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March 7,1896
Record anel Guide.
379
ESTABUSHED'^ iS\W\pH 2l«i^ 1868.
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Bi/snfess Alio Themes of GEffeivA IjftCTpsi,
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Published every Saturday.
TBLBPBOini,......OOBTLANBT 1870
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press ever engaged in. A step toward universal suffrage in
Austria has been taken by au official proposition to create
seventy-two seats in Parliament for which every male over
twenty-four years of age will be entitled to vote. The sale of
the Northwestern, South and North German Junction railroads
to the State is about completed. This practically places the
railroad business of Austria in the hands of the government.
The Italian reverses in Abysinnia, of course, have an imfavor
able effect on the Continental bourses.
Vol. LVII.
MARCH 7, 1896
No. 1,460
The Recokd and Gvidk will furnish you with daily detailed reports
of all building operations, compiled to suit tour business specifically, foi
14 cents a day. Yon are thus kept informed of the entire market for your
goods. No guess work. Every fact verified. Abundant capital and the
thirty years' experience of "The Record and Gvidv guarantee the com¬
pleteness and authenticity of this service. Send to 14 and 16 Vesey street
for information.
CONGRESS' interest in Cuba as a fitting weapon for use in
partisan strife does not scare business men so much as it
wearies them. This explains why we have a strong but dull stock
market. People refused to be frightened into helping profes¬
sional operators to make a big turn on the short side, but they
also refrain from buying. After the bear tiadershave made
their raid and covered again, business comes to a standstill.
The hope is growing that the gentlemen who are passing con¬
current resolutions and digging holes for the admiuistration to
fall into will get through with this very dignified and profitable
work, or get tired and go home soon, and that then trade and
finance may resume their ordinary course without interruption
from politics for a time at least. It will be a great shame if the
politicians do not give them a brief interval in which to make
some progress between the adjournment of Congress and the
excitement of the campaign that will come this summer and fall.
Apart from the malign infiuences that spring from Washington,
judging from all appearances the condition of trade is satis¬
factory. The centres from which the gloomy'reports, to which
we alluded last week, came are already taking on a better
aspect, so that it is not too much to say that, barring further Con¬
gressional aberrations, the outlook for the spring is fairly good.
IP, as some Continental journals say, and which does not
appear at all improbable. Great Britain's ability to hold
her vast aud scattered possessions is to be put to the test, she
does not intend to bo taken by surprise. The naval appropria¬
tions just asked for by the minister for the navy in the House
of Commons are not more remarkable for their amount than for
the readiness with which they will undoubtedly be granted.
Evidently the British feel that they are menaced on all sides.
There is an absence of factions or party criticism; even the
wild free lances of the Radical elements of Parliament, like Mr.
Labouchere, refrain from stinging and teasing in order to
remove any doubt that may linger in the minds of other peoples
as to the unanimity of the national sentiment. This proposition
is a response to the talk iibout the evacuation of Egypt, under
coercion from other powers, as the mobilization of "the flying
squadron" was a reply to the German Emperor's message to
President Kruger. Those who believe that large armaments
are a guarantee of peace should see in these preparations an
argument to support their position. The activity at arsenals
and dockyards and the distribution of money which it implies
will favorably atfect general business. Paris, which has been
largely the market for Spanish and Spanish-Cuban securities,
has felt the fullest force of the electioneering vote in the Senate
and House favoring the accordance of belligerent rights to
Cuban macheteers. Should we be eventually led to do more
than talk, a panic will undoubtedly be precipitated in that
market as well as iu our own. The graded income-tax proposed
by the French Minister of Finance is receiving popular support,
though if it passes the Chamber of Deputies it is not unlikely
to be rejected by the Senate and bring on another of those
awful political crises for which France is so renowned and which
seem to do her so little harm. The German press is making
itself ridiculous by abusing England for not aggreeiug to re¬
open the Indian mint and, as it is alleged, thereby making the
calling of another silver conference impossible. Of course, the
newspapers cannot help it, they have to dance as they are
bidden. The goverment demands these articles, to make the
agrarians believe that the failure of their pet project, the
recognition of silver, is due to England. If they can be made
to believe this their stupidity must be of the densest kind.
It is to the outsider the most childish business that ever a
responsible government and even a terrorized and subsidized
Tlie Need of Self Examination.
IF ever there was a proper occasion for parades and petitions,
indeed for putting into motion the entire machinery of
popular demonstration, surely tho present time furnishes that
occasion. Busiuess men, all over tho country, should send
deputations to Washington on an appointed day to demand that
Congress shut up shop at once aud its members disperse to their
homes to carry on some more profitable occupation than the one
they are now engaged in—that of disturbing American civiliza¬
tion and the commercial economy of the nation.
The entire session has been unspeakably ridiculous. Pressing
domestic att'airs have been utterly neglected, while the country
has been forced into the position of a pot-house bully, threaten¬
ing and "squaring up" to everybody withiu sight. No one of
any sense imagines for a moment that our relations with the
rest of the world suddenly underwent so complete a change
some time iu the past three or four months that it has been
really necessary for us to devote our entire attention to several
irritating controversies with foreign nations. At any moment
during the last quarter of a century there have been questions
enough under discussion between the State Department and the
governments of other countries to embroil us with many of the
first-rate powers of the world. What was needed to bring on a
fracas was that any of these matters should be discussed,
not with sobriety and dignity, becoming the ancient
traditions of American diplomacy, but with bad temper,
ignorance and jingoism. No man who is " spoiling for a
fight," as they say iu Ireland, has to seek very far for an
excuse for a rumpus or for some oue to strike at. We can easily
get up a fight every year of our natioual existence if discord
and war be our ideal. Hitherto our ambitions have been those
of peace and amity, and the countiy has not lost one iota of
dignity or a single substantial right by a policy that has been so
much in harmony with civilization that it has been a lesson and
a shame for other nations. It has not produced for us an
enemy on the face of the globe. It has made friends for us in
time of trouble, so that the leaders of other nationalities have
been, by the divine call of conscience, our" self-appointed
ambassadors. Of what other nation can this be said 1
In the face of the past the hysterical jingoism of the last few
months is deplorable in the extreme. We have gaiued nothing
for ourselves but the vulgar applause of our cheap newspapers
and whatever empty gratification may be derived from the fact
that others have not yelled back at us language quite as violent
as our own. The insane Spanish mob at Barcelona are the
brothers of our Senators. Both are acting in the same spirit,
but the Spanish government promptly apologized for its lunatics
as civilized governments do for discourteous act or word,
whereas our ofticials aud Statesman led the rioters instead of
voicing the highest sentiments of the country.
A foreign policy long continued on the new lines will
speedily make the United States hated and distrusted every¬
where. We will take our place with bullies like England and
Chauvinists like France; aud strong as we may be, we will
surely have our bitter experiences, as the former did at York-
town, and the latter at Sedan. Those who live by the sword,
perish by the sword. The demand to-day for ships and guns is
a savage, reactionary cry—a demand that henceforth the United
States shall join iu that very arming of the nations which
hitherto we have decried. Let no man deceive himself that this
"war business" can be done in moderation. Guns beget guns
and warships warships. The history of the world shows how
prolific these articles are. It is the flrst step that counts. New
condititions are by it created, aud these conditions will master
the policy of this nation and drive the coming generations into
situations undreamt of to-day.
Every patriot and true lover of his country should strive to
bequeath not the biggest navy and a bloody renown, but the leg¬
acy of peace to the age that is to succeed his, and this boon is to
be secured ouly by setting the face to-day firmly against every¬
thing that does not make for the conditions of peace—for the
absence of hard feeling between ourselves and other nations,
and for the lack rather than the abundauce of inflammable war
material, for the rash, the foolish, the ambitious to set fire to
some day. Ours should be that spring ploughing for which
Grant restored the cavalry horses of the vanquished at Appo¬
mattox. jThereis enough of this kind of work to be done on this
continent for generations to come.
Our people want internal prosperity, immunity from every sort