NOTES OF THE DAY.

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 34, 4 November 1920, Page 4

NOTES OF THE DAY.

The latest advices from America indicate that Mr. Warren Gamaliel Harding, newspaper proprietor of Marion. Ohio, has celebrated his fifty-fifth birthday by being elected the twenty-ninth President of the United States. If the statement that Mr., Hardin™ has a plurality of 5,000,000 votes over his opponent, Mr. Cox, is correct, he possesses a majority nearly one hundred per cent, greater, than tho previous best on record —that given Mr. Roosevelt in 1904. The Kopublican Party has the habit of winning tho Presidency, and has been victorious in eleven of the fifteen contests sinco Lincoln's da}-?, from which tire present ipalrty alignment datefc. Mr. Harding's outstanding characteristic as a politician hft9 been his "safeties." He is a genial man who gets along well with everybody he touches elbows with. His basio views on foreign policy were no doubt pretty well summed up in his Oolujnbm speech: "Why muddle and m«s' up things in Europe, four thou-

gand miles away, when there is plenty to attraot our attontion on our very own borders," Howevor, tho United States cannot cut itself from world affairs, and if Mr. Elihu Boot accepts the Secretaryship of State in the new Cabinet the direot control of American, policy abroad will bo in exceedingly capable and experienced hands. The Cabinet as forecasted promises to be an exceptionally strong one, and is notable for the inclusion of no fewer than tliree of the lato candidates for the .Republican nomination for the Presidenoy—Governor Lowdcn, Mr. Hoover, and General Leonard Wood. It should be remembered that the inauguration of the newPresident and the appointment of his Cabinet do not take place until March 4 of nest year.

In the midst of the Republican victory in the United States it is, impossible, whatever our political news, not to feel a great deal of sympathy for the lonely and stri-jken invalid of tho White House to whom tho verdict of tho polls sounds the death-knell of his hopes and ambitions. Mr. Wilson has stiil four imintent months of office to run amid tho wreckage of all that he set out to achieve. Actuated by high ideals lio endeavoured to use tho power and prestige of his groat office to place the international relations of mankind on a new and better basis. How near he came to tuccess all the world knows. Ho carried tho day at the Peace Conference, but be could not carry his own countrymen with him. To translate such an ideal, into actuality was a task beyond tho strength of any man. Tho League of Nations exists, but if it ia only a. shadow of what it was to have been, it is a tremendous thing to hnve got oven thus far, and to have uroused the conscience of tho world as the President has done. So magnificent a failure is not. defeat.

The' taxi-car owners' conference again emplinsisep the need for* uniformity in tho control of motor traffic. " Mr. Anderson's ill-health this session has meant tho postponement of motor legislation until next year. Tho /delay can be made fruitful if opportunity is taken to study- the motor laws of other countries in tho light of our own conditions and bring in a measure that will be at once comprehensive and up-to-date.

In these days of Government spooif feeding it is something to find'a State Department making an effort to encourage self-help. Tho steps boing taken by the Housing Department to assist worker;; at Blenheim and elsewhere to erect 'their own homes aro a welcome iunovatioji. Every (possible menus of alleviating tho housing shorty age is worth exploring, and the progress of these schemes will he watched witlf interest. Incompetent people will no doubt be quite ready to dabble in house-building at the public expense under the scheme, epoiliug good material and running up ramshackle buildings^representing a very poor security for tho expenditure incurred. This is, such an. obvious danger that we take it the Department has guarded against it, and is satisfying itself the owner-builders it is assisting have reasonable i prospects of making a workmanlike job of their undertakings. The experiment will at any rate be instructive.