The Republic of Haiti, though it has existed as an
inde- pendent community for more-than a hundred years, is still an experiment in negro state-making. It Is, of course, very easy to sneer at the puny efforts of the African to set up a political entity, and Haiti's history is hill of infinite grotesqueries and Much bloodshed, while it has to be acknowledged that till recently the condition of its inhabitants was one of the direst poverty, little removed from actual slavery. Even yet one may not say definitely that brighter political prospects are in store for the island, one of the potentially richest and most beautiful of all the West Indies, for parliamentary government has not yet been restored. But there are strong hopes that the material prosperity established by the United States' control of the constabulary, finance, public health, public works, and agri- culture, combined with the enlightened leadership of President Bonno, may ultimately enable this negro State to re-institute a competent representative government and justify itself and its autonomy before the world. Mr. H. P. Davis' Black Democracy (Allen, 20s.) exhibits in full historical detail and
most graphically the struggles of Haiti towards that end. * *
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