Writers upon foreign countries generally consider it a portion of their task to make mental if not outspoken comparisons between their mother land and the land they have been discussing, and they generally make their comparisons in favour of the former. Yet it is not easy for any man to hold the balance fairly, and to say in what way a nation is wanting; for whether the comparison be of things moral or social, there arises the difficulty of fixing a standard of measurement. Morality cannot be weighed in a balance or measured with a foot-rule. What is reprehensible in one country may be at least excusable in another. Take, for instance, the effect of climate upon national morality. In a cold country a man who is not born to wealth must either work or starve. Hence arise the pushing, prosperous, practical, so-called civilised nations of the world. But in a warm and fertile country where the fruit grows to your hand, and the earth brings forth her abundance for your maintenance, where the sun and the rain perform nearly all the agricultural labour that is needed, it is scarcely to be wondered at that the people do not hanker after work. It is therefore scarcely permissible to call them lazy according to the general acceptation of the meaning of the term. They have no particular liking for long and vigorous toil in the blazing heat of the sun, and their apparent indolence is the result of their environment. It will never be otherwise until humanity has lost its human nature. The progress of any Oriental nation towards civilisation, such as we understand it, must of necessity be slow. Their intense conservatism is not easily to be abolished. To the country of Siam these remarks are particularly applicable. Those who describe the habit of chewing betel-nut as disgusting, forget that there can be no one universal standard to judge by, and that many European habits appear equally revolting to the Eastern. When speaking of the dirtiness of their dwellings it would be as well to remember the slums of the great European cities, and the defective sanitation of the majority of their dwelling-places. And when pronouncing judgment upon the slowness with which educational reforms are being undertaken, it should not be forgotten that we ourselves, in spite of our long educational history and our modern reforms, number our illiterate voters by hundreds.