A Possible President.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 7854, 21 June 1905, Page 2

A Possible President.

Mr Hay is- also away' in Euroi>e (days the Now York correspondent of thy Standard), and only one Cabinet Minister, Judge Taft, remains steadily on guard at Washington. To him, and not, as usual, to the Chief Assistant. Secretary of State, has been committed the control of foreign relations, which at all times involve more or less embarrassing situations. Thus, tho Venezuelan Controversy has reached a ciimux in tho receipt of a despatch from De Castro too stnenuotis in its wording to be publish?d. But De Castro has at the same time offered the command of his an.iy to an AmO'ican sofdier of fortune, and in thin dis. ter in dispute he has merely used the Venezuelan Si)prgme Court to turn out one set of American claimants o£ the asphalt beds and put in another set, which Is almost, equally American. That this Court is untrustworthy is no doubt true, but all the formal proprieties have been observed, and it is not prohabla that the United States will set aside a regular judicial verdict where tho only thing at stake can be measured in more dollars. This is, too, all' the less probjable Ijecauso of the wild speculations in South and Central American bonds in the London market has caused the Administration' much annoyance, and intervention in an acute form \y o uld now be seized upon as a further ground for ■quickening these imposs ble burdens into new life. No doubt such European claims are the one great menape to tha peace of the continent, for seizure ql territory, overt undpr thy guise of a ptV>(ongod ocpupat'.ojl, would surely mean w a r. But JuUge Taft and Mr Hay have been hitherto signally successful diplomatists, for the settlement by Judge Taft of that ugly question about the rights of tho friars and the Papacy in the Filipino Chut-ch lands lifted him at onco into the first rank of a peacemaker, and has made him for the last live ®r six candidates most talked about lor the Presidential succession in Hfe most dangerous rival is Elihu Hoot, who is personally favoured by Mr Roosevelt, although with chaiw;teristic fairness the I'resi, dent hus Holected Judge Taft as tho ablest available map to represent, him in las qbsepep and thus again display ripepess (of the highest honours. In July life Judge returns.for a tour ol jnspectiion to' the PhillipPinus—yet another chance for disLinption—and ho will certainly inspire whatever final recommendations the President may make in his next message about ths islands.