the population
--but the Kanaka death-rate is away above that. The vital statistics for
1893 place it at 52; for 1894 (Mackay district), 68. The first six
months of the Kanaka's exile are peculiarly perilous for him because of
the rigors of the new climate. The death-rate among the new men has
reached as high as 180 in the 1,000. In the Kanaka's native home his
death-rate is 12 in time of peace, and 15 in time of war. Thus exile to
Queensland--with the opportunity to acquire civilization, an umbrella,
and a pretty poor quality of profanity--is twelve times as deadly for him
as war. Common Christian charity, common humanity, does seem to require,
not only that these people be returned to their homes, but that war,
pestilence, and famine be introduced among them for their preservation.

Concerning these Pacific isles and their peoples an eloquent prophet
spoke long years ago--five and fifty years ago. In fact, he spoke a
little too early. Prophecy is a good line of business, but it is full of
risks. This prophet was the Right Rev. M. Russell, LL.D., D.C.L., of
Edinburgh:

"Is the tide of civilization to roll only to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains, and is the sun of knowledge to set at last in the waves
of the Pacific? No; the mighty day of four thousand years is
drawing to its close; the sun of humanity has performed its destined
course; but long ere its setting rays are extinguished in the west,
its ascending beams have glittered on the isles of the eastern seas
. . . . And now we see the race of Japhet setting forth to
people the isles, and the seeds of another Europe and a second
England sown in the regions of the sun. But mark the words of the
prophecy: 'He shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be
his servant.' It is not said Canaan shall be his slave. To the
Anglo-Saxon race is given the scepter of the globe, but there is not
given either the lash of the slave-driver or the rack of the
executioner. The East will not be stained with the same atrocities
as the West; the frightful gangrene of an enthralled race is not to
mar the destinies of the family of Japhet in the Oriental world;
humanizing, not destroying, as they advance; uniting with, not
enslaving, the inhabitants with whom they dwell, the British race
may," etc., etc.

And he closes his vision with an invocation from Thomson: