and a tariff averaging thirty-five per cent. on dutiable imports displaced a revenue tariff of seventeen and a half per cent. The fiat had gone forth that Canada was no longer to be flooded with the manufactures of the United States, and a nation industrially independent was to be reared on the basis of protection. The new order of affairs started auspiciously, and for a few years seemed to justify itself. At the same time, the expenditure of large sums of borrowed money on great public works, the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the land speculations resulting therefrom, added a fictitious volume of prosperity with which protection was exclusively credited. New lines of manufacture sprang up, and the enthusiasm of a people which had apparently found industrial deliverance supported the political party which had wrought all this good. As business prospered, the opposition to the new tariff seemed increasingly futile.

Between 1887 and 1891 the Liberals changed their policy to "unrestricted reciprocity" or "commercial union" with the

United States, on the ground that free access to the markets of the United States was more desirable than all other commercial advantages. This policy gained many adherents, but was checked and discredited by its alleged political consequences. It seemed possible of realization only by the making of a common protective tariff between Canada and the United States as against the rest of the world. This accomplished, what would inevitably follow? Commercial union, it was claimed, could only be a prelude to political absorption; and the mere thought of such a result was enough to change the storm centre from tariffs to treason, from the discussion of economic issues to the problem of national existence. Suggestive inferences were drawn from the German Zollverein, which paved the way for the German Empire. Discrimination against Great Britain was charged, and truthfully, against the proposed change; and at the general elections of 1891 it was decisively rejected. The Liberals then returned to their former advocacy of a revenue tariff.

In the meantime, a day of reckoning had come in the application of a test whose validity could not be gainsaid, and which comprehended all minor issues of fact and policy. The census of 1891 showed a dishearteningly small increase of population, the whole Dominion having added but 508,000 to its inhabitants during the decade of 1881-91-a smaller increase than that of the single State of Minnesota during the same period. This revelation was conclusive, and the Conservative party irreparably injured by it. It was vain to argne in support of a system under which more than 1,000,000 Canadians, native and foreign-born, had been expatriated to the United States; and no explanations or comparisons could reconcile the facts with any hope of success. There were, indeed, subordinate proofs of failure. The coal and iron industries had remained practically stationary; the richest mineral deposits were undeveloped; the shipping interest, formerly so prosperous, had declined nearly a half in twelve years; and many industries which had started well had been wiped out by competition in a narrow market. But it seemed unnecessary to give subsidiary proof when the census had given the final and conclusive one. The recently won Liberal success, in so far as it related to the tariff question, naturally followed from the publication of the census returns, and from the business depression which has since continued. The people had given the national