fist May. Apropos of the rade handling of the Arbitration Treaty in the "American Senate, the Pall Mall Gazette expresses its belief that " Americans" generally will be more thoroughly ashamed of their Senate than they ordinarily are, which ig saying a good deal." Such a comment might be dismissed as an ill-natured sarcasm, excusable by the irritation ofthe moment, were-it not that leading' American journals are making precisely tha same observation in stronger terms, It is past dispute that the series of humiliations to which our friends in the States have been sub-ninety, have not together as much [population as the single State of New York, which returns but two, A citizen of the latter commonwealth for example, has but one-hundredth part of the influence on the Upper House possessed by a citizen in [Nevada or in Wyoming. When one remembers that Nevada is the State that has just passed a law legalizing prize-fighting—which not even Mexico, for shame's sake, would allow within its borders—it is the more to be regretted that the influence of its citizens on the most delicate of national questions should be so overwhelmingly greater than that of men of culture and education in the older centres of population.
Equally: serious is the consequence, that a Senate thus elected does not necessatily reflect the sentiment of the jected of late years by the eccentricicountry at large on any given question, ties of their Upper House, has led them It may "find itself flatly in opposi-during these last few mouths to open tion to a policy that has been endorsed and persistent expressions of their dis-by a sweeping majority at the polls, and trust for that body. he call, familiar thus act, not as a check on hasty to English ears, for " mending or ending" legislation, but as an absolute block to the present state of things, is beginning truly representative government. ''his to be heard, urged on the ground that jhas repeatedly been the case in recent the Senate as a body has ceased to years. At the present time, the Re-be either representative or conservative, publican party, with its large—as-and hias accordingly ceased to fulfil dency at the polls, yet finds normal functions, he evident design itself " baffled and discomfited " in the in the minds of the framers. of. the senate. Though it is the evident de~ Constitution is thus thwarted, and the sire of the nation to main a gold ate machinery for stable national standard, there is an actual majority government seriously disordered. for its overthrow in that branch of It is not to be supposed that all
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.