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THE ATLANTA GEORGIAN
Published Every Afternoon Except Sunday
Bv THE GEORGIAN' COMPANY
At 20 East Alabama St., Atlanta. Ga
Entered ae second-class matter a' j -ustoftice at Atlanta, under act of March 3,1n.3
Subscription Price -Delivered by arrler, 10 cents a week By mall, |5 00 a year.
Payable In Advance.
Free Ship Treaties Can Be
Annulled
\ One With England is Ninety-eight Years Old and Could Have
Been Terminated at Any Time Since 1828 on
Giving a Year s Notice.
We are told from Washington that the reason the Presi
dent is willing to have the 6 per cent discrimination in favor
of American shipping left out of the tariff bill is that it is con
trary to some two-score treaties with foreign nations.
The most important of these is that with Great Britain,
whose protest has already been made.
THAT TREATY IS NINETY EIGHT YEARS OLD, AND
COULD HAVE BEEN TERMINATED AT ANY TIME SINCE
1828 ON GIVING ONE YEAR’S NOTICE.
The real treaty which covers the subject was made in 1815
and was for four years only. In 1818 it was renewed for ten
years. In 1827 it was renewed Indefinitely, but with a most
definite clause looking to its annulment after twelve months’
notice should either country so desire.
So far, therefore, as Great Britain is concerned, an Ameri
can merchant marine is being throttled by a treaty made with
the sailing ships, methods, trade routes, conditions and preju
dices in view which controlled the situation nearly a hundred
years ago. A study of that treaty is instructive.
Perhaps the State Department will now enlighten the coun
try on the origin and details of the other treaties which are keep
ing the American flag off the seas. If they are no more difficult
to readjust or dispose of than this ancient British treaty, they
certainly impose no great or lasting obstacle to constructive leg
islation. Here, indeed, would appear to be a splendid opportu
nity for Secretary Bryan and his Department of State.
Nearly a century and a quarter ago Thomas Jefferson said:
“For a navigating people to purchase its marine afloat would
be a strange speculation, as the marine would always be de
pendent upon the merchants furnishing them.” In the last few
days the London newspapers have printed a list of colliers or
other transport vessels just chartered there by the United States
Government I
Free Trade Great Britain has always protected its shipping
and does so to day in various ways. The Lusitania and Maure
tania were built with $13,000,000 advanced by the British Gov
ernment at a very low rate of interest and on easy terms of re
payment. In addition, the Ounard line draws admiralty and mail
subsides for twenty years at the rate of about $1,000,000 a year.
Even Mr. Gladstone’s code of morals on the question of protec
tion spoiled in salt water, for under his premiership was made
the hugely profitable Government contract with the Peninsular
& Oriental line running to India, although the English line was
underbid by a French line. Both Adam Smith and John Stuart
Mill indorsed the stringent navigation laws by which Great Bri
tain almost cornered the carrying trade of the world.
The vessels engaged in doing our foreign carrying earn
$300,000,000 a year.
DURING THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS BETWEEN SIX
AND SEVEN MILLIONS OF TONS OF SHIPS WILL BE
BUILT SOMEWHERE TO GARRY THE IMPORTS AND EX
PORTS OF THIS COUNTRY. IF THERE IS NO INCREASE.
THE EARNINGS OF THESE SHIPS DURING THEIR
TWENTY YEARS OF LIFE WILL APPROXIMATE NINE
BILLIONS OF DOLLARS. NEARLY ALL OF WHICH WILL
GO TO FOREIGN SHIP OWNERS IF CONDITIONS REMAIN
UNCHANGED
Are conditions to remain unchanged because treaties that
can be adjusted or terminated at twelve months’ notice, are to
be regarded as inviolable antiques?
"He deceives himself griev-
Canal Dispute I ously who believes the Unite*
- States made the stupendous
laS Seen from Afar sacrifice of human energy and
—————————— p U bij c money necessary to
build the Panama Canal, the greatest liberty man has ever
taken with Nature,’ with any other purpose in view than the
national advantage of the United States—commercial, and,
above ail, political advantage.”
This is the opening sentence in a remarkably clear mono
graph that George C. Butte has written on "Great Britain and
the Panama Canal ” He penned this work at Heidelberg, Ger
many, on neutral” ground, that he might remain ‘"uninflu
enced” by local sentiment.
He continues:
‘ No more fundamental error is commended generally by
those defending the British view on the present controversy
than appears in the following statement of the Government’s
protest: The Hay Pauncefote treaty does not stand alone.
It was the corollary of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850.’
The Hay Pauncefote treaty contains five articles, and
the very first article unconditionally abrogates the treaty of
1850.
* From the standpoint of abstract justice the contention of
Great Britain that she should be put on the same fooling as re
spects the use and enjoyment of the Par.ama Canal, as the
United States, seems presumptuous The restriction which she
invokes against the sovereign right of the United States to en
act legislation affecting its internal affairs must appear in ex
press language in the Hay Pauncefote treaty.
No more implication or argumentative deduction will suf
. ce. And if we adopt the rule Lord Clarendon applied against
the United States in construing the Clayton Bulwer treaty in
the case of the Mosquito Indians, to the effect that ‘the true
1 construction of a treaty must be deducted from the literal mean
fl :of the words employed in the framing, it will be hard, in
deed* for Great Britain io prove the c»i:ns.‘’
The Atlanta Georgian
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THE HOME PAPER
Garrett P. Serviss
Writes on
Cultivating the
Brain l>
There’s Meat for Thought, He
Says, in Contemplating the jaliM
Progress Made by Human
Beings Since the Days of "JjT
the Stone Age.
By GARRETT P. SERVISS.
THERE is a vast amount of
instruction in a picture of
two men of the Paleolithic,
or Old Stone, Age. fighting for the
possession of a prehistoric ani
mal, with toothsome flesh, that
has fallen before one of their rude
javelins, whose point was hard
ened in a cavern fire.
As we gaze at them the mists of
intervening centuries roll away,
and we behold OURSELVES re
flected in the mirror of long-past
time.
Brain vs. Brawn.
The gorilla-like creature with
the upraised club, the face of a
devil and the limbs of a giant, and
his antagonist with the flint knife
and the profile of a cunning ape
are human beings who, as yet.
know only one side of their na
ture—the brute side.
Under those flat skulls there is
just enough intelligence to enable
their owners to sharpen a piece of
flint to a cutting edge, and to tie
a stone to the end of a club in
order to make a more effective
weapon.
But It is this spark of intelli
gence which, transmitted to their
descendants, will found the mag
nificent race of intellectual man!
With absolute unconsciousness
of what they are really doing,
these creatures are cultivating the
BRAINS that are to save their
kind from the common fate of
mere brutes. The germ of every
art and science was in the mak
ing of that flint knife, the tying
of that stone to a stick, the sharp
ening of that javelin in the fire.
Two mere brutes would have
fought for that prey with the
weapons that nature gave them—
teeth and claws.
These creatures have already
proved their superiority by IN
VENTING something better to
fight with They are fighting with
their brains, although they are not
yet aware that they have any
brains.
Their descendants will use guns,
swords and bullets instead of
stone clubs, flint knives and flre
pointed javelins, but the fight in
stinct will remain for ages to
come.
Under these low, receding browa
there is the beginning of gome
thing else, which is to be of far
greater value to future humanity.
There is forethought and consid
eration for others.
Dinner in the Balance.
The human ape with the knife
probably lives in a cavern and
there his family, his wifeand chil
dren, r.ot daring to show them
selves, are awiiting the outcome
of the struggle, which is to decide
whether they shall have a dinner
or no.
The big brute with the club in-
The Battle of Alamance
By REV. THOMAS B. GREGORY.
AT THE battle of Alamance,
N. C„ fought 142 years ago
—May 16. 1771—was shed
the first blood of the great strug
gle which was to result in the
establishment of American inde
pendence.
All honor to Lexington, where
the "embattled farmers” fired
shots that were “heard around
the world,” but let it not be for
gotten that other farmers, al
most four years before the day of
Lexington, opened the fight of
which Lexington was only the
continuation.
The principles for which the
North Carolina farmers fought at
Alamance were identified with
those for which Massachusetts
farmers fought at Lexington. Os
the Massachusetts patriots nine
teen were killed and wounded,
while of the Carolina patriots
over 200 lay killed or crippled
upon the field and six. later on.
died upon the scaffold, yet, while
all the world has heard of Ix-x
--ington, not one person in a thou
sand knows anything to speak of
about Alamance.
William Tryon, the royal Gov
ernor of North Carolina, was so
mean that they called him the
“Wolf.” In the name of his royal
master and for the furtherance
of his own greedy instincts Try
on oppressed the people of his
province to the point where they
were obliged to do one of two
habits, w’ith his family, another
eave somewhere around the cor
ner. He is fighting for them as
weU as for himself.
Meat is scarce, else they would
not fight for it. But each wants
ALL of it. There is no thought,
with them, of arbitration or di
vision. It is simply kill and take!
Each thinks of HIS family, but
neither of the OTHER'S family.
Many ages must elapse before the
sense of brotherhood and the idea
of justice will arise in the de
scendants of these creatures But
the germ of those things is there
and will develop.
Those low skulls will swell up.
In the progress of time, into the
domes of thought that crowned a
Plato and a Shakespeare. Those
enormous, projecting jaw s will re
cede, and those fearful faces be
transformed into the angelic
countenance of a St. Francis,
filled with tenderness and pity for
his fellows, and for the very birds,
and beasts, and worms, and in
sects. his co-dwellers upon the
earth.
Out of the forms that are bat
tling in that prehistoric scene will
arise the figure that was assumed
by Him who came upon the earth
to teach us that salvation lies in
loving our brother-men as our
selves!
A Story Worth Study.
Is there any story better worth,
studying than that of this gradual
development of man out of the
brute? ,1s there any better way
to stimulate the resolve, which
everyone must feel deep in his
nature, to do something to has
ten the time when war and blood
shed shall cease, than by looking
upon this vivid picture of the
origin of those things? It tells
us. as no words could do. how
dreadfully slow our progress has
been.
The same ungoverned passion
that inspires those two brutes in
the picture masters men on the
battlefield to-day. The clenched
jaws, the glaring eyes, the hissing
breath, the vicious strokes to kill
—all come back again as repul
sive as they were in the old Stons
Age.
But the hope of humanity Iles
in the fact that the moral in
stinct has gained upon the purely
seifish one. The men of the pre
historic caverns had no sympa
thy for their kind beyond the cir
cle of their own fires. When oth
er meat was scarce, they killed
and ate their neighbors, or their
neighbors' children.
Yet out of that mere glimmer
of unselfishness which led them to
care a very little for those direct
ly dependent upon them, has
grown the vast system of mutual
helpfulness and practical consid
eration for others that brightens
our time, and will, eventually,
banish the last remnants of the
brute age from human life.
things—resist him or become
slaves. They resolved to resist
and formed themselves into an
organization known as "Regula
tors,” a body of as pure patriots
as ever shouldered a gun.
Having protested time and
again against the unlawful taxa
tion under which they groaned,
they finally quit groaning, raised
the cry of freedom and rose in
arms against Tryon and King
George.
To the number of 2,000 or 8,000
the Regulators, only partly arm
ed and without organisation, met
the forces of the royal Gover
nor at Alamance.
"Lay down your guns or I win
fire!" shouted the British com
mander. “Fire and be damned!"
shouted back the leader of the
Regulators. At once the battle
opened, and, of course, the Regu
lators were defeated and dis
persed But old Tryon received
the lesson he had so long needed
—that, while Americans could be
shot down on the battlefield, they
could not be made tamely to sub
mit to the high-handed oppres
sion of King George and his crea*
tures.
Monuments are good thingg,
and why not build one of the
finest design and most enduring
material to mark the spot where
the Regulators began the fight
that was to end in the creation of
the United States of America? j