Geographic Literature 



5 2 5 



terial development of the United States. 

 It is unfortunate that so many have been 

 compelled to remain in our big cities, 

 but there are many thousands who are 

 spreading over the land, buying and 

 settling down on cotton plantations in 

 Texas and Louisiana and on the citrus 

 and fruit farms of southern California. 

 The average Italian, says Mr Eliot 

 Lord, prefers the country and goes 

 there as soon as he gets enough money 

 to take him. Mr Lord quotes Adolfo 

 Rossi, supervisor of the Italian emigra- 

 tion department, as saying that 84 per 

 cent of the Italians coming here are be- 

 tween 18 and 45 years of age ; 84 per 

 cent are, in other words, producers. 

 Every Italian costs his country $1,000 

 to bring up ; but by leaving Italy the 

 $1,000 invested in him by his country 

 is lost. " We spend a thousand dollars 

 to bring up and develop a young man, 

 and then you reap the profits of the 

 investment." 



The Far Eastern Tropics. By Alleyne 

 Ireland, F. R. G. S. 8vo, pp. 7 + 339- 

 Boston and New York : Houghton, 

 Mifflin & Co., 1905. 

 This is a critical account of the gov- 

 ernment, administration, and to some 

 extent the industrial condition of certain 

 eastern peoples — Hongkong, Borneo, 

 Sarawak, Burma, Malay States, Straits 

 Settlements, French Indo-China, Java, 

 and the Philippines. 



Mr Ireland is English by birth, and 

 while it may not be quite fair to quote, 

 with reference to him, the old saying, 

 "What's English is good, what isn't, 

 ain't," the book unquestionably sug- 

 gests it. He is also everywhere cock- 

 sure of himself. 



Hongkong, he says, is a marvel of 

 growth, a city of 300 000 people, built 

 up in sixty years. But to us that is 

 not so strange, for San Francisco, with 

 an equal population, is younger, while 

 Chicago, with its 2,000,000 inhabitants, 

 is but little older- He tells us that the 

 foreign commerce of Hongkong exceeds 



that of any other city on earth, for- 

 getting that everything that comes and 

 goes is foreign, even the nightly boat 

 to Canton. If we should add to the 

 foreign commerce of New York its do- 

 mestic commerce, including the fleet 

 that every night goes up the Sound, 

 Hongkong would not be in the same 

 class. 



It is, however, with what he says 

 about the Philippines and our conduct 

 of their affairs that we are most inter- 

 ested, and to this subject he devotes 

 nearly half the book. In company with 

 many Englishmen, who are watching 

 with critical eyes our course in the 

 Philippines, he entirely misunderstands 

 our purpose. We are not governing 

 the Philippine Islands, as they suppose, 

 but are helping the Filipinos to govern 

 themselves, and between these there is 

 a great difference. Mr Ireland is sur- 

 prised and disturbed that we have not 

 molded the Philippine government on 

 the pattern of English colonies, and, 

 with sublime assurance, assumes that 

 our failure to do so is due simply to 

 our ignorance of British colonial meth- 

 ods. It has not occurred to him that 

 the statesmen who framed the Philip- 

 pine government, being entirely familiar 

 with foreign colonial history, made use 

 of the experience of other nations only 

 as far as it could help them. Mr Ireland 

 can rest assured that wherever the Phil- 

 ippine government departs from British 

 colonial methods there exists a good 

 reason therefor, even though he may 

 be unable to explain it. He also ob- 

 jects to our plan of developing a good 

 government before developing the in- 

 dustries, forgetting that the latter can- 

 not and will not take precedence of the 

 former. Did the world ever see indus- 

 trial development under unstable gov- 

 ernment ? 



Mr Ireland has a very low estimate 

 of the industrial efficiency of the Fili- 

 pino, obtaining his measure of it by the 

 curious method of dividing the exports 

 of the Archipelago by the number of 



