be so palpable, so comprehensible, and their position would so outrage the fundamental conception of the rights of subjects, even in highhanded monarchies, that the whole current of outside sentiment would be turned strongly against us. In America there is nothing that the Irish could do which would not be regarded as legitimate if we attempted. to subject their country to the treatment of Jamaican blacks. We should supply a grievance known and read of all men; and the worst of it is that the universal censure of the whole civilized world would awaken a responsive echo in our own breast. All the world would say. that we were wrong, and our own conscience would whisper that all the world would be right.

Let no one Imagine

that this would be the only obstacle. The chief difficulty would always be within. Despotism at Dublin Castle involves of necessity reliance upon local despots all over the country. These men, whether landlords or bureaucrats, would, of necessity, from time to time, be guilty of some injustice or stupidity. Whatever it was it would be magnified a hundredfold, and the most vigorous coercionists would be the first to wince and insist that the despots' claws must be clipped. Witness, for example, the Standard, which shudders at Glenbeigh, and declares that the govern. ment cannot even be allowed a Conspiracy Bill, unless it is also armed with a dispensing power to guard against the abuse of its authority. Now, if revolutions cannot be made with rosewater, neither can a nation be thrust back under a despotic system with kid gloves.

To Govern Ireland as a Crown Colony

means to govern Ireland with an iron hand. We should not intend it at first, but we should be driven step by step, as by an inexorable destiny, to a system the corner-stone of which would be the formula that there shall no longer exist in Ireland any law save the will of the viceroy for the time being, and such agents as he shall appoint. Government as a crown colony would soon come to mean government by terror. Terrorism has been tried very often in Ireland under far more favorable circumstances than it is possible to try to-day, and the result has not been particularly satisfactory.

But why should a crown colony government be a government of terror? It is not so in Jamaica, and the genial Irishman who governs the millions of India is not a terrorist. But the condition of consent, or at least of acquiescence in a non-representative government, which exists in Jamaica and in India, does not exist in Ireland. We should have to face the fact that two-thirds of the nation would do everything lawful and unlawful that mortal men could do to make our experiment a failure. It is the fashion to say that Irishmen are easily cowed, that they only need to be firmly handled, and that one or two examples would be all that is needed to bring them

Like Whipped Spaniels Whimpering to the Heel.

Mr. Forster tried it, and did not exactly find the result justified his expectations. Lord Spencer was no weakling, but the Irish spirit was

not broken by his sway. Even the most inveterate optimist of the highflyers will now admit that the rascals have got so much accustomed to have things their own way, it will be no easy matter to rein them in. No easy matter indeed. Public meetings would have to be suppressed, all political or social associations put down, the gag would be reimposed on the press, and then? Then protests, instead of being made from the platform, would be made from behind the hedge. Bullets would replace speeches, and the secret machinery of assassination would be substituted for the open organization of agitation. To that the Government would reply by the well-worn apparatus of repression, and in time a sufficient number of Irishmen would be maddened enough to decide that it is better to die as dynamitards than to live as slaves. The advent of dynamite would herald and justify in the eyes of the Government the resort to terrorism pure and simple, which is the last term in the ratio of progression. Our people might stand dynamite. What they could not stand for any length or time would be anti-dynamite. The crown colony advocates forget that they are

Proposing to Treat as Negroes

a race quicker-witted than their own, ingenious, resourceful, and politically gifted beyond most. The Irish went to America forty years ago as pariahs. To-day they govern the cities, to-morrow they will control the government of the country. We have trodden on them because they despaired of God and had no trust in each other. To-day they have seen a Star of Hope arising in the West, and they have learned the secret of mutual trust and of associated discipline. It will take a great deal of gaol and gallows to beat the heart out of these men more, very much more, than we shall ever have the heart to employ. Their courage is fed from over sea. There is no artifice, no ruse, no ingenious engine of warfare -legal, political, or social-which they will not employ. They will strike against rent, they will strike against county cess. They will make every board of guardians a seat of conspiracy against the Government, and every town council a nest of traitors. Every relic of power that is left in their hands they will misuse and abuse in order to embarrass and weaken their tyrant. The "loyal" North will have little relish for reduction to the pariah level, and every successive stage in the process. of disfranchisement will be contested step by step not merely in Ireland. but in every English constituency where the Irish are numerous. And while organizing the policy of passive resistence they will none the less prepare for the opportunity of war. At the moment of our supreme need we shall have to choose between disaster- it may be catastrophe or the surrender of the crown colony experiment.

It is, therefore, Manifestly Absurd

to seek to settle the Irish question by an experiment that would immediately multiply our difficulties and concentrate the hopes of the Irish nation upon the coming of the time when, England being in extremities, Ireland will be able to extort from her weakness that concession which, if made betimes, would enormously increase the imperial strength by liberating the forces now necessary to hold Ireland in subjection.

Pall Mall Gazette Commissioner.

The Flags of Nations.

IN China, the earliest standard of which we have any record represents a warrior slaying a hideous-looking dragon with a spear, just as St. George and the dragon are represented in more modern times. The Chinese description of this reptile is that it has the head of a camel, the horns of a deer, eyes of a rabbit, ears of cow, neck of a snake, stomach of a frog, scales of a carp, claws of a hawk, and the palms of a tiger. On each side of the mouth are whiskers, and its head contains a bright pearl. Its breath is sometimes changed into water and sometimes into fire, and its voice is like the jingling of copper pans. This beautiful reptile existed when John Chinaman was first created out of yellow clay. There is comfort in the thought that it became extinct over ten thousand years ago. In our time and generation a sudden meeting of such a reptile would not be calculated to inspire in us sentiments of either confidence, love, cheerfulness, or patriotism. The present national flag of China is triangular in shape, composed of deep yellow bunting, and upon it is a blue dragon, with a green head, snapping at a red pearl or ball.

The old Imperial standard of Japan, in the opinion of its people, was something sacred and sublime. Its three-fold device symbolized several things, combining the sacred, astronomical, social and convivial sentiment. The triple lobes represent Sintoism, the religion of the Kamis, Buddhism, and Confucianism. They also symbolized the three annual and the three monthly festivals. First, the great new year, which lasts a month; second, the feast of Spring, on the third day of the third month (or that of the flowers and young maidens), and third and last, the feast of neighbors in the "won't-gome-till morning" style.

Great Britain, or England, has more banners or standards than any other kingdom or republic. The first in the list is what is called the Royal standard, or square flag, blazoned with the arms of the United Kingdom. The second is the flag of the Lord High Admiral, a crimson banner with an anchor agent, gorged in the arm with a coronet, and a cable through the ring, fretted in a true lovers' knot, with ends pendant. Third, the flag of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, a Union Jack, having in the centre of the crosses a blue shield, emblazoned with a golden harp. Fourth, the Union, or Union Jack, in which are blended the crosses of St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick, emblematic of the united kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Fifth and last, is the flag of the cross of St. George, white, with a red cross, the sign of the old Crusaders. Each one of these flags represent not only the different British possessions and various branches of the government, but also the chivalrous, religious, and patriotic sentiments.

The French flag is, comparatively, a modern idea. Under the feudal system every lord had his own coat of arms or standard. In the year 1794 the present standard was adopted. It is composed of three equal bands placed vertically, the hoist (or the part nearest the staff) being blue,

the centre white, and the fly (or the end) red. This tricolor is supposed to be a union of the blue banner of St. Martin, the red banner of St. Denis, and the "cornette blanche;" there being evidence that these colors have been regarded as the national emblem for centuries.

The flag most recently added to the family of European nations is the black, red, and gold banner of the North German Empire. When Emperor Barbarossa was crowned, in the year 1152, the road to the palace was covered with carpet, into which were woven the colors black, red, and gold. After the coronation the carpet was given to the people and cut into strips, which were carried by them about the city as flags. During the heated discussion in the National Assembly at Frankfort in 1848, as to which combination of colors should have precedence, Freilgrath said" Powder is black, blood is red, and golden flickers the flame, and that is the old imperial standard." I like the motto of Frederic Wilhelm "From night-through blood-to light."

Worms at Work to Humble Human Pride.

IN a pastoral letter addressed by the bishop of Natchitoches, La., to his people at the beginning of Lent, he described a visit he made to the Pope, in which he called the attention of the Holy Father to the actual poverty of Upper Louisiana, once a country of untold wealth and plenty. He spoke of the wretched condition of so many highbred families formerly rolling in luxury, and when he pointed out as a prominent cause of their distress the frequent destruction of boasted King Cotton by swarms of worms, the man of God said: "In our age men are exceedingly proud of their material progress and strength. God, to humble their pride, sets up against them the weakest and meanest being, the crawling worm. In Italy, since many years, a worm destroys olives, the wealth of Italy; in France a worm destroys the vine, the wealth of France; in Upper Louisiana, you say, a worm destroys cotton, the wealth of Upper Louisiana. Tell my people of Upper Louisiana to humble themselves before God, and God will not have in His justice to humble them by setting up a worm against them." Dearly beloved friends, God, in His divine providence, not only rules the nations but He also governs the laws of nature. Without His bidding not a hair falls from a man's head, says Scripture, not a leaf shakes on or drops. from a tree, not a bird falls dead to the ground, not an insect is born or dies. Worms destroying our cotton are truly a plague sent by Almighty God. Men do not want to call it a plague of God's justice; they are too proud to admit that God humbles them in that manner; they consider the destroying insect as a simple product of the laws of nature, and they ignore the Lord of nature who directs nature's laws in the production of insects humbling their pride and sweeping away their bold hope of a godless prosperity. Let us listen to the voice of the Holy Father calling upon us to humble ourselves that God may not

have to humble us in His justice. Let us humble ourselves by coming back to our Christian duties that we have left aside through human respect. We make a special appeal to the faithful of our diocese who last year neglected their Easter duties. This year let them not fail to kneel down before the seat of mercy, confess their sins with true repentance, so as to be admitted to their Easter Communion at the family table once more as God's children.

Floating Gardens and Fields.

AMONGST the most remarkable illustrations of human energy, industry, and ingenuity, are the floating fields and gardens which exist in the valley of Kashmir, in Eastern Asia, and on Lake Tezcuco, in the valley of Mexico, America. In the country separating India and China there is much that moves the traveller's wonder, but nothing, perhaps, more interesting than the floating gardens on the lake, or Dol, by the little old city so famous for its shawls, called of old Srinagar, and now known as Kashmir. . . . In the formation of these floating gardens of Kashmir their owners avail themselves of the thick growth of grasses and aquatic plants which spring up from the bottom of the lakes, as water-lilies, confervæ, sedges, reeds, etc., all intertwined and entangled one with another. Avenues are cut among these by the boats, separating them into angular sections of varying lengths and breadths. The plants and grasses are then cut away from their roots at a depth of two feet under the water. When so detached they retain their solidity and are pressed somewhat more closely together. Sedges, twigs, reeds, and roots are next placed over the patch lengthways, and over these mud is spread, fished up from the bottom of the river. This gradually permeates and binds together the matted mass of twigs, reeds, and rushes, and when the surface is thus made, willow stakes are driven through it and down into the bed of the lake, so that the floating garden will rise or fall with the rising or sinking water, but will not escape from its place. By means of a long pole thrust among the weeds at the bottom of the Dol and twisted round several times in one direction, a quantity of plants are brought up and carried in boats to the prepared platform or raft, where they are twisted into conical hillocks about two feet in circumference at the base and the same high. A hollow place is made on the top of each, and this is filled with the soft river mud, to which is sometimes, but not often, added wood ashes. These are for the reception of melon and cucumber plants. . . . Floating gardens and fields, called Chinampas, also exist in Mexico, where they were originally constructed to afford the inhabitants protection against invaders. They are raised with reeds, bushes, turf, and mud, and were sometimes big and strong enough to support a small dwelling-house. These floating garden-beds are still to be found anchored upon the waters of the Chalco Canal.

ALL things find rest upon their journey's end.

Michaelangelo.