ot to say exciting
experiences. American admirers of the republican form of government
believe that the cause of human liberty would be seriously injured
were the French Republic to cease to exist; they go further, and say
that the death-knell of civil freedom would be sounded the moment the
American republic became a failure. Something like a crisis is seen in
the United States to-day, brought about by a whole series of
concomitant causes, such as business depression, bank failures,
industrial disputes terminating in strikes and lockouts, Coxey armies,
panicky people, and unsettled views regarding commerce and finance,
this last cause predominating.

Though France has her difficulties about raising sufficient money to
carry on the administration, and an income tax is just as unpopular
there as it would be here, nevertheless the chief cause of her trouble
is to be traced, not to financial, but to constitutional sources. The
country is very rich, and its ministers probably will always find some
means of raising enough money to pay the cost of administration.
Quite true, it is a sore point for a proud country which yearns for
revenge upon Germany and longs for large colonial possessions, that
its population does not increase, while the populations of its enemy,
Germany, and of its well-wisher, the United States, go up by leaps and
bounds. True, there are economic writers who regard the dearth and
even the decrease of population in France as an advantage to the
country. But these need not be considered in this inquiry, for it is
quite obvious that any country which really aspires to be numbered
with the great powers, and effectually wishes to own important
colonial possessions, must have a stalwart and increasing people. And
it is a real source of weakness that there should yet be in France so
many Royalists constantly on the alert and hoping always for a change
in the existing form of government.

Happily, on the contrary, no matter how widely the Western American
may differ from his friend in the East, or how keenly the
ex-Confederate may feel over the "lost cause," the warm-blooded son of
Kentucky will fight as bravely under the flag of the republic as will
his frozen-featured brother from Minnesota, and the dreamy individual
who gazes poetically upon the placid waters of Puget Sound will shout
as loudly for one country, and one allegiance to its glorious emblem,
as will the gilded youth whose republicanism is artisti