"Now it's perfectly clear that we can never fulfil this promise. It is our destiny to stay there. It would be flying in the face of Providence and doing the greatest injury to the natives to abandon them. They would fly at each other's throats the moment we left them alone."
"They haven't flown at each other's throats where we have left them alone," mused Sam aloud.
"I didn't say they had, but that they would," explained the editor.
"Oh! I see," said Sam, and he relapsed into silence.
"Talking of electric lights," continued Jonas, "I've got a book here full of all sorts of electric things that we'll have to introduce there. There's the electrocution chair; look at that design. They garrote people in the most barbarous manner out there now. We'll civilize them, if we get a chance!"
"Perhaps they won't have the money to buy all your things," remarked Cleary, who had been a silent and interested spectator of the interview.
"Yes," said Jonas, "we may have trouble with the poorest tribes. We must make them want things, that's all. The best way to begin is to tax them. I've got a plan ready for a hut-tax of five dollars a year. That's little enough, I should think, but some of them never see money and they'll have to work to get it. That will make them work the coal-and iron-mines. Skinner has his eye on these, too. When the natives once begin to earn money, they'll soon want more and then they'll spend it on us."
"But the Government there will be too poor to take up great public expenditures for a long time yet," said Cleary.
"Don't be too sure of that. They haven't even got a national debt. That's one of the first things we'll provide for. They're a most primitive people. Just think of their existing up to the present time without a national debt! They're mere savages."