This

The big Republic is probably fighting against a law of Nature. This law has been clearly stated by Mr. Bryce, our late Ambassador in Washington, and more recently by a distinguished Harvard professor, Mr. Archibald Coolidge. "When two contiguous States," he writes, "are separated by a long line of frontiers, and one of the two rapidly increases, full of youth and vigor, while the other possesses, together with a small population, rich and desirable territories, and is troubled by continual revolutions, which exhaust and weaken it, the first will inevitably encroach upon the second, just as water will always seek to regain its own level." principle, in various modifications, has been one of the main agents in extending the frontiers of the British Empire, often against the will of the Imperial people. And with regard to the United States and Mexico we have to remember the "peaceful penetration" of the latter country by American capital which has been going on for many years. And another consideration of great moment is coming into play. The United States has sunk a hundred millions sterling in the narrow lands of Panama. The new waterway has been truly described as an extension of the coast-line of the United States. It is primarily a strategic enterprise, and the makers of it are preparing to fortify it against all hostile menace. It cannot fail to have a great influence on the policy of the great Republic in Central America. The owners of the Canal will have to watch very narrowly any source of possible danger to the isthmian waterway. Anarchic conditions in Central America will have in future a very different significance. An army or disorderly rabble marching southwards upon the Canal might very quickly inflict irreparable damage on this sensitive link between

the western and eastern seaboard of the United States. The people of that country may well think that on the whole it is desirable that the Canal should be comfortably tucked in within their own land frontiers.

Already the United States are reducing the smaller Central American republics to a state of financial tutelage which amounts to a practical protectorate. We remember well enough how Secretary Root spoke at the Pan-American Conference at Rio in 1906. "We do not wish to win victories," he said, "we desire no territory but our own, not a sovereignty more extensive than that which we desire to retain over ourselves. We consider that the independence and equal rights of the smallest and weakest members of the family of nations deserve as much respect as those of the great empires." We have no doubt these words were sincere. The British people have more than once similarly protested on the eve of immense acquisitions of new territory. The Philippines, Hawaii, Porto Rico, are evidences how impossible it is sometimes for a nation to resist external forces and influences which are stronger than its own conscious will and purpose. From the moment the United States succeeded to the work of the French engineers at Panama, it was inevitable that the frontier of the AngloSaxon Republic would advance down the narrowing isthmus until it embraced the Canal zone and the farthest limit of the little Republic of Panama. Temporary settlements may be effected with the Mexican neighbor, but the anarchy which is endemic in ail these Ibero-American States is sure to recur until the long-delayed inevitable at length takes place. No wonder the present trouble in Mexico should have considerably worried the American Government-that Bryan, as we read, should have been

Mr.

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so absorbed by the crisis that he stayed up all night awaiting sages from Mr. Lind, "only snatching a few minutes' sleep on a couch until breakfast-time." It needs little imagination to understand that the quarrel is big with destiny not only for Mexico and the five little republics The Outlook.

farther south, but for the whole future relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Latin America. No one can fail to notice that the main scene of political world-interest is shifting westward to the American continent and the Pacific Ocean.

Imagination, and delicacy, and sweetness and an unusual command of metrical expression combine to make "A Walled Garden and other Poems" by Margaret Root Garvin (The Mosher Press) more than ordinarily noteworthy. Witness this on "Memorial Day": "On their swords the red rust,

On their graves the red roses:
Like old Hate, turned to dust,
On their swords the red rust,
While Life blooms, as it must;

So this day-dawn discloses
On their swords, the red rust,

On their graves, the red roses." And this, "Its Weight in Joy": "Of old, whene'er a Prince was born, And all the Nation's joy was loud, They took his weight in gold, and threw

The lordly largess 'mid the crowd: Could I have coined this day's delight, To cast world-wide, it should suffice To give each soul its dream come true, Give every heart Joy's purchase price."

An author who has stamped a strong personality upon half a dozen or more successful novels, cannot please his public better than by writing a book which reveals himself. This Jack London has done in a narrative which tells of his experiences with alcohol from childhood to the present day, entitled, "John Barleycorn." The story is supposed to be strictly autobiographical and to exist not to entertain

other alcoholics but to inform growing boys and warn them what to avoid. Jack London confesses the power which alcohol has over him and he shows how this was brought on, not by a chemical craving of his system, (for it came in spite of intense loathing,) but by the desire to meet other men on the equal footing of convivial intercourse. The book, of course, gives an outline of London's life, his various occupations and his adventures on land and sea. He is revealed as more interesting than any of his heroes, but much their counterpart in both failings and virtues. His admirers will be thoroughly interested in this unusual chronicle. The Century Company.

A question of grave and growing importance is thoughtfully discussed and presented from all points of view in Mr. Frederick N. Judson's "The Judiciary and the People" which is published by the Yale University Press. The substance of the volume was delivered as a course of lectures on the Storrs Foundation at New Haven before the Law School of Yale during the present year. The author considers the reasons for the growing distrust of the judiciary, which finds extreme expression in the agitation for the recall of judges and of decisions, and discusses the various remedies suggested. It is interesting to note that he finds one cause of the existing

conditions in the tendency in some of the states which are most given to experiments to embody what is practically detailed legislation in the constitutions, thereby making them unduly unwieldy and restrictive. Mr. Judson's book, which is of modest size, deserves a wide and thoughtful reading.

It is a rare person that does not sometimes indulge in the pastime left over from childhood, that of imagining how one would play the "fairy godmother" if circumstances should ever make it possible. For that reason a well written story of the "fairy godmother" type is always read with pleasure even if the theme has been used a thousand times before. "Aunt Olive in Bohemia" by Leslie Moore is such a book. Aunt Olive was an English maiden lady who, until the age of sixty, conformed all her natural tastes to the standard of a spinster relative who had cared for her from childhood. At the age of about sixty Aunt Olive suddenly found herself alone, with plenty of money and the inclination to indulge the dreams of a lifetime. She went to London, hired a studio in the artist quarter, furnished it with exquisite taste and from that moment worked a series of delightful surprises in the lives of the artists who became acquainted with her. This is one of the happiest, pleasantest books of the year.

George H. Doran Company.

The followers of Marx and those calling themselves Socialists are those who will be least gratified by reading Professor Vladimir Simkhovitch's "Marxism versus Socialism." The conservative will chuckle over almost every page of it, and especially over the final assertion of socialist inconsistency in theory and practice, and the amiable commendation of Socialists, who, having become innocuous social reformers, continue to intone their

old imprecatory psalms. The cherished socialist proclamation that the poor become poorer as the rich become richer is exposed as fallacious, by citing the very figures used to advocate it, and as the author never loses his temper, this will be found unendurable by those exhibited as mistaken. It must not be supposed that Professor Simkhovitch underrates the significance of Socialism, Marxian or not, or the necessity of trying to understand it, and he might have said that the inquirer can find no better guide than his book with its wealth of quotation and its excellent grouping of historical illustrations. No wage earner and no capitalist should neglect to read it. Henry Holt & Co.

Dr. I. H. Hirschfield's "The Heart and Blood-Vessels" (Funk & Wagnalls Co.) is intended primarily for lay readers, though it will appeal also to physicians. The book is of a broader scope than this title would indicate. As he explains in his opening chapter, the author takes the heart and blood vessels as his special subject, because these are the organs which now-a-days most frequently wear out first and cause death and invalidity of many of the best men of the community at an age when they should be enjoying the fruits of their life work. He cites statistics which show that ten times more people die to-day from diseases of the heart and blood vessels than in 1871. But this subject leads up, in this highly useful and suggestive book, to a comprehensive treatise upon the general care of the body, with special attention to food, exercise, nervousness, climate, sleep, and the prevention and treatment of disease. To people who are ill, or who fancy themselves ill, or who suffer from the strain of modern life, the book can hardly fall to bring help and encouragement, if it does not actually show them the way out.