good until the new Congress should settle the whole question.

CENTRAL AMERICA

With the adhesion of Salvador to the League of Nations by vote of her Congress on March 10, and of Venezuela on March 13, all the thirteen States invited to accede to the covenant have decided to join. The United States, Mexixo and Costa Rica are the only countries in the Western Hemisphere that remain outside the League up to March 16.

Salvador has revived the scheme for a Central American federation or union of the five Central American republics of Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Salvador under one Government. The date for which this is now set is Sept. 15, 1921, the centennial of their independence of Spain. This initiative followed a request from Salvador to President Wilson, asking for an interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. In reply the President referred the Salvadoreans to his speech before the PanAmerican Scientific Congress in Washington on Jan. 6, 1916, in which he explained the doctrine as demanding that European Governments should not extend their political systems to this side of the Atlantic, and added that the States of America must guarantee to each other absolute political independence and territorial integrity.

Ci.ief opposition to the Central American Union is said to come from President Estrada Cabrera of Guatemala, who contends that the Unionists are reactionaries. Guatemala was the first country in the Western Hemisphere to ratify the Peace Treaty, which she did on Oct. 1, 1919.

Honduras had a brief revolution in February, which was a revival of the opposition to General Lopez Gutierrez, leader of a successful revolt which ended in his election to the Presidency on Oct. 26. The discontented faction gathered a small army in Nicaragua and crossed the border, sacking towns. They were easily defeated, and on Feb. 25 it was stated that Honduras had disbanded her troops, leaving only small garrisons in

The dispute grows out of the war waged by Chile against Peru and Bolivia for possession of the nitrate beds of Atacama in 1884. Chile was victorious and annexed the territory cutting off Bolivia from the sea, but promising a plebiscite in ten years. This promise

was never carried out. The Chilean Minister at La Paz in 1900 informed Bolivia that there would be no compensation for the annexed provinces, which Chile held" by the same title as that by which Germany annexed Alsace and Lorraine "-a plea that is not likely to go far with the League of Nations. In 1904 an indemnity of $4,000,000 was paid to Bolivia, and Chile built for her a railroad ircm La Paz to Arica, giving her the coveted outlet to the sea. But Bolivia is not content with this single outlet and wants a larger coast line, including the province of Tacna, which was Peruvian before the war of 1880, leaving to Chile the former Bolivian provinces of Antofagasta and Atacama. Peru on Feb. 25 sent a note to Bolivia expressing surprise at the latter's policy aiming at the incorporation of Tacna and the city of Arica in Bolivian territory, and saying that Peru would never cede her rights there to Bolivia or any other nation. In reply Bolivia on March 4 declared her purpose not to be inactive in the settlement of the Tacna-Arica controversy. Eduardo Diez de Medina has been named to argue the case for Bolivia before the

League of Nations, and the Bolivian Foreign Office has ordered the compilation of data to be presented.

At the second Pan American Financial Conference, which opened in Washington on Jan. 19, a comprehensive scheme of co-operation for the development of the great natural resources of the Americas and the adjustment of international obligations was considered. On motion of Dr. Jose Luis Tejadas of Bolivia, the conference recommended relief for Europe from the United States through the medium of loans to South and Central American countries, the proceeds being applied to the payment of the debts of those countries to Europe in the form of foodstuffs. The existing exchange rates would work to the benefit of all concerned, it was said, and at least $1,000,000,000 would thus be made available to put Europe on her feet.

Among other recommendations of the Congress were the following:

That a uniform census of all American countries be taken every ten years; That the metric system of weights and measures be universally employed;

That the plan of arbitration of commercial disputes in effect between the Bolsa de Commercio of Buenos Aires and the United States Chamber of Commerce be adopted by all the American countries;

That the importation of raw materials into any country shall not be prevented by prohibitive duties.

More efficient mail service was urgently advocated by several of the delegates. Dr. Ricardo Aldao of Argentina said that business men in his country were recently sixty-three days without mail because of the lack of steamship service. Dr. Henrique Perez DuPuy of Venezuela said that communication between the United States and his country was better twenty-five years ago than it is today. The Brazilians suggested the establishment of an international training ground for the development of an aviation service between the Americas to be used especially for parcel post purposes. Paraguayan representatives urged the United States Shipping Board to establish fortnightly sailings to River Plate ports, saying that communication now is slower and less satisfactory than with Europe.

The

Development of the mineral resources of Peru and Chile has led to a demand for better ports nearer to the sources of supply. Abandonment of Mollendo, which is nothing but an open roadstead, and the creation of a new port at Matarani Bay about thirteen miles further north has been urged on the uvian Government. For her part Chile has been constructing a large breakwater, a long quai wall and a modern coal pier at Valparaiso and plans to build a breakwater and modern piers at Antofagasta. Some American companies have constructed ports and concrete piers to handle ore from their mines.

The universal quest for oil is being pursued energetically in South America, and a concession to a British company for an immense petroleum tract on the Huallaga and Ucayali Rivers, approved on Jan. 29 by President Leguia, is now before the Peruvian Congress. Sir Frank Newnes and a powerful group of capitalist are said to be back of the concession, which is to run for five years.

There is a lively competition also for coal fields in a recently discovered coal zone in Southern Chile. American, British and Japanese interests are competing with Chileans for the coal, which is reported to be of excellent quality. Japan is also planning a new line of six sailing vessels equipped with auxiliary engines for direct service to Chile. Japan is one of the principal consumers of Chilean nitrates and imports a great deal of copper and iron ores. There is a great demand in Chile for Japanese cotton goods, glassware and porcelain, but exports have been hindered by high freight rates, which, it is expected, the proposed line of 5,000-ton sailing vessels will remedy.

Japan is further stimulating her trade with South America by accept the proposal made by the Argentine Government to all nations last October that treaties be negotiated for free trade throughout the world in articles of prime necessity, in order to reduce the cost of living. Japan was the third nation to approve the project, Italy and Paraguay having proceeded her.

W

HEN a Canadian of Englishspeaking ancestry talks of Canada it is to the country as a whole that he refers. When a French-speaking native mentions Canada he thinks of the Province of Quebec first, and very often of no other section of the Dominion. The habitant-the agriculturist of Quebec-knows no other land. He loves it with a devotion that is found only where generations have been rooted to the soil. France means little to him. Immigration from that country is almost negligible. What there is of it does not always go to Quebec; the lure of the

Only

Western prairies is too strong. 1,526 people came from France to Canada in 1919 out of a total immigration, according to recently issued official returns, of 117,633. Of this number 57,251 were from Britain and 52,064 from the United States.

In the Province of Quebec there are few large centres of urban population. Montreal, Quebec, Sherbrooke and Three Rivers about exhaust the list. There is a closer touch with the intricacies of British and European politics in these than in the rural districts. The habitant is more parochial, naturally. He knows

and appreciates in a general way that great quantities of his dairy produce go to England, and that there is a growing demand there for his tobacco. He approves the attitude of Britain from sentimental reasons in joining with France in the great war. But his affection for France, thinned by the lapse of the centuries since his ancestors owed allegiance to it, has been subjected to the strain of disapproval of the action of that country toward the Church to which, in the mass, he belongs.

These things are not always taken into account in the English-speaking provinces, Ontario and the West, into which the tide of British immigration has poured unceasingly, especially during the last fifty years. There have thus been maintained between Britain and the English-speaking provinces the closest possible ties of personal relationship. Generation after generation of Canadianborn have grown up with newcomers from the motherland, who, in turn, have become sturdy Canadian citizens while still regarding Britain as home." "This has served to keep Ontario and the West very intimately in touch with Old World politics, a process that has been aided by the growing trade between Canada and Europe, built up since the days when the Dingley and McKinley tariffs blocked the channels to the south.

Moreover, the Orange order is very strong in Ontario. It keeps alive the religious and racial prejudices. The average French Canadian is prone to judge his English-speaking and Protestant fellow-countrymen by the utterances of Orange journals and leaders. Englishspeaking Canadians do not always discriminate between the utterances of French journals like Le Devoir and its editor, Henri Bourassa, the fiery and amazingly eloquent Nationalist, who would have Canada break away altogether from the British Empire, and the majority of French newspapers, which, when they discuss the question, consider the existing British connection the safest and the best policy for the country. English-speaking Canada is always ready to fight for that connection, and to take part in the wars of Britain or the em

pire as a whole. French Canada is slower to respond to the call to conflict beyond its own shores. It took some time for the habitant, who marries early and raises a large family, to realize the danger to his own country in the period of the World War. Invasion or attempted invasion would have found him enrolled to the last available man, particularly if the menace threatened his own beloved Quebec.

LOYALTY OF THE HABITANT

The Hon. Rodolphe Lemieux, who was Postmaster General in the Government of the late Sir Wilfrid Laurier, once put that idea in words that are still recalled with pleasure by those who try to be impartial in discussing the relation of Quebec to Canada and the empire. He was describing the awakening of his people to the seriousness of the world struggle and their duty toward it. He declared that the freedom enjoyed by the habitant under a series of concessions made by the British from the time of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, when Canada became a British possession, had made him a loyal subject. He proceeded:

When the American Revolutionary War broke out, with France as the ally of the Thirteen Colonies, Lafayette, Le heros des deux mondes," vainly appealed to the racial passions of the habitants, and could not induce them to join the rebels. Carroll, a young ecclesiastic, who later on became Bishop of Baltimore, vainly appealed to their religious feelings. The habitant's unflinching loyalty asserted itself for the first time. Why? Because England had been wise and strong. *** In 1812 the Americans again invaded Canada. The habitants under de Salaberry again gave evidence of their gratitude toward Great Britain by repelling the invaders.

Lemieux used these historical records merely as a text upon which to base his story of the way in which Quebec was coming to a realization of the true situation in the war with the Central Powers, for happily there is no fear in these days of conflict with the great Republic. No one hailed with such joyous satisfaction the entry of the United States into the war on the side of the Allies as did Canadians without distinction of race.

It is in the attitude of bitter hostility