YOUTHS AND POLITICS.

There remains another point which is at the present time of the most sinister significance.  The promoters of the agitation conceived the deplorable idea that their propaganda might best be spread, and that their designs might best be carried out by the youths of the country.  From this selection has arisen what is now the worst feature of the situation.  It is impossible to condemn too strongly the use of the students and other youths to foster political aims.  It has resulted in a wave of excitement amongst immature and impressionable minds throughout the affected districts.  In this province in the first instance this evil exhibited itself in the constant appearance of youths in the forefront of political demonstration, however hostile and objectionable in character.  This phenomenon was naturally accompanied by numerous instances of indiscipline among students which Government has repeatedly been obliged to denounce.  The effect on the minds of the most impressionable youths, and especially among those who had a ready means of livelihood and an available occupation, has reached a pitch which was doubtless never contemplated by the more sober among those who initiated this regrettable movement.  Nevertheless a series of crimes in which youths belonging to the respectable classes have been known to participate must be regarded as directly attributable to the excitement of political agitation.  It is impossible to avoid mentioning in this connexion the system of national schools which was to be lauded in all three of the prohibited Conferences, and which has been encouraged in other similar meetings that are taking place.

During the past few years in this Province the record of these schools is an evil one.  They were established in open hostility to the State system of education, which is the true national system, and several of the most important were opened for the purpose of receiving boys expelled from or punished in other schools for taking part in political demonstrations of a most reprehensible character.  Their subsequent history has accorded with the spirit in which they were founded and their close connexion with forms of political agitation most unhealthy for young minds has been evinced in many a regrettable incident.

THE OUTLOOK.

If we review the present position we find that during the past year there has been some subsidence of the acute stage of the malady, or rather it has taken a different turn.  The bulk of the reasonable inhabitants have become wearied of the senseless agitation which brings annoyance and suffering without doing them good.  There is less active boycott and the ordinary citizen has become less amenable to the leaders of the agitation.  But in spite of this, two circumstances stand out—­first, the local leaders have not in general abated one tittle of their efforts to enforce the boycott, and where in any locality they