AMERICAN POLITICS.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1555, 12 February 1879, Page 4

AMERICAN POLITICS.

The San Francisco correspondent of the Wellington “ Chronicle ” writes : The battle of the parties has begun in Congress ; but there is no sign that legislation, looking to the amelioration of the country, will be had. Political leaders scheme for power, but do not care a pin’s point how the masses of the people are living, or whether their condition is not so bad as to render social unrest alarming. The President is a weak man if not dishonest. He is a political accident, the fruit of a compromise to keep out a strong man (Blaine), and Blaine is now doing his level best to create sectional differences in the hope that he may get the Republican nomination for President. His first move in the United States Senate was taken with consummate skill to that end ; but it was met by the Democratic chiefs —Thurman and Lamar—with equal skill. The enemy the Republic has got to fear, said the judicial Thurman, is not a “ solid South;” it is the corrupt influence of a Northern Plutocracy, which steals the ballot-boxes, degrades public sentiment, and is fast subverting the foundations of the Republic. The Republicans are endeavoring to fire “ the Northern heart,” by holding up ‘the bloody shirt ” of the civil war, and declaring that a solid South means payment of the Confederate bonds, compensation to Confederates for losses in the war, and the gradual return to chattel slavery. Three years ago these tactics carried the election; they will fail this campaign. The country is tired of this sort of thing. It wants rest, and measures that will emancipate labor and productive industry from the gyves which the money ring, by special legislation, has fastened upon them. The Democrats, wise in their generation, have adopted the latter as their platform in the coming campaign ; the Republicans, misled by the banking and railroad rings, have declared in favor of contraction, which means property confiscation of the debtor class ; and they rely upon a spurious sentiment against southern outrage upon the freed men to carry them into power. They will be mistaken. A new force has arisen, which cannot be hoodwinked, and that force is organised labor. The Democrats hold out their hands to the National labor party, and incorporate the main points of its policy in their programme, and confidently await the issue. The Nationalists have captured forty odd seats in Congress, and are carrying municipal elections everywhere. Old party lines cannot bo maintained. Old issues are out of the coming fight, and it is a proof of political decay to attempt their revival when the signs of the times so unmistakeably point to a different one. The President, in his message, spoke hopefully of the industrial prospects of the country. I think there is more cry than wool. Exports largely exceed imports; wages are falling; real estate is declining’inlvalue ; workshops, mines and factories are either shut down, or working on reduced time; all of which, to my thinking, prove that the country is in a bad way of its own ; that it is paying off its debts abroad; and is unable to find remunerative employment for its people, and provide paying markets at home for its products. The people are poor, und are daily growing poorer, while usurers, that is, the possessors of “capital,” or that portion of accumulated wealth which is placed at usury, are becoming correspondingly rich. Indeed, the proof is not wanting that England is beginui ig to realise the same state of things, despite its more rational fiscal policy. Whenever capital in banks for example, and loan and mortgage companies, which trade upon the necessities of productive industry, pay 12, 15, to 20 per cent, per annum, the profi'.s fall first of all upon the worker, in the shape of high rents, long hours of labor, and low rates of pay. Ultimately, employers are not able to keep up with competition, unduly stimulated by money brokers, and labor being reduced to the lowest ebb, cannot bo bled any further. The factory, or workshop, or ship yard, or mine is consequently closed. Ostensible cause : general depression of business, over-production and the like. Real cause : excessive rates of interest. The United States has been bankrupted almost by this system. England is passing through the mill. The colonies ore exempt bo far, that is such of them as enjoy a large revenue; but this is living upon capital after all, and the sooner the exact condition be realised the better.

A new plan of mobilization has been adopted tor the German army. Only twentyfour hours aro to be left to the men of the reserve and the landwehr for the settlement of their private affairs, when once they have received the order to join their regiments. This order is given irrespective of Sunday or ' holiday or ot day or night. The system introduced by Messrs Barraud and Lunds, of Cornhill, of synchronising clocks is being very generally adopted in London. Over 10 mileß of wire are now in use for this purpose, principally in the city, where 108 clocks aro now kept to time by one standard. The council of Clifton College have elected Mr J, M. Wilson, of Rugby, as head master, in succession to the Rav. Dr Percival, whose appointment aB president of Trinity College, Oxford,necessitates his surrender of the office at Easter next. Mr Wilson was a classical scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge. Bell University scholar, and Fellow of St, John's College, and has for many years been a master at Rugby. So Sad. —" Beautiful, beautiful, silken hair," Philip murmured fondly, toying lovingly with one of her nut-brown tresses; "soft as the plumage on an eagle's wing; light as the thistledown that dances on the summer air; the shimmer of sunset, the glitter of yellow gold, the rich red brown of au umnel forests blend in entrancing beauty in it* " And just then it came off in his hauds, and he forget just what to say next. I here was a moment of profound silence, and then Aurelia took it from him and went out of the room with it. When she came back ho was gone. They meet now, but they meet as strangers, and the eyes that were wont to beam upon each other with the awakening love light now fllare as though life was an eternal wash-day.—" Oil City Derrick." Funny fellows they are, these'Christians of Europ*. The Czar gives the bloodthirsty chief of the Afghans a sword with the inscription " May God give thee victory over the Infidels," and the English sell the Asiatic Pagans the prettnst little idols, mad« in the most artistic manner of Glasgow, Sheffield, and Birmingham ware. The same cargo for India often includes some 20,000 New Testaments, 5000 complete Bibles, a fine assortment of 10,0<. 0 idols, 20 missionaries, 3 opium merch nits, 3 spies, 2 dealers in first-class idols, 1 Bishop, and 4 preach ers of the Anglican persuasion.—" Providence Press." The '' Hawkeye" says that a Burlington mother heard the low murmur of voices in the boj s' room the other night after she had gone to bed. With noiseless footstep and bated breath she. stole to the door and listened. The room was dark, the voices were ow and earnest. What visions of future greatness were the sons of her heart recounting to each other? Wr.at plans for wtalth, for glory, for pleasure filled their b .yish hearts ? She bent forward and leaned closer toward the bed to catch one earnest word of the murmured thoughts that w> re surging from her boys' hearts up to their lips. She heard, " Ben, yow bowlegged sOn of a pagan, if you don't take your clammy mud-hooks off my back, I'll h'ist ye."