ued Sept.
Avi of us who take any intelligent interest in politics, and every citizen or subject of a free State should take an interest in politics, are partisans more or less. If we are Conservatives, we start with a prejudice in its favour when we consider anything that Lord Salisbury undertakes and we possibly extend our favourable Perlain does. If we are Liberals or resumption even to what Mr. Cham-
Radicals, we start with the presumption that the Conservative Government is not doing right, and we require very strong persuasion that it may possibly not be making a mistake in one particular instance. This political prejudice is bad enough in England, but it is very much worse in the United States and must continue so until the spoils system is entirely abolished. Just now the war in which the United States is engaged in the Philippines is regarded as a Republican war, and the Democrats, in search of a ery which will help them to get in their candidate at the Presidential election xt year, are anti-expansionists and anti-imperialists; and the American papers received by the last mail, as quoted in the New York Public Opinion, very amusingly illustrate the effect on a writer of the political leaning of his paper. We see this in the case of the recent protest of the Press correspondents in Manila against the censorship exercised there and the incorrect impression of the situation given by the official dispatches published at Washington. We begin with one or two extracts from Republican papers. The St. Louis Globe-Democrut says:—
The protest against the censorship at Manila, signed by a number of correspondents, is an amusing document in some respects. They seem surprised to find that they cannot use the cable at Manila, which at present is simply a military tele:
as freely as the wires are utilised at home, Ordinarily, war correspondents are not allowed to telegraph anything from the front. Sherman banished them from his department. Commanding generals do not open their telegraphic facilities to outside matter. The correspondents at Manila have enjoyed greater facilities than is customary. They seem to imagine that they are called upon to conduct affairs at Washington as well as Mani If these absurdly pretentious and officious civilians are expelled from General Otis's lines no soldier of experience will be surprised.
The Chicago Times-Herald says:— petition of grievances, beginning " We, Street addressed the House of Commons a Not since the three tailors of Tooley
the people of England,"" has there been anything to equal the vanity, effrontery, and impertinence of the statement of the eleven correspondents censuring the censorship of their dispatches at Manila, It must ike the merest tyro in military affairs that these correspondents have been guilty of incredible folly. Their presence with the army ab alls '& concession to the spirit civil affairs, of publicity that prevails in republican The New York Press says If General Otis has really suppressed any facts of importance to which the public is entitled the correspondents can readily hints that it is becoming time to supersede him. It says:—The President needs, and the country needs in command at Manila, a man who make them known ri¢ Hongkong, as they have this protest. athing that is not grave enough to retain its quality of news through a steamer trip of five days can he a great deprivation if left unpublished. will hold the public confidence. It is not meant that he should manage to satisfy all correspondents, whether of reputable and patriotic journals or any others. But the confidence of the people of this country is This being the fact, it is difficult to see how General Otis can exercise any censorship detrimental to the public interests, however disagreeable it may be to the correspondents.
Against these we put four extracts from Democratic papers. The Philaadelphia Record says There is little or no reason to doubt the correctness of the statement forwarded by the correspondents at Manila, It harmon nisses with the record of events thus far, with the habit of official authority excised in the war department and wit the elaborate preparations now being made for a campaign de novo on an imposing scale. The people will give it general credence, and will not fail to resent -harply at the proper time the imputation that concealment of facts is necessary in order to avoid setting them by the ears. In the meantime the administration might score a point by lifting the silly. censorship established at Manila by an incapable mil tary martinet whose accidental elevation to unrestrained authority has been, in truth, the worst blow yet inflicted' upon the prestige of the government at Washington.
The Augusta Chronicle says:—
It is pretty evident from the protest of correspondents that things are worse in Manila than reported. It is probable that the half has never been told, and the public is growing very restive under the censorship that equals deception. The truth of the matter is, the bulk of the people are sick of the whole Philippine business and the G. O. P. is treading on thin ice with its imperial policy.
The ClevelandPlain Dealer says:—
Was this the personal policy of General Otis or was he acting under' instructions from Washington? Has General Otis been deliberately decei ing the constitutional commander-in-chief of the army as well as the people of the United States? If so, he should not be continued in his present position a single day and should be brought to account for his criminal misconduct. Unless this punishment is meted out to him, the inference will be inevitable that he acted under instructions, direct or understood.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.