The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1895-02-17

general control of a central board. The
modern tendency is in that direction, with
promise of improved efficiency.
New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co.
For sale at the bookstores.
Mrs. LEASES BooK.-Mrs. Mary E. Lease
has written a book entitled 1.-THE Problem
of Civilization Solved The recent prom
inence of the author in Kansas politics and
the fact that she has now taken UP her resi-
dence in the San Joaquin Valley will make
her volume of interest to many Califor-
mans.
Mrs. Lease premises that the laboring
classes of the civilized world are going from
bad to worse. This assumption is not
borne out by the facts. 1t has gained cur
rencv in the United States because our
rapid increase of population and material
DEVELOPMENT have raised among US the
problems which for ages have troubled
older communities. Yet, taking the civil
lied world at large, the progress OF society
shows gradual improvement in the condi-
| ton of the poorer classes. This is the plain
fact. The evidence, if required, must be
sought in the exhaustive researches of So
ciological students, who have covered the
whole subject and made public the details
and results.
The error in Mrs. Leases premise, how
ever, does not necessarily lnvalidate her
| demand for solution of the problem of
the Door. 1t is bad enough as it is. That
| its badness is so universally recognized,
and that so much thought and effort are
! directed to its solution is one of the most
| hopeful signs of the times. When rulers,
statesmen, divines, capitalists, philan-
thropists and labor leaders are putting
| ~, -.
better the condition of the masses some
! thing is going to be done.
| Mrs. Lease has her remedy to offer. Her
| book of nearly four hundred pages deals
much in details and side issues, but the
main argument is, in brief as follows:
Europe and the United States are suffering
! from overcrowding, want of access to the
resources of nature, and a mechanical over
production for which there is not an ade-
| quate market. Europe has the added bur-
| den of militarism to carry.
| The remedy proposed is arbitration of
national disputes and cessation of warfare
| to abolish militarism; the partition of
| Southern Asia and Africa among four great
European powers, representing the British,
Germanic, Latin and Slavic nationalities
| the federation of the Americas under the
headship of the United States; the coloni-
Zation of Africa and Latin America, on a
stupendous scale, with the Caucasians of
|
ness leaders, and a colOred tenantry in the
proportion of three negroes, Indians or
Orientals to one Caucasian; Government
aid to colonists; coloniZed land tenure OF
ownership by use free trade in federated
America, with tariff on alien products
and enlarged Government paternalism.
1t is held that the cost of European mill
tarism would 90 far to provide the means
for carving out this scheme in Africa. In
our own country an issue of paper money
"redeemable by taxation" would furnish
the required funds. The Oriental should
be excluded from Europe, the United
States and Canada. This plan, it is argued,
would not only relieve the pressure of
population in Europe and the United
| States, but provide great tropical markets
for northern manufactures.
| Concerning the merits of this somewhat
large scheme it may be said that in part it
is already in progress as natural political
and business process. The European
powers have partitioned Africa on the map,
and are entering on their possessions as
| RAPIDLY as circumstances permit. 1t is
within possibility that events now occurring
in the Orient may result in the partition of
Southern Asia among those powers, with
| progressive Japan as new element in
political division European voluntary
emigration to South America is also con-
siderable. There is none of consequence
thither from the United States, because
we vet have room of our own to spare.
This process of tropical colonization is a
natural and gradual evolution. And here
it may be remarked that nc. other process
| is practically possible. A forced wholesale
migration of races under colonizing con-
ditions is dream. The world does not
and will not move in that way.
There is the further fact that the classes
of Caucasian communities who are sup
posed to reap the chief benefit of such a
plan are the very ones that are least capa-
bic of carrying it out. Great Britain has
experimental in colonizing the surplus of
her crowded cities only to meet failure.
Such classes are not the right material for
colonists, and they are unwelcome in Brit
ish colonies populated by whites. In a
virgin tropical country they would simply
| become the victims of unfamiliar condi-
tons. AS for making them the business
directors of three times their number of
Orientals, the Chinese would crowd them
out of existence within generation. The
financial features of the authors plan need
no consideration when the plan itself
promises failure.
Yet in a restricted sense there is large
grain of merit in this scheme, and If Mrs.
Lease had delayed the issue of her book until
after a little longer residence in California
she might have made the point There are
millions of acres in the valleys and foot
hills of this State with climate and soil
COmDlnlng the Sa1uDrlJy OF Ine temperate
| zone with the productiyenesS of the trOp-
ics Irrigation and cheap transportation
alone are needed to fit them for the homes
of millions of American citizens. The
same is true of other States and Territories
of the Pacific Coast and the Great Basin.
While these opportunities await only the
touch of wise public policy and private
enterprise and industry it is superauous to
look to Africa and South America for the
solution of the labor problem so far as &C
cess to natural resources is a factor in that
problem. Let Mrs. Lease write another
book setting forth the opportunities which
California offers to immigrants. Let her
show therein that movements are now in
progress to promote the development OF
these opportunities and she will accom-,
plish more good for her adopted State and
for some millions of American home-seek-
ers than by sweeping the globe with her
concentrations.
[Chicago: Laird g. Lee. For sale at the
bookstores.
PAGES FROM YOUNG MANS JOURNAL
This is the title of the initial volume of