PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S POLICY.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 29 October 1901, Page 4

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S POLICY.

Commercial Reforms Promised

A Comprehensive Programme.

(Per R.M.S. Sierra, Auckland.).

San Francisco, October 22. Theodore Roosevelt, the new President, is tremendously energetic, and is original independent, and courageous in the extreme. He is also religious, and attends the ltttle Dutch Keformed Church at Washington. Upon the request of President Roosevelt all the members of President M'Kinley's Cabinet will retain their portfolios. When Mr Roosevelt took the oath of office, he said :—lt shall bo my aim to continue absolutely unbroken the policy of President M'Kinley for the peace, prosperity, and honour of the country." On the following day he gathered together his personal friends, and those members of the Cabinet who were at Buffalo, and gave them such ideas as ho had formulated for the conduct of public affairs. Tho policy as outlined will bo far more liberal and extensive, including reciprocity in purchaso and sale of commodities, so that over-production in this country can be disposed of by fair arrangements with foreign countries; abolition entirely of commercial war with other countries, and the adoption of reciprocity treaties, the abolition of such tariffs on foreign goods as are no longer needed for revenue if such abolition will not work harm to our industries and labour, tho establishment of direct commercial lines between the eastern coast of the United States and South America and the Pacific coast ports of Central America and South America, encouraging tho merchant marine and building ships that shall fly the American flag, and be owned and controlled by American capital, the building and completion as soon as possible of the Isthmus canal so as to give direct communication with the coasts of Central and South America and Mexico ; tho construction of a cable owned by the Government connecting our mainland with our island possessions, notably, Hawaii and the Phillipines; the use of conciliatory methods of arbitration in all disputes with foreign nations so as to avoid aimed strife; the protection of the savings of the people in banks and in other forms of investment by the preservation of commercial prosperity of the country and placing in positions of trust only men of the highest integrity. President Roosevelt has asserted himself by declaring he will not recognise sectional nor political lines, but will apappoint good men to office, even though they be of the democratic party. It is felt this must bo death to the President's ambition for renomination, but it is certainly the way to unite the country, which has been divided by sectional lines as by an insurmountable barrier since long before the Civil War. "I am going to be President of the United States, and not of any section," Mr Roosevelt has declared and he has added that he intends to visit the most distant parts of the country while in office. The conduct of the new Executive has already been such as to rouse some opposition among the Republican party leaders. It is, however, safe to say that no President of this nation was evermore affectionately and hopefully regarded by the whole American peoplo than Theodore Roosevelt is to-day.