POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2656, 11 October 1882, Page 3

POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES

The Kew York correspondent of the Melbourne “Argus ” gives the following account of the proceedings of Congress : Congress has adjourn©!. The recent issaion wa* the longest, with one exception, ever known, and much longer than the average session during the civil war, when presumably there was much more for Congress to do. The secret of the long session is an open one. The Treasury is ov;rflowirg, and the House of Representatives went to work, under the lead of a small but energetic band of leaders, to deplete it. For this purpose the Appropriation Bills were delayed till, nay, beyond, the last moment, for the most of them were not passed until after the date at which they were to go into effect. The organisation of the House was found to aid this scheme. The Speaker.is chosen by ballot, and serves at least one term, or two sessions. This year the choice fell on the Hon. J. W. Heifer, of Ohio, a third-rate man in ability, an extreme partisan, a demagogue, and a “jobber.” His election was secured by the protectionist clique of Pennsylvania, who relied on him to make up the committees to favor the Tariff Commission Bill. The committees are all named by the Speaker, who thus has enormous power. Mr Heifer used this this year not only to serve his protectionist patrons, but to pat same of the moot notoriously loose men in the House in important plaoes. The worst of these wag the Hon. Mr Hobeson, of Kew Jersey, formerly secretary of the Kavy under the presidency of General Grant, and one of the worst of that President’s many unfortunate appointees. He is a man who reached middle life as an obscure country lawyer, an adroit, but unsuccessful politician, with a private character far from stainless. He was placed in the Kavy department by General Grant, to whom he had attached himself, and soon won a bad distinction by his profligacy and favoritism. Ho went in poor and came out very rich, and the department expended under "hi* charge some 40,000,000d01s in construction, and, at the end, had not a vessel to show for the money that would be rated fourth class in a decent navy. Mr Boboson was nevertheless, made prominent in each of the three committees having charge of naval affairs. A man of great energy, and a skilful master of Parliamentary tactics, he promptly assumed the leadership of the House, and it was largely due to him that extravagance and impudent disregard of public interests became the characteristics of the majority. One of hie tricks was the wasting of time on the Tariff Commission Bill, which occupied the debates in the House two months, when the vary basis of the measure was the assumption that the commission was needed to give Congress the information requisite for intelligent discussion. The discussion indulged in, however, was not intelligent. It was addressed chiefly to the constituency of Buncombe, and filled several thousand pages of the official record. Another trick of Mr Robeson's was to provoke the minority on every possible occasion, and to consume as much time as possible in barren partisan wrangling, or in technical Parliamentary skirmishing. In this way the appropriation bills were delayed in order to leave bnt little time for analysis and criticism. Wo have no “budget.” Each department sends to Congress a bundle of estimates as to the amount of money that it wants. These are dumped en bloc on the Speaker’s table. Ko one is responsible for them. No one collates them. No one compares them with the revenue or makes any business-like examination as to the relation between expenditure and income. Under the constitution, the President or the Secretary of the Treasury might do this highly essential work, but as a matter of fact neither does do it. The committees cf the House take them up, and do what they will with them. The result is that each leader, and even each member, engages ip a scramble to get all he can for expenditure where it will do the moat good ” —that is to say, where it will conduce most to his individual popularity, or furnish the most money for his election expenses, or add most to his personal fortunes. This is a humiliating statement, but it is unquestionably true. The appropriations this year will sum up nearly 300,000,OOOdols —an enormous total, fully twice the amount of five years since. Congress did very little in the way of general legislation. It made provision for renewing the charters of the national banks, but did nothing else regarding the finances, leaving absolutely neglected the urgent recommendation of the Executive that the silver coinage should be stopped. It passed the abortive and deceptive Tariff Commission Bill, but did not abolish a penny of the onerous and absurd taxes still remaining from the war times. It placed Utah under a commission, authorised to take measures for the suppression of polygamy, and it created a court for the hearing of claims against the Geneva award, on a basis, however, which will leave nearly one-third of the money received from Great Britain undistributed. It was under suoh circumstances as these that Congress adjourned in the first week in August, having been in session nearly eight months. At the last moment, as if to make the spirit in which it had acted throughout as conspicuous as possible, it parsed the River and Harbor Appropriation Bill over the veto of the President, the measure being more than over before extravagant, reckless, and in effect corrupt. Such an ending c£ suoh a session ought to lead to the overthrow of the majority party at the elections this fall, and it would do so, without doubt, were it not that in the worst schemes the prominent members of the minority were ns deeply involved as were those of the majority. There is something curiously non-partlean and impartial in political dishonesty, and the American people are now in the dilemma of being thoroughly disgusted with both parties. Nor is there to be found, apparently, the material or the leaders for a new party, though something may be done in that direction by the organised movement for a reform in the civil service. This movement is extensive, and includes a largo number of the more intelligent classes in both parties. It is represented by a National Civil Service Reform League, with the Hon. George William Ourtia ex - commissioner of the civil nerviee—as its president. ?Jr Curtis has long been an advocate of the reform, and when General Grant, in a spasm cf virtue, appci'Atcu a commission to organise the competitive cystem, be was made chairman. But Congress refused to appropriate the 25,000 dollars a year needed to meet thi expenses of the commmi'jn, and it fell into a state of suspended animation, though there has been no formal dissolution of it. Ti e work it did during the short period of he existence amply proved the complete fitnem of the system to secure good service and to practically divorce the service from politics This last merit was fatal, but, as I have said, an earnest movement to render the i system popular is now on foot. If the I people respond to it it may bo the basis of a new party.