The San Francisco call., 1898-02-21

l inference of Cuba) is like the child l idea of fairyland. He hears and be- | lieves the stories of the elfins from nurse in whose imaginings the little creatures alone exist. But the child rarely repeats what he has heard as sober truth, wherein he shows much more sense than does MT. Julian flaw 1 thorne. The Examiner-Journal Is wei | come to it's commissioner and every one of like type.
 | Apropos of this writer, Consul-Gen- ] eral Lee seems to have interfered with the Spanish authorities under mis- apprehension of the character Of the steam launch that took MT. Hawthorne to Cuba, and, supposedly. brought him back. The boat, it appears from dis matches. was entered as a yacht and thereupon seized, which was quite right. No vessel used for the personal gain of the owner or charterer in any way has the right to the privileges accord ed unvaryingly and exclusively to yachts That the Buccaneer was not then a yacht is self-evident. but there seems to be no trouble in swearing that she is when occasion suits. The Secretary of the Treasury should ex- plain to General Lee what is. and what is not, yacht.
 The Chronicle comes to the defense of Captain Mahan by saying that the gentleman in question did not mean what he said when he used the lan- guage attributed to him in these col umns last week. By what supernatural power the contemporary knows this is quite undeterminable. but have been, hitherto, accustomed to believe that what was said was what was meant. Captain Mahan's words (if correctly reported) are: This will inevitably involve its (Hawaifs) possession by preoccupation by the United States is in my Judgment the only security. That Is plain enough language for a wayfaring man. and I desire to repeat emphatically that it is not inevitable" that the Hawaiian Islands shall be- come the possession of any foreign power against our express will. The Chronicle in prescriptive style mixes what it has to say with a waste-bas- ketful of stuff anent the sugar trust. As a controversialist has pointed out there is "the virgin lead of pure ignor- ance." Opinion expressed here is not honestly held because 1t differs from that of an antagonist! If published in the North American Review pre- sumably it might be held to have been written in good faith! Minds that cannot rise above that sort of substi- tute for argument are weak of the weak.
 A day or two later this short sighted contemporary scored the Rochester (N. Y) Herald for pointing to the ne cessity of increasing the navy in the event of the annexation of the land of coffee yet to be grown. We are ser iously told that our present navy now effectually patrols over 5200 miles of coast line. What extravagant state ment will emanate from this incapable brain next is a good subject for guess work, but most of us are too busy to be able to join in the. doubtless, delec- table sport. The navy of to-day, un- fortunately, is not half nor nearly half equal to the task, and to further ham, per 1t by policy that will compel a big detachment to regularly be in at- tcIQdHCC OH d lldll-QOZ6H pTdCClCdlIy valueless little islands is a blunder hopelessly.
 When a newspaper makes the mis- take of asserting in some novel way that the Sandwich Islands will be of strategical value to us-that is, if we commit the unpardonable folly of an nexing them, the Bulletin stores the averment away in safety, and in week or ten days, having furbished and bur nished it up so brightly that 1t mirrors it's own irrationality, the dream is re- published. This is from the hoary journal Preference is being made to the ability of warships to coal at seal: "A few American fast cruisers with a safe port at the islands would run in Japan csc coal tenders as fast as they might appear" The Bulletin, I was aware, had a marvelOusly competent artil- Ierist, but an admiral was scarcely to have been expected to be found on it's staff IT re would, of course, be no trouble about running in Japan's col Hers whenever they appeared" but the Mikado would endeavor to make as certain as possible that they did not
 
 May I be permitted to know in what direction this simpleton would have the fleet steered in order to intercept the ships of Japan with certainty? A plan of action which keeps ships less than a couple of thousand miles from the yicinage of the treasure and territory which they have been called into ex- istence to protect is suggested to the admiral. With our fleet here we might reasonably expect to be able to make it interesting for the coal-laden ships of Japan, but to send squadron on still hunt for them in the trifling body of water known as the Pacific Ocean would be discouraging task to the various commanders, who are all aware that there is such a thing as curvature of the earth. Doubtless the Bulletins admiral believes the earth to be flat! With his flew fast cruisers" he might be chasing rainbows off Lower Califor- mia while Japanese entities were calm ly steaming hitherward via the Aleu- tian Islands. Possibly this is part of his mode of warfare. It Is novel enough.