Tremendous changes in the conditions of people in Europe and America have been brought about by financial legislation much more nearly contemporaneous with 1874 than the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. Then, again, the vast addition to the wheat and corn areas in the United States alone have had a mighty influence on prices in Great Britain. It may be that rents are so high in England that the tenant farmer finds it impossible to pay his tribute to the land monopolist, compete with American grain fields, and have anything left for himself. Indeed, Mr. Haggard states that one of the reasons why the agricultural laborer is so disheartened in England is that _there is no chance for him to become the owner of land_. * * * * * An exchange says: “The headmaster of an English school says he read Roosevelt’s inaugural to his boys and asked them where it was found. Unanimously they answered, ‘Jowett’s translation of Thucydides.’ Whereupon the headmaster gives us parallel columns to show that Pericles said it all before, on an occasion somewhat similar. But Teddy is too honest to crib; he was deceived by his clerk on oratory. Let it go at that.” If it is true that Mr. Roosevelt _did_ use one of the speeches of Pericles as an inaugural address, Mr. Bryan may wish he had not been so quick with the announcement that it was a poor speech. Pericles is generally considered to have been an orator who would have compared not unfavorably with W. J. B. himself. * * * * * The India-rubber qualities of the Monroe Doctrine are being made manifest with a vengeance. Once we understood it to mean, in a general way, that Europe must “Hands off”—no more conquest, colonization, or extension of the European system to the American Continent. By Mr. Cleveland, England was told, with firmness, that she couldn’t steal Venezuela’s land, even though the theft consisted of the simple device of moving the boundary line. With Mr. Roosevelt’s advent to power comes a decidedly new chapter in the evolution of the Monroe Doctrine. We are to assume a sort of Trusteeship for adjacent governments. We must see to it that they conduct themselves decently and in order. They must pay their debts to citizens of other countries and behave themselves generally in a way that meets our approval. * * * * * Mr. Roosevelt, in advancing the Monroe Doctrine to this extent, has undertaken a big contract for this country. If we are to be the Policeman for South America, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico and Central America, we must, first of all, have a powerful navy. This is clear to everybody. What is not so clear is that a powerful standing army will inevitably follow—_as sure as fate, it will follow_. * * * * *