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170 them can read and write. There are black novelists, poets, economists, and philanthropists.

"The half-breeds, the issue of master and slave, are singularly intelligent and vigorous. The coloured men, both cunning and ferocious, instinctive and calculating, will gradually (so one of them has confided to me) reap the advantage of number, and one day lord it over the effeminate creole race which exercises so lightly over the blacks its fitful cruelty. It may be that the mulatto of genius, who will make the children of the whites pay dearly the blood of the negroes lynched by their fathers, is already born."

M. Goubin primed himself with his powerful eye-glass, and remarked:

"Were the Japanese to be victorious, they would take Indo-China from us."

"Thereby rendering us a great service," answered Langelier. "Colonies are the curse of nations."

M. Goubin's indignant silence was his sole reply.

"I cannot listen to such statements," exclaimed Joséphin Leclerc. "We require outlets for our products, and territories for our industrial and commercial expansion. What are you thinking of, Langelier? One policy alone governs Europe, America, and the world to-day—colonial policy."

Nicole Langelier, unruffled, replied:

"Colonial policy is the most recent form of