The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1905-02-23
JOHN N0RLEYS OPINIONS
What He Saw in United States
and Canada.
PRAISEFO OUR SCHOOLS

4 ENAlOE TNJN OUN SOT1OOLS
Capital and Labor-The Negro Prob
lem--SeeuIar instruction But Re.
iigious knowledge General-TWo
Interesting Months For Hin, in the
United States.
John Morley, the English states
an, publicist, and author, who re-
ntly paid two months visit to the
lited States, spoke principally on
lerican institutions in an address
llvered in Brechin, Scotland.
According to the report published in
ne London Times he said that he had
never spent two mOry interesting and
stimulating months than during his
recent visit to CanaGa and the United
States He would not pretend that in
SO short a time ne had got to the bot.
tom of any of the great problems to
be met with in those regions.
1t was interesting to him in Amer
ica to find himself in a country where
there was no Established Church, but
there was no country where religion
was more genuine of more earnest.
The common schools of the United
States were practically confined to
secular instruction, yet nowhere in
the world was religious knowledge
more general The United States
was country without the untold
blessings of a hereditary house of
lords, yet there was no country in the
world so far as he knew, where the
rights of property were safer.
One of the great questions which
the democracy of the United States
had before them was the relations be-
tween capital and labor An impor-
taut, responsible, and well-nformed
American gentleman had told him that
our British laws in respect to trade
combinations were more favorable
to such combinations than the laws of
the United States. The people there
would fight out the tremendous battle
under conditions quite different from
those under which it had been fought
here.
Another serious, suggestive and ap.
parently almost insoluble problem in
the United States was the enormous
multiplication and gradual advance
northward of the freed black popu-
lation of the south If that movement
went on there might at the end of
this century be population of some
thing like 60,O0O,0OO or even 100000
of colored people in the United States
That was the retribution that followed
wrong. What did it come from
fricans were brought into the South.
II states exploiting land much as
hinese were now being brought into
0uth Africa to work the mines. Peo-
lie might have to wait even so or 100
ycars before heaven sent in the bill
but what sort OF eventful harvest
could be expected when the founda.
tions of a state were laid upon an in
ferior civilization? We were, by the
importation of Chinese labor, chang
ing the base and foundation of our
state in South Africa, Some day the
white men there would have to pay
the penalty of folly or wrong now
being perpetrated.
HE had expected to find in the
United States a good deal of indiffer.
ence to the friendship of this country
but he found that the people unmis'
takably viewed us with feelings OF
both esteem and friendship. That
feeling could only be endangered by
setting I'D a scientific tariff and dis,
criminating against the United States
We owed the most friendly feeling OF
the United States largely to the fact
that thirty years ago a great llbera,
leader, with the liberal party behind
him, submitted to arbitration a burn
ing dispute between America and
ourselves. Canada abounded in in
teEesting questions with many under
cu rents which before he had scarce
ly realized. Nothing struck one more
among the population of that great
province than the fervor with which
the British section gloried in connec
tion with Great Britain, or the con
tentment with the French and Cath
Ollie section also accepted the same
generous rule There was in the do
minion a community of which we
might well be proud, and as to whose
future we were bound to entertain
as he himself did entertain, the most
sanguine hopes.
James Lawrence.
James Lawrence was born in Bur