quently went into the master's hands through the plantation stores; so that the employer got the labor of the negro for his food and his clothes, which was what he gave for it in the days of slavery. The loss due to abolition in the regions in which these crops were cultivated exclusively was chiefly due to the annihilation of the property in slaves. It was acute for the time, but it was temporary. Landholding continued to be the basis of wealth, and the old planter classes did not entirely cease to control society, although they received rather violent and sudden intrusions from those men of ability who were able to take advantage of the prostration of fortunes to gather up wealth in armfuls out of the fragments of the old system. Thus it came about that in the greater portion of the South society remained much the same as it was before the war. Here the leadership in politics has been retained by the farming classes, and there is not a Southern State to-day in which these classes do not fix the policy of public life.

Another factor in the political life of the South to-day is the results of the Civil War. If after war the old whig party could have continued its existence in the South it would have meant a great deal for the public life there. As a matter of fact, it could hardly have continued as a purely Southern affair, and this it must have been, since in the North it was absorbed into the republican party. It could hardly have taken up its old existence under a new name, since there was too much of bitterness in the hearts of Southerners at the republicans of the nation to allow any considerable number of them to have voted the republican ticket as long as the memory of abolition was fresh in their minds. Difficult as it would have been to restore the two old parties such an action was made doubly difficult, and in fact impossible, by the enfranchisement of the negro. That act rendered the white Southerners "solid." It was the further fortune of our people to go through these trying times in a state of mental excitement which was little short of fury. We are good haters. No Scotch Highlander, or French Huguenot, or Irish Catholic, or subjugated Pole ever clung to his "lost cause" more loyally than we. None ever repelled the caresses of the conqueror with more scorn. And, in truth, we have had reason enough, as human nature goes. Had we submitted to the carpet-bagger

with complacency we should have been something more than ordinary men.

Since the recovery of the affairs of the Southern States from the hands of the reconstructionists the ever present negro question has been to the front. It has been the only vital question in determining Southern votes since 1875. It has been urged with warmth and in many instances with bitterness. It has hardly been an appeal to the reason of the people, but rather an appeal to their feelings. Consciously or unconsciously it has bred race hatred and then fattened on it. It has made white men distrust negroes and negroes distrust white men. In the inflamed condition of public opinion which has resulted from it, charity is forgotten. If either the negro or the white man could now suddenly forget his passion and meet the opposition of the other in a spirit of tolerance, he would exhibit a degree of great-mindedness rarely seen in the earth.

There are many men in the South who realize this state of affairs, and who would be glad to see it remedied. They have long since wearied of the reign of passion. They have awaited the appearance of some leadership which would promise a release from this situation. Unfortunately they have not seen how a change of leaders would bring relief. They have had to choose between two groups of leaders, neither of which seemed to them to offer a constructive policy of government in local affairs. In their politics, as well as in other lines, they have been somewhat oppressed by Southern inertia of will. But they are honest and intelligent well wishers of a new spirit in political life, and if they could find their leaders they would make their views felt.

The writer does not want to be understood as reflecting upon the gentlemen who have conducted the policies of the dominant party in the South during recent years. He believes that they have been men of good intentions, as political intentions go. They have believed that the good of country demanded their election to office, or the election of their associates. They have undertaken to realize their desires in ordinary human ways. They have looked over the field and undertaken to see what issues would be the best to put before the people. After some debate they have come to the conclusion that they could win their fight if they made the negro question the basis of their campaign. The

result has shown that this question has been a sure means of getting votes. These men have not always opposed the negro in their individual capacities. They have protected his schools, which are the sure foundation of all the negro's hopes for the future. They have done this in the face of an evident desire of the white masses to cut the negro schools down to the basis of the tax which the negro himself pays. To a competent observer it must be evident that if it were not for the steadfast position of the very politicians who go to the State legislatures in the South by virtue of the negro in politics, the masses could not be restrained from this oft suggested attack on negro education. One would be neither just nor truthful if he did not give the politician his full measure of credit for this influence.

But granted, as we may well grant, that the reign of passion has come about in a natural way and that it has been associated in a political way with men of good intentions; it still does not follow that its influence is not injurious. In fact, it has robbed politics of fair judgment; it has accustomed the citizen to party hatred; it has made well intentioned men tolerate, and even justify, political fraud; it has helped to preserve the South's provincialism; it has produced a one-sided press; it has made it possible for the South to be "solid," and this has pauperized the intellects of her statesmen-for it is true that men who do not have to battle for their ideas against able opponents do not have the capacity of forming vigorous ideas. In all of this it has failed to realize the legitimate benefits of a republican form of govern

ment.

The time has come when men ought to bring this state of affairs to an end. The time has come, also, when they may have hopes of bringing it to an end. For forty years before 1860 the whole life of the South shaped itself into the pro-slavery tendency. During that time politics came more and more to be dominated by the slave-holding classes and inflamed by sectional passions. For forty years since 1860 Southern life has been thrown on a new basis of labor. The result, as has been said, has not been so decided in the cotton, rice, and sugar growing sections. Here conditions have remained rural. But in another large portion of the South there has been a radical change in the industrial basis of life. Farming has grown steadily worse, people have been

forced to towns, factories have sprung up, and life has begun to be more centralized. Here schools are better, men are more energetic, and ideas more cosmopolitan. Here there is the real industrial basis of divergence in political views. Men may now, in these regions, argue over economic questions instead of over the personal qualities of their favorites. They become very seriously in earnest when their financial interests are concerned. It was hard, ten years ago, for the citizens of a farming community in the South to fall out into two parties on the tariff question, since they had always a conviction that the tariff was against the interests of all of them. But when a portion of these citizens are manufacturers and the rest farmers they may easily divide. Their interests may easily seem to them to be divergent. The same force, therefore, which is giving mills and towns to certain parts of the South is giving them the hope of a sounder political life. It will be sounder because it will be better balanced. If it may get a safe foothold in this region it will perhaps be the entering wedge for general progress.

The Principle of Neutralization Applied to Canals

BY JOHN H. LATANE,

Professor of History in Washington and Lee University.

Few questions of international interest have called forth so much discussion during the past fifty years, or given rise to so many conflicting opinions as that of determining the political status of maritime canals. The Suez canal had been constructed and opened to the commerce of the world for several years before the diplomatic aspects of the problem attracted any very wide attention. In the case of the American canal, on the other hand, the diplomatic complications have preceded and in a measure deferred the work of construction for half a century. The recent Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, which was a complete surprise to the public on both sides of the Atlantic, has revolutionized the situation, superseded the older discussions of the question, and invested the subject with new interest.

Five years ago no one could have foreseen that the course of world politics was soon to draw England into such close relations with the United States that she could gracefully surrender the rights she had so insistently adhered to in all previous discussions of the question and concede fully and frankly our main contention. Yet such is the case. The Hay-Pauncefote Treaty can be regarded in no other light than that of a friendly concession on the part of England of rights which she indisputably held under the Clayton-Bulwer Convention. But, while, so far as accomplishing the immediate object is concerned, the HayPauncefote Treaty is a triumph of diplomacy, it can scarcely be regarded as a triumph of the principle of international law which it professes to embody, nor as a permanent adjustment of the canal problem. The treaty professes to preserve "the general principle of neutralization" established in Article VIII of the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, but its provisions ignore some of the essential elements of neutralization as that term is generally understood.

The term "neutralization" is new, and its exact significance in international law is not readily determined. While the principle