THE TWELFTH HOUR.

According to the latest reports New England has so far subscribed not much more than sixty per cent of her estimated contribution to the national loan. Of course in such matters it is small use to blame anybody, since the only people who mind are those who have done their share. Those that haven't won't, not for the words of editors, nor for the words of bankers, nor for the words of a Cicero in the mouth of a Demosthenes inspired by a Delphic oracle and addressed to the salvation of his country.

But it is curious that New England, famous for her men; and if not for her men, for her wealth; and if not for her wealth, for her self sacrifice, should fail now. She failed her allotted quota of enlistments in the army. There were reasons. She is failing now her allotted quota of money. What are the reasons?

It is useless to say that Oregon or Arizona or Oskaloosa, Oklahoma, have failed to subscribe their full share. New England is not accustomed to being meted according to the standards of the provinces. Her standards are her own. She has promised that they would be high. They are not high.

Does the cautious Vermont farmer prefer the safety of hoarding his wealth in a sugar jar to the danger involved from investing it in his own nation? Does the canny Maine woodsmen see in the national loan the wild perils of high finance, from which, fate being merciful, he prefers to keep his money? Where is all of New England's strength, promised so often to the last drop of her blood and the last ounce of her treasure? The first drop of her blood has not been asked, nor the hundredth part of her treasure.

Of course it is idle to rant about failures save where they may be redeemed. This apparent failure may be redeemed. Those men, leaders of the community, who have pledged so freely and yet so wisely their wealth to their nation by investing all they could in the liberty bonds, have raised a distinguished example. The less opulent men of New England, noted for their money canniness, may well follow. Surely in no wiser way may they invest their savings. Surely in no safer way may they make good their patriotic promises.

It is drily humorous for sons of New England, raised in the belief of the excelling and unalterable loyalty of their native states, to see a presumable unwillingness to fill in measure, not in abundance, the nation's demands. It is yet time, although barely time, to see that those demands are filled.