CURRENT TOPICS.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1365, 28 April 1898, Page 39

CURRENT TOPICS.

MAJOR KEMP. It is gratifying to observe that Major Kemp’s funeral was conducted with / military honours; for who was more worthy of such national recognition than the brave, sagacious man who stood by the British so steadfastly, and to such good purpose, when time 3 were critically troublous with them in this island ? The conduct of Meiha Keepa te a Rangihiwinui was ever worthy of so highborn a member of a race of brave people. Merely to mention his work at Pipiriki, his expedition'to Opotoki, his services under Sir Duncan Cameron, Colonel Whitmore and Colonel McDonnell, and the part he took in Major-Ganeral Chute’s bush campaign on the West Coast, is to outline the history of the war of the sixties. His pursuit and dispersal of Te Kooti’s band of fanatics was a notable undertaking. Well did Kemp deserve the promotions and honours with which he was rewarded. An estimate of his character, penned in those stirring days, is at this moment worth repetition. In a despatch written after the battle of Moturoa, Colonel Whitmore described Kemp as brave, modest and generous in all his conduct; one who never boasted before the fight, and cast no reproaches after it; who had shown to every officer that he was endued with great capacity for military operations, and exhibited to every man of the force that a Maori chief could manifest a calm, deliberate courage in no way inferior to their own. When peace succeeded war, favoured by the amity between the two peoples which he had done so much to achieve, Kemp worked indomitably to ensure united action among the Maoris with regard to matters affecting their welfare; and his efforts toward that end were fruitfully beneficial, as might have been expected when they were made by a man who, as Sir Walter Duller once said, “succeeded in acquiring a larger measure of personal influence among the tribes than probably any other chief on the West Coast.” He survived most of the companions of his campaigns, and saw the country prosper under pakeha rule, which, however, as has quite recently been proved by the Government’s native land policy, is not, even at this remote distance of time from effective white occupation of the islands, regardless of the Maori’s rights in citizenship and property. A special interest attached to Major Kemp in another respect; he was one of the la3t of the great ohiefs, a Maori aristocrat among the few remaining. But aside from that, , his distinguished military services amply warrant the obsequies that have been arranged for and official representation of the Government thereat. The hope expressed by Lady (then Mrs) Fox, in handing to Major Kemp a sword presented to him by the Queen, that it might always remain in its sheath, has happily been fulfilled. But the country would be ungrateful indeed if it failed to remember and suitably mark the service rendered to it by men like this when swords were unsheathed and disaster stared the pakeha pioneer in the face.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

The question put by Lord Salisbury to President Cleveland in response to tbe latter’s “ Venezuelan bugaboo,” namely, “ What is the Monroe doctrine ?” is being asked with interest by a great many people now. The “ doctrine ” has a special bearing on the present trouble between Spain and the United States. Its connection with the crisis, however, is interesting rather as showing how futile it is to pledge posterity than as affecting present actualities. Monroe, one of the wisest of American Presidents, had (or thought he had) reason to fear in 1823 that the Holy Alliance was about to support Spain in an organised effort tu reconquer her South American colonies. By way of warning against the enforcement of any such scheme, and acting, it is said, on a hint from the British Government, the President sent a message to Congress in which, after endorsing Washington’s policy of American neutrality with respect to quarrels among European Powers, he enunciated the principle “In which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents . . . are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonisation by any European Power. . . . With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered, and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have . . . acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.”

The whole doctrine .has virtually been abrogated some time. For instance, whafc-

ever binding force it over had was repudiated when the Government of the Republic sent a warship to stand guard over Crete with the European Concert’s fleets. More recently American intervention between Japan and Hawaii even more vividly emphasised the same desire to break away from Monroe’s restriction. If that was not so, if the doctrine remained in effect, the United States could not honourably interfere on behalf of the Cubans, Cuba being one of the colonies of a European Power it is nominally pledged to recognise as such. History’s curious knack of contradicting itself is illustrated by recent events in America, The Monroe doctrine, originally enunciated to thwart Spain, is now being violated with the same object. Introduced on the advice of British statesmen, it was the other day—when the Venezuelan dispute was hot—all but enforced against Britain. What was considered advisable in the British interest in 1823 is now likely to b© repudiated with the tacit concurrence of that interest. Again, Monroe’s term of office was called “ the era of good feeling,” so pleasant were the relations between England and America at that time. In that respect history repeats itself, though it reaches the effect by different causes; because there are now many indications of better relations between the two countries than have prevailed since Monroe’s day. As to this, however, thoso who hope for an Anglo-American alliance need not be confident yet or for a long time to come. The United States is a country of mixed interest?, nationalities and politics. The reports the cable gives us of growing British sentiment really only describe the views prevailing in the east, where business interests necessarily incite a proBritish feeling. They do not take any account of the millions of the west and middle west, indifferent to England if not embittered against her. These —speaking generally t'-ie great party that supported Mr Bryan for the Presidency are the people to be reck6ned with before Britain and the Republic can even get on good terms with each other, much less become offensive or defensive allies.

SPAIN’ AND AMERICA.

Comparing the two countries now at war with each other, we find that Spain is much stronger by sea than her enemy. The exact figures with respect to the relative sea power of the two countries cannot be reliably stated, because the returns available are a year or two old, and recently both Governments have made large acquisitions of fighting ships. Steamers have been bought by each side for use as cruisers, the Americans have purchased a warship from Brazil, a cruiser has been presented to Spain by Rothschild, and other acquisitions have been made. But the state of sea power may be generally described as this, that the Spaniards, though comparatively lacking in battleships, have an immensely larger number of torpedo boats and the smaller fry that help to make up a dangerously harassing fleet. Spain has in Cuba an army of 150,000 men, of which, it is said, only 90,000 are regular troop 3. Since 1895 she has poured 200,000 regulars into that little island, but disease and battle have thinned their numbers down to 90,000. These and the locally - raised forces control the coast ports and a few of the fortified interior towns. In the central and eastern parts of the island the Cubans are entrenched in force, and could probably hold the Spaniards in permanent check, the whole insurgent force under arms being, according to the latest information received, about 35,000 men. These, well armed and determined as they are, can stall the Spaniards off; and as the Imperial troops have to rely on foreign supplies rice, beans j and flour from Spain, and meat from Mexico and Forida, for instance—they can be shut up and starved between an effective blockade of United States warships on one side and the pertinacious stubbornness of the Cubans on the other. That is, seemingly, what Spain has to provide against. It is true that on paper she has plenty of soldiers available. The official estimate is that the army can b© raised, on a war footing, to 480,000 men armed with 600 guns ; and in 1896 the home and colonial forces, including the partially-trained reserves, nominally amounted to about 900,000 men. But these figures will probably be found as mistakenly optimistic as the assertion of a French Minister, on the eve of the war with Prussia, that the army was equipped, down to the last gaiter button. As to the report that Spanish agents are organising expeditions in Mexico to invade the United States, there is not much in that. The Mexicans have had a bitter experience of the danger of angering the “ Americanos,” aud are not at all likely to provoke a repetition of the murderous dose they had to swallow in the forties.

Doubtj reasonably exists as to the posi*

tion of mercantile shipping under the conditions of a Spanish-American war. Most civilised Powers have subscribed to the Declaration of Paris, which provides that a neutral flag shall protect an enemy’s goods except contraband of war, and also protects neutral goods (except contraband of war) under an enemy’s flag. That is to say (for example) American goods would be safe in a vessel sailing undec the British flag, and British goods could not bo captured even if they were carried under the American flag. The United States did not subscribe to that Declaration, and Spain refused to fully do so. Consequently it is open to question whether each combatant may not seize the other’s goods from under neutral flags. If this doubt should be well founded, the United States will suffer most of the two combatants, hers being far the larger oversea commerce; and proportionately the British interest will suffer, because the bulk cf American foreign trade is carried in British bottoms. A comparison of the American and Spanish shipping possessions is, in this connection, interesting The United States owns (according to the returns for 1897-98) 3160 steam and sailing vessels, with a tonnage of 2,326,838 tons; Spain 723 vessels aggregating 587,787 tons. These figures are specially significant in view of the fact that the United Kingdom has (exclusive of colonial ships) 9107 vessels of 12,403,409 tons. There must necessarily, therefore, be a large American and Spanish trade with Britain to be preyed on. And both the parties to war, it should also be remembered, can issue letters of marque to privateersmen. It is reported that Anglo-Saxon feeling generally is solidly in favour of the United States in this war. It is comprehensible that British people generally should prefer to seo the Americans successful iu an engagement with any foreign Power, because the kinship between them and us is something more than sentiment; it is, in spite of the severance of the United States from Britain, a political relationship, and the common phrase “our American cousins” means all it suggests. But if that was not American interference was to be judged on its merits—it would be hard to sympathise with the Uhited States. The reason given for intervention is that humanity justifies it. Yet what inhumanity is practised in Cuba now is nothing by comparison with that of a few years ago, when the Republic looked on silently. A.t present, indeed, Spain is prepared to concede local government to Cuba; America, while refusing to recognise the Republic that has been set up in the island, insists on independence, thereby encouraging the establishment of another Hayti in it 3 vioinity. It is earnestly to be hoped that the United States will come victorious out of the war. But it is to be regretted quite as earnestly that it has not bettor cause for taking up arms.

SOME COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WAR. Wab is at all times disastrous to trade, because of its great destruction of property and diversion of the energies of the combatants from industrial channelr. The war between Spain and America, if confined to the two nations, will not cause so great a disturbance to commerce as would hostilities between America and a first-class European Power. Spain is incapable of maintaining anything like an effective blockade of the enormous coast line of the great Republic, oven if she were successful in disposing of the American navy. At bast the war may cause delay in transport of American experts, bat generally speaking American houses will be able to keep their foreign contracts. The railway system of the United States is connected with Vancouver on the one side and Montreal on the other, and as the bulk of America's export trade is carried in British vessels, it will be seen that the facilities for foreign trade are great. There will be delay and inconvenience,and prices of such food products as are exported to | Great Britain will advance in value for a time. The colonies will benefit by this, for our wheat, hides, leather, frozen meat and tinned meat will be in better demand. It is unfortunate that America should be involved in war just now. There was a splendid recovery in the States, and business gave promise of being very active. " Bradstreet’s,” on March sth, commented on the position in the following terms : "Nearly all signs point to an unprecedented volume of business being done or arranged for at the present time. The aggressive strength of prices, recordbreaking bank clearings, and continued large exports, particularly of the lowpriced cereaL, a very heavy volume of business in iron and steel and kindred lines, and generally satisfactory reports as to the volume of spring trade at leading distributive centres are among the visible features of this trade development.” The i revival in trade led to considerable specu- j ation on the New York Exchange, shares j and bonds of railroads being in high »

favour. The speculative fever spread to London, and large parcels of railroad stocks which a few months before had travelled the Atlantic under consignment to New York financiers went back again to Europe at enhanced values. The first effect of the serious political outlook was to cause a tremendous fall in prices, and a further depression in values has been experienced. The question of privateering is exercising the minds of the persons who are in direct trade relations with both Spain and America. The commerce of the United States is of much greater volume than that of Spain, which has suffered considerably during the past two years by the conscription of the labouring classes. Indeed, in the manufacturing districts of Upain many mills and factories have been closed for the want of labour. If privateering becomes a feature of the war, America has more to fear than Spain by reason of the larger volume of her business. But in compensation for this, American goods can be railed to ports in Canada and British Columbia, and thence shipped in British vessels. Still the risk cf destruction which this form of warfare entails will be sufficient to cause insurance rates to advance to a great altitude.

A remarkably fine haul would be made by a Spanish privateer if it could strike the mail steamer Mariposa, which left Auckland for San Francisco a few days ago. This vessel carries <£300,000 in gold, and the fact was cabled to London when she left Sydney. The Mariposa sails under the Star 3 and Stripes, and would, tneresore, be liable to attack by the Spaniards ; but there is not much fear of Spanish aggression on the Pacific, and the vessel is almost sure to get into port quite safely. The gold on the Mariposa wa3 all shipped a t Sydney. War means the expenditure of large sums of money, and apart from all other considerations the Americans are bound to be the victors. Spain is financially prostrate. Her credit is down almost to zero, and her borrowing powers are well nigh exhausted. Every kind of security that the country possesses has been mortgaged, and every peseta that could be borrowed internally has been taken by the Madrid Government. The Bank of Spain has been the principal contributor to the Treasury, and this institution will go on lending so long as it can circulate its notes. Of gold, there is very little in hand, the total held by the Bank of. Spain at a recent date being only .£8,528,360 not sufficient to carry on the war for two weeks. The Cuban rebellion cost the mother country «£48,000,000 last year* very nearly a million a week, and. that enormous expenditure did not cover the pay of the Spanish soldiers, which at a recent date was considerably in arrears. The Americans, on the other hand, are immensely wealthy, and have enormous resources ; so that the anticipation that the war will be of short duration is not without justification. Spain is on the point of collapse, and it only requires one serious blow such as a strong and wealthy nation like the Americans could administer to crush her. Spain is at the moment the “sick man” of Europe, and therein lies danger to the peace of Europe. The other sick man, Turkey, has caused no end of trouble and bloodshed, and still threatens Europe. What new conditions will arise with Spain on the sick-list it is difficult to forecast. France is very deeply interested financially in the welfare of the Sp mish Kingdom, and it remains, to be seen how long she will stand by and see her security robbed of all its value. There is no doubt as to the result of the war, but the after results are not so easily forecast. The money question may lead Franco into the zone of fire, and to introduce another European Power into the scene of the disturbance will be the signal for the mobilisation of all Europe.

Thu cable reports on Monday that the ! dispute between the United States and Spain has reached the conclusion which has been imminent for some days. War has been declared ; a blockade of part of Cuba is proclaimed by President McKinley ; and the American squadron on the China station has sailed to attack the Spaniards in the Philippines. On the other hand, we are told of Spanish enthusiasm running high, of a great war fund being raised in Spain, and of Havana being provisioned for six months against the siege which will presently be laid to the town. “ Peace is the dream of the wise, but war is the history of men,” it has been said. Probably there never was a case in which peace seemed so wise as in this. The President’s formal declaration that he does not propose to annex Cuba makes the war less justifiable than ever. Though not one of the few great men who have sat in the Presidential chair, Major McKinley has through all this trouble shown the manly stubbornness that enabled him to carry a stiff protectionist tariff through some years ago. Bnt the anti-Spanish feeling in the Republic has proved too strong for

him; and against his own good judgment and expressed opinions for it is known that he has again and again declared hia desire for peace—ho has been compelled to plunge his country into war with Spain. Already open hostilities have begun, each side having made a capture. The American naval forces, who were reported the other day to be chafing over the inactivity of their Government, aro likely to fiad work enough in the Philippines, where Spanish port fortifications and warships are apparently very strong. 0 a land, however, the United States is sternly calling men to arms, and we shall doubtless hear presently that Cuba ha 3 been flooded with Americans. It remains to bo seen whether the real tug of war will be there in Cuba or elsewhere. At present there is no evident necessity why Cuba should be the scene of greatest disturbance. After all the island is only the mere speck of land the combatants are nominally fighting about; the real issue is between the two Powers, and the Cuban insurgents can keep at bay all the Spaniards who are in their country or can be landed there* That fis the unfortunate aspect of the whole business, the want of areal cacus belli. If the Americans were fighting to get Cuba, which they certainly ought to possess, their position would be logical. But they have avowedly gone to war to make the island independent, in other words to hand it over to a mixed population who will fight among themselves like the Chilians, and prove a constant source of annoyance to the great Republic they are so fortunate as to have for a neighbour. Seeing that Spain has recently offered the Cabans local self-government, it could have beeh desired that the Americans would be content with that and refrain from pulling Cuban chestnuts out of the fire. As they have not done so, .the best to be hoped for is that they will c >ine victorious out of the war they have entered on. As to this there is apparently no room for doubt. On the one side there are millions of men and money, on the other a poverty - stricken country physically and pecuniarily emaciated by wars that have drained her resources. Possibly it is well that Spain should be given the knock-down blow which is now mminent so far as the future can be judged. All her grandeur is faded. There is no Spanish main now, no powerful Spanish monarch to have hie beard singed by Englishmen. She stands in our time as a relic rather than a reality. But her conflict with a mighty Power like the United States is pathetic. It reminds one of the Chinese going out with bows and arrows to fight the well-armed Japanese. Jf this war could have been avoided the world would have been saved the experience of a pitiably unequal fight. Yet, as it could not be averted, we have to regard the Americans as our side, right or wrong. They represent the Englishspeaking interest which it is our policy to support whether its champions fly the Stars and Stripes or the Union Jack.

WHO ARE THE AMERICANS?

It is interesting at this eventful juncture in the world’s history to consider the national character of the people of the United States. Nominally they are “ Americans,” of course, that being the shortest and perhaps the aptest title for the population of the Republic. In reality, however, very many of them are not so. A groat proportion of that population is not American in the me.ming of the word as it was known at the time of the Independence War and subsequently in the fight for the Union which Lincoln and Grant carried on so effectively. For yeai’s the country b is been a dumping ground for the best an 1 worst of the world’s mixed peoples. Persecuted Jews, impoverished Italians, adventurous Cockneys, and “reformers ” whose native lands became too hot to hold them have been tip-tilted into the we.- fc, with, the result that to-day the United States owns the most variegated population that ever was crowded into a country. As one authority very truthfully says, “ Every country under Heaven is represented.” The population of the United States is now about 61 millions. T.> understand what that means in the way of variegated nationality we have to remember that between IS2O and 1890 the country received no less than 15,386,091 immigrants from nearly all the corners of the habitable earth. Duriug the ten years ended with 1899 over five millions of people went into the country. These were Chinese, German, British, Austrian, Italia::, Russian, French, Japanese and Scandinavian. In ISOO 147 per cent, of the population was foreign-born ; and if the figures describing the proportion of foreign descent were available we should probably find that such either equalled or nearly equalled those persons who could be called Americans by virtue of one or two generations of ancestry. Thus {the United States has as yet *o finally defined Rationality, aha therefore is •

a country which. British people should watch with interest, if not with concern. In one of the best books on battles ever written Mr Wilkeson, who was a private soldier in the army of the North during the civil war, suggests that the deathly employment of true Americans in that incomparable fight contributed to the decadence of the race. Then the country’s best and bravest men hurried to the front, and were killed and maimed during years of j desperate fighting while the others stayed at home and became fathers. There may not be much in this, because we know that good Americanism was not by any means blotted out in that war. Of the thousands and hundreds of thousands whom Grant stubbornly hurled into the south, and of the “ lean, nervy men in grey slouch hats ” who stood at bay with such glorious, unforgettable pluck, many.returned home to tell the tales of their battles and help to ryia.inf,ain the great dignity of the race. But there’have been many changes since then. The Republic has been flooded with foreigners. New York has become a cosmopolitan city, where men s business interests make them almost as much English as American, and much the game description applies to other great eastern seaport cities. The west and the south have gradually been drifting apart from the east, until it might almost be said that there are two peoples between San Francisco and New York. Aside from that there is the big foreign leaven, which has to be off-set, in any calculation of this kind, against the Virginians and Marylanders, who think they are the best Americans; the manufacturing, cute New Englanders whom the Indians called “Yengese” of old, and so gave the world the word « Yankee ”; and the farmer of the middle west and west and south who believes that the British currency method is ruining him. If we allow for all these mixed elements we shall find that the United States is not a country to be too strongly relied on from the British point of view. The cable has told up of an American intention to use Hawaii as a naval base. 'lt may be that this step, and the war now proceeding, are fore-runners of America’s acquisition of great naval power. Such an accession of strength by sea as the Republic could obtain would be potentially dangerous to. us. To hope that it will not be so is merely to hope for the best; but in ; the meantime it is advisable to remember that the American foreign policy which will have to be devised very soon is a mere matter of speculation, and especially that American nationality is an unascertained, dubious thing scarcely yet beyond the preliminary stage of fusion.