American schools are just now coming into voting age. They have been given a thorough preparation for the duties of citizenship, and an improvement may be expected. But great changes in the character of the people must be slow, owing to the enormous prestige of age, common in all Oriental countries. The parents rule as in China and Japan, and this parental authority does not end with the arrival of the child at voting age. So no matter how rapidly the American educational programme goes forward, it must be some

every possible way to develop themselves physically and mentally. They are now vastly more prosperous than ever before and have lost much of their social antagonism. With the increasing use of English as a common language, with the rapidly extending system of roads, and with the increase in efficiency and health, the immediate progress of the Filipinos must be great, but we have yet to see any indications that they will be able to maintain a government as stable and progressive, let us say, as even the Government of Mexico.

F

EW of the chapters of the brief and remarkable history of the automobile industry in the United States are more romantic than that which is still in the writing - the story of motor car exports. In a short year or two there has been a change which has amounted to a revolution. For two decades an eager market for all that Europe could or would send us in machines and practice, this country has suddenly, almost magically, become a leading source of automobile supply for the nations of the world.

So successful have America's scientific, large-scale methods of production proved that the American automobile is fast sweeping into popularity and possession of the European market. It is finding its way also in ever-increasing numbers into the out-of-the-way corners of the world: into the broad-streeted cities of South America; into the teeming prin

cipalities of India, from Calcutta to the Himalayas; into South Africa and East Africa; the Far East and the Antipodes

everywhere that the white man has set his foot and begun his civilization. Not long ago a car made in Detroit was driven from Kalgan, at the end of the PekingKalgan Railway, across the Desert of Gobi, and delivered at Urga, in Mongolia, to the "Tasha Lama" or Living Buddha, who, next to the Dalai Lama of Thibet, ranks as the great man of Lamaism. Still more recently a machine built in Indianapolis broke the record from Melbourne to Sydney, Australia, by covering the 573 miles over a very poor road in 19 hours and 2 minutes. Last year 30 low-priced American cars of a single make were sold in Congoland, two or three of them going to native chiefs. To May 1, 1912, 743 cars of this make had been sent to the Straits Settlements. From that date to the first of May of this year,

many small settlements and remote communities, so that the whole region is adequately net-worked with dealers whose business it is to popularize on the veldt an automobile made in Detroit. This policy of minor agencies was opposed at first in South Africa, for the large dealers could not see any profit in it and held that they could cover the outlying districts in a satisfactory way by visits two or three times a year. They did not believe that there was a sufficient market in places of this character to warrant a resident agent. When the home company

less it is true that the average price of exported automobiles has fallen remarkably year by year. For the fiscal year 1912 it was $990; for 1911, $1,100; and for 1910, 1909, and 1908 it was $1,380, $1,700, and $1,880, respectively. During the same period the average price of the machines imported by the United States rose almost as notably. Thus, for 1912 it was $2,216; 1911, $2,138; 1910, $1,936; 1909, $1,788.

Further comparison of the export and import statistics makes graphically clear the rapid usurpation by the United States

is the story when we turn to the export column. Thus in 1906 we exported machines valued at $4,409,136; in 1911 the figure rose to $21,636,661; and in the fiscal year 1912 to $28,300,139, including parts and tires.

Some of the sources of the imports and destinations of the exports are also illuminating. During the fiscal year of 1912 only 963 cars were imported. Of these, 401 came from France, 188 from Great Britain, 131 from Italy, 116 from Germany, and 127 from all other countries. In 1906 we sent $1,000,000 worth to Great

heavily than with other nations from the credit to the debit side of the ledger. In the fiscal years 1909, 1910, and 1911 Great Britain sent us, respectively, 88 cars, valued at $291,200; 54 cars, valued at $170,555; and 50 cars, valued at $137,580. In the same years, however, Great Britain bought from us 427 cars, valued at $607,100; 1,101 cars, valued at $1,076,485; and 3,743 cars, valued at $2,961,320, respectively.

Various explanations have been put forward-on the British side of the water to account for this condition.