are plotting and working for your injury and all of whose sympathies and associations are antagonistic to yours.

I wish them no evil in the world, on the contrary will do them every good in my power, and know that they are misled by those to whom they have given their confidence; but our material, social, and political interests are with the whites.'

Furthermore, he had no sympathy with the Northern abolitionists, and believed that they were working in utter ignorance of actual conditions as well as with a disposition to meddle where they had no legal or moral right to interfere. He even went so far as to write, toward the very close of the struggle, that he considered 'the relation of master and slave, controlled by humane laws and influenced by Christianity and an enlightened public sentiment, as the best that can exist between the white and black races while intermingled as at present in this country.' This passage does not appear in the Southern biographies of Lee, and it can be justly interpreted only as a partial utterance in view of a most complicated and difficult problem. For that Lee himself disliked slavery there can be no possible doubt. The few slaves that ever belonged to him personally he set free long before the war, and he took time in the very thick of his military duties to arrange at the appointed date for the manumission of those who had been left to his wife by her father. Before the war, also, he expressed himself on the general subject in the most explicit way. In this enlightened age there are few, I believe, but will acknowledge that slavery, as an institution, is a moral and political evil in any country.'

The very letter from which I quoted above as to the benefits of the relation between master and slave was written to urge gradual abolition as a

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reward for faithful military service, and some remarks attributed to Lee after the war form the best possible comment on his pro-slavery utterance, especially in view of all that has come and gone in the last forty years. 'The best men of the South have long desired to do away with the institution and were quite willing to see it abolished. But with them in relation to this subject the question has ever been: what will you do with the freed people? That is the serious question today. Unless some humane course, based upon wisdom and Christian principles, is adopted, you do them a great injustice in setting them free.'

Yet, after all, in fighting for the Confederacy, Lee was fighting for slavery, and he must have known perfectly well that if the South triumphed and got free, slavery would grow and flourish for another century at least. It is precisely this network of moral conditions that makes his heroic struggle so pathetic, so appealing, so irresistibly human. For the great tragedies of human life and history come from the intermingling of good and evil. And Lee is one of the most striking, one of the noblest tragic figures the world ever produced. Matthew Arnold says that the Puritans in fighting for English liberty put the human spirit in prison for two hundred years. This man, fighting, as he believed, for freedom, for independence, for democracy, was fighting also to rivet the shackles more firmly on millions of his fellow men. A most striking passage in Burke's Conciliation brings out this contrast with a prophetic force which no after-comment can equal:

"There is, however, a circumstance attending these colonies, which, in my opinion, fully counterbalances this difference, and makes the spirit of liberty still more high and haughty than in those to the northward. It is, that in

Virginia and the Carolinas they have a vast multitude of slaves. Where this is the case in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. . . . Not seeing there, that freedom, as in countries where it is a common blessing, and as broad and general as the air, may be united with much abject toil, with great misery, with all the exterior of servitude, liberty looks, amongst them, like something that is more noble and liberal. I do not mean, Sir, to commend the superior morality of this sentiment, which has at least as much pride as virtue in it; but I cannot alter the nature of man. The fact is so; and these people of the Southern colonies are much more strongly, and with a higher and more stubborn spirit, attached to liberty than those to the northward.'

In Lee, no pride, but virtue all; not liberty for himself alone, but for others, for every one. And this it is that makes the tragedy of his career so large, so fatal, so commanding in its grandeur.

One element which, since Hamlet, we consider peculiarly tragic, is, however, wanting in Lee. There is no trace of irresolution in him, no faltering, no looking back. We have indirectly from Mrs. Lee her account of the way in which the first decision was made. "The night his letter of resignation was to be written, he asked to be left alone for a time, and while he paced the chamber above, and was heard frequently to fall upon his knees and engage in prayer for divine guidance, she waited and watched and prayed below. At last he came down, calm, collected, almost cheerful, and said, "Well, Mary, the question is settled. Here is my letter of resignation and a letter I have written to General Scott." The question was settled finally; and in all his correspondence or recorded conver

sation there is nothing to indicate regret or even further doubt.

"Trusting in God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow citizens,' he accepted the command of the armies of Virginia; and as the war progressed, his zeal for the cause and loyalty to his high ideals seemed to be ever on the increase. Not that he showed bitterness towards the enemy. Or at least it is only at moments that the unavoidable horror of war wrings from him a word of reproach or condemnation, as when he says of the obstruction of Charleston harbor, ‘This achievement, so unworthy of any nation, is the abortive expression of the malice and revenge of a people which it wishes to perpetuate by rendering more hateful a day memorable in their calendar'; or speaks of the 'savage and brutal policy which he [Milroy] has proclaimed, which leaves us no alternative but success or degradation worse than death, if we would save the honor of our families from pollution, our social system from destruction.' His general tone in referring to 'those people,' as he almost always called the Northern soldiers, is wholly in the spirit of his own admirable saying, "The better rule is to judge our adversaries from their standpoint, not from ours.' But over and over again, to his family, to his friends, to his army, he expresses his pride in the cause he has adopted, his absolute belief in its nobility and justice, his unyielding determination to fight for it so long as any fighting is possible.

'Let each man resolve that the right of self-government, liberty, and peace shall find in him a defender,' he says to his soldiers in the early days; and commends to them 'the sacred cause, dearer than life itself, of defending the honor and integrity of the State.' At the climax of the struggle, with the bright hope of success before him, he consoles them for their dangers. "The country

consents to the loss of such men as these and the gallant soldiers who fell with them, only to secure the inestimable blessings they died to obtain.' And at the last bitter parting he assures them that 'You will take with you the satisfaction that proceeds from the consciousness of duty faithfully performed.'

So in reviewing his own private conduct, when all is over, he cannot blame his choice or regret his decision. 'All that the South has ever desired was that the Union, as established by our forefathers, should be preserved, and that the government as originally organized, should be administered in purity and truth.' Or again, more solemnly, 'I did only what my duty demanded. I could have taken no other course without dishonor. And if it were all to be done over again, I should act in precisely the same manner.'

Finally, it is to be noted that Lee's conduct from beginning to end was absolutely free from all thought of personal credit or advantage. He gave up the highest position in his profession for what was, to say the least, a dim uncertainty. He was fifty-four years old, and such dreams of glory as he may once have cherished had doubtless long faded in the hope of peace. One consideration and one only, the desire to

do right, prompted him in all he undertook and in all he accomplished. And when the fearful failure came, when everything was sinking to wreck and ruin about him, though his heart was torn in anguish for the sufferings of others, for his own lot there was nothing but superb tranquillity, a calm, unyielding, heroic self-control which rested upon the consciousness that he had done what man could do, and all the rest was God's. He might have used the splendid words of Demosthenes: 'I say that if the event had been manifest to the whole world beforehand, not even then ought Athens to have forsaken this course, if Athens had any regard for her glory, or for her past, or for the ages to come.' But he had words of his own, as apt, perhaps as splendid, as those of Demosthenes: the well-known and often quoted, ‘Duty is the sublimest word in the language'; the less well-known but not less noble, "There is a true glory and a true honor, the glory of duty done, the honor of the integrity of principle'; best of all, the grandly tragic phrase, addressed to his son, which forms the most perfect comment on his own career: 'I know that wherever you may be placed, you will do your duty. That is all the pleasure, all the comfort, all the glory we can enjoy in this world.'

THE fact is so well known that it is not necessary to cite statistics to prove that substantially all the transportation of the enormous oversea commerce of the United States is conducted by foreigners in their own vessels; about three fourths of it by two nations, England and Germany. This is true also of the passenger traffic on the ocean, to and from the United States and all parts of the world.

The amount which we pay annually for these services has been variously estimated at from twenty-five million to three hundred million dollars. Whatever the amount may be, it is a large sum, sufficient to be an important factor in the balance of trade and a serious matter when our exports of natural products are rapidly decreasing. While opinions may differ as to who pays the freight, one thing is certain, that the foreigner gets the money, and also all the side issues of insurance and commercial connections that go with it.

The smaller estimate recently published of the value of these services is certainly not sufficient to attract the large and growing foreign capital engaged in conducting our commerce, and would not account for the very capable and eminent people engaged in it, nor for the care taken in the regulation and division of the business among themselves, as shown by the occasional news of their disagreements. It is also certain that the foreign control of the ocean transportation of the United States is not wholly for our welfare, and that it is not directed to the extension

of our markets for manufactured goods. In addition to these undeniable facts, there are many other cogent reasons why the United States should, in a policy of the most enlightened selfishness, carry a large part of this traffic in its own vessels and under its own flag.

The reasons are well established in history and political economy, and were better known to the founders of the Republic than they are to-day, for we, in the activities of internal development and the prosperity of great natural resources, have neglected them for

many years.

One thing is certain: we shall not acquire this business, so important to our continued welfare, by the policy of neglect we have pursued in the past. The experience of eighty years or more proves that. Since the period of 1815 to 1849, when our discriminating duties and tonnage dues ceased to protect our shipping and shipbuilding, substantially nothing has been done to this day, so far as ocean commerce is concerned, to equalize our handicaps of higher wages and belated mechanical development in the technical work of shipbuilding.

From that time England devoted capital and the best talent to shipbuilding and ship-management. Our mechanical and inventive talent devoted itself to more profitable protected industries. The lowest state of the art of shipbuilding in this country was reached about 1880, about the period when the reconstruction of the Navy was begun, and at that time we were

woefully behind the state of the art abroad, owing to our decadent merchant marine. Germany has followed in the lead of England, making an enormous development of its general commerce, and now these two countries practically control our sea transportation.

It would appear that there is in this country a growing sense of the economic value of conducting a proper proportion of this business under our own flag. Senators and Representatives in Congress, without regard to party, express such views, and each administration seems to favor them.

The Republican party in its 1908 platform said: 'Merchant Marine. We adhere to the Republican doctrine of encouragement to American shipping, and urge such legislation as will revive the merchant-marine prestige of the country, so essential to national defense, the enlargement of foreign trade, and the industrial prosperity of our own people.'

The Democrats in their 1908 platform said: 'We believe in the upbuilding of the American merchant marine, without new or additional burdens upon the people and without bounties from the public Treasury.'

The latter expression is vague as to methods, but if it means that ocean commerce can be acquired without expense it is of course mere buncombe; this business can no more be obtained without an investment by the nation as well as by individuals, than an omelet can be made without breaking eggs.

President McKinley recommended discriminating duties, but the Republican party in 1903, for the second time, brought in a subsidy bill, which fell before the usual practical and sentimental objections.

This bill has been followed by a subsidy for mail steamers and a bill for higher ocean-mail compensation. Both

have failed, and, while they have had some valiant friends, have received generally half-hearted support.

The Democrats have protested their devotion to the cause of the merchant marine, and have introduced discriminating-duty and free-ship bills, in form and substance not approved by any one having a knowledge of the subject. The proposal of discriminating duty failed to deal with the free list, which includes 49 per cent of the value of our imports and over 90 per cent of the imports from South America, the region where it is most important to have American cargo traffic, and where discriminating duties would have little or no effect. Free ships for ocean commerce nobody wants, as American ship-owners cannot afford to operate them at the American scale of wages.

If it be really true, as is often asserted, that the revival of the merchant marine, like the building of the navy, is a national and not a partisan object, is it not possible to get together on a practicable plan? Suppose we admit- for argument's sake, anyhowthat the subsidy scheme is a failure; certainly it has many practical objections, and no one wants it if any other scheme will answer.

There is a statute on the books, Ocean Mail Act of 1891, which provides a moderate compensation for carrying the mails. We know it is not sufficient to increase the number of American ships in the trans-Atlantic trade, and we know it has been insufficient to prevent the failure of two American lines on the Pacific, but as a part of a more comprehensive scheme it is useful and will be necessary.

Suppose there should be enacted a law providing that on all goods imported in American vessels on which the ad valorem duty exceeds 41 per cent there should be a reduction of duty of 5 per cent, and on all goods on which the