When the mail recently to hand was leaving the United States, the one all-absorbing topic was the attempt of the Senate to discredit the President by refusing to act upon the Cuban Reciprocity Bill until after the regular Session began. Naturally opinions differ as to the sue-cess, or otherwise, of this attempt. The general trend of opinion, -however, seems to be that the Senate has fallen into the pit which it digged for another, and unprejudiced spectators appear to agree that this result was brought about by Speaker Cannon's support of the President. The newspapers received also indicate very clearly that Mr. Cannon is receiving general commendation for the attitude he has assumed towards the Senate, for, as one journal points out, "it is realised that something more is at issue than the exact date on which the Senate shall vote on the Cuban Bill, and something more than courtesy to the President is involved in the determination of the House to assert its rights."
The New York "Evening Post' calls
jecting the President to a "policy of pin the Republican Senators to task for sub-pricks." "Several, of then," "seem bent on mortifying and exasperating him in every way possible." We reproduce the " following from its columns It is not necessary, of course, to take their antics too seriously. Doubtless they only half mean it. They are not nearly earnest as they pretend. The thing they are really aiming at is masked in the thing they say. What they want to do is, first, to give the President a les-con. He has offended their dignity and hurt their complacency. Not one of them has a gouty toe, but he has trodden upon it. More than that, the President has ventured to have a mind and a policy of his own. He has not thought it necessary to ask the Senate for instructions. He summoned Congress in extraordinary sewion, but the muttering and and aballing Senators are doing' what they can to bring it to naught. It is as if to say to the country, " You see what blunders that young man makes when he thinks he can get along without us." But the senatorial attitude toward Mr. Roosevelt is not simply that of a pouting beauty. Slights a Senator could put up with, but. spoils he simply must have. It is probable, therefore, that the true end of all the pin-pricking strategy is to obtain more offices from the President.
The New York "Times," in its condemnation of the Senate, also makes use of some very strong ' expressions, as will be seen by the following short extract The general conclusion will be that unless favourable action by the Senate was practically assured in advance, the extra Session was unnecessary. To entertain that belief is to criticise the President. The Senate appears to have adopted the perverse policy of supplying the basis for that criticism. We can conceive of ne other motive unless the still more detestable one of a wish to serve the interests of the beet-sugar trust is to be assumed. At any rate, the Senate has acted with flagrant disregard of its public duty and of the national interest.
The President has found another able defender of his policy in the New York ment of the Cuban Bil vote, pf scico They have instead called renewed at tention to their ridiculous position as members of a great legislative body which can legislate only by unanimous consent. Speaker Cannon does well to hold the Senate in session until the regular meeting day in December. The spectacle of the Senate gathering day after day to no purpose, simply because it is incompetent to get down to the only business before it and take a vote which a vast majority want to take, may convince even the Senators most enamoured of the abuses of unlimited debate that reform is imparatively necessary. The Senate "kept in" for not doing its task, like a stupid or inattentive schoolboy, may possibly emerge a reformed character. So far, however, as the execution of the Cuban Treaty is concerned, it is not- probable that Such disciplinary measures will accomplish anything more than will be secured by a vote as agreed on the 16th December. That is not to say that the extra session has been fruitless. Far from it We give one other extract from the Brooklyn "Citizen," which discusses the subject from the point of view of the President's political future:
Docs it mean that the dominant forces in the Republican Party are falling away from the President? It is not easy to see how this question can be answered in the negative, since it is at variance with all experience for politicians who wish to strengthen a candidate in the eyes of the people to treat his recommendations as If they were of no weight. When party men turn their backs on a measure urged by their representative in the White House, it is safe to infer that they are not very anxious to make capital for him with the country. What follows, therefore, if past experience 1s to be taken as a guide, is that the chief Republican influences in the Senate are not just at present unreservedly committed to the nomination of Mr. Roosevelt for the Presidency.
The "Evening Bulletin" of Philadelphia gives the following interesting information regarding the present strength of the United States forces in the Philippines:
The official statement just made by eeretaty Root shows that a trifle over,000 officers and men of the regular military establishment are now maintained in the archipelago, chiefly concentrated in the larger posts where opportunities exist for enforcing better sanitary conditions than are practicable in isolated localities and where something may be done to minimise the inevitable drain on the strength and energy of white men in a tropical climate. services of these troops are supplemented by about 5,000 natives, armed and equipped under the designation of "scouts," who largely perform the police duties which would otherwise fall on the Americans. Thus it appears that somewhat over twenty thousand men, all told, are required to preserve order under existing conditions—a force nearly equal to the entire standing army of the country half-a-dozen years ago. It is only fair to point out that Mr. Root expresses the opinion that i yy be safely reduced in the Nevertheless the fact remains the military expenditures 000,000, which are necessary for the current year, might be diminished by about. twenty per cent if it, were not for the maintenance of so many soldiers on the other side of the Pacific, coupled with the cost of keeping in operation the transport service which is required to carry the men and their supplies back and forth between San Francisco and Manila.
The papers from the States during the last few months have had so much to say about the continued and uninterrupted prosperity of the nation that one is startled somewhat to find in the " Chicago Chronicle" the following leading article on "Signs of Depression"
There is always much whistling yo keep up courage in times of revulsion and depression, but it is well sometimes to disregard the whistling and attend to the indications which point to our true condition, and govern ourselves accordingly. Some of these indications are plain enough and perhaps have been dwelt upon cough. Among these are the great falling off in bank clearings, the oontinued depression in the stock market and the abandonment of railroad extensions and various industrial projects owing to the difficulty of disposing of new securities in the present condition of the market. In addition to these we have the further sigmficant fact that there has recently been a great increase in the number of outward-bound steerage passengers. those who were immigrants some time ago have become emigrants, The number of the outward bound is indeed greater now than it has been at any time except during the season of industrial depression following the panic of 1893. During our periods of prosperity immigrants have poured m upon us in increasing numbers and the inflow has extended over some months into the seasons of depression. Then there has been a great decrease in immigration and, as above stated, after 1893 there was. a redux of the tide. Now the reflux has set in even before the close of our year of largest immigration, and this we may be sure will be followed by a great decrease in the influx. It is idle to ignore the significance of this fact. It means industrial depression of more or less severity and duration, and it warns us that the duration will depend somewhat on the labour unions. if they have the wisdom to accept the inevitable drop from the excessive wages they have been getting the depression may not last long. But if they take Mr. Gompers' advice and resist the inevitable and do all in their power to make recovery difficult the depression may last even lounger than it did after the collapse of 1893.
The following extract is taken from the "Kvening Bulletin" of Philadelphia. The subject discussed, "Asia against the World,"" it will be remembered, was referred to by us in a leading article some time ago:
The Japenese are reported to be secretly organising an Asiatic League with headquarters at Tokio. The recent visits of Chinese statesmen, Siamese princes, and Persian ministers, to Japan are presumed to have been connected with the movement. The report, is doubtless the work of one of the increasing class whose business it is, as Lord Salisbury said, to write something of contemporusy interest. Combines of contemporary interest are multifarious and almost innumerable. Combination is the predominating impulse and imaginauun €asily conceives many combinations which, however, when subjected to the test of os: Reoneetfable that modern Asia should nonce, must appear impracticable.
organise a league for action, Modern Asia only dreams. It is the Western world alone that acts. Asin is steeped in reli gions which, differ as they may in dogmatic detail, are one in their unity of inertia. In Asia the human race conceived the Jo schemes which Europe and America were to work out, The collective mental exertion of Asia in the early epochs of progress apparently exhausted its intellectual energy and imposed " moral sloth which pervades the Orient, perpetuating its almost universal passivity, in which there reposes an innate treachery prohibitive of organisation for aggression. But should a Napoleon arise in' the East in conformity with the: law
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.