The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-08 00:00:00

SENA 7 OR BEN WADE.

BENJAMIN WADE, placed as he just now is, ex-
cites great interest throughout the Union. His
character, his temper, and bent of mind, his ante-
cedents are all closely scanned, as most people hold
it to be little short of a certainty that he will soon
be seated in the Presidential Chair. Mr. WADE
was chosen to preside iu the Senate when men were
filled with the fear aroused by the awful threats of
ANDREW JOHNSON. What the bold Tennessee
partisan leader would do with a bumptious Congress
created the more dread that nobody knew what he
could do, and to have a game cock to pit against
him the bold BEN WADE was selected as leader.
Congress has certainly, in its gropings in the dark,
tumbled into numberless pitfalls. Could the Senate
have foreseen what has occurred the last man
they would have chosen was BENJAMIN WADE, but
his coach at present stops the way, and till it drives
on there is no getting rid of him ; it was, too, placed
there by themselves, and they must make the most
of it, although the story of a similar vehicle which
broke down and is being dragged out of the way is
not encouraging. The Cincinnati Gazette has given
in full detail an interview between Senator WADE
and a correspondent, the cream of which we will
endeavour to skim. Mr. WADE objects to being
made a piece of a President though desirous of
being a whole one. To fill up the few remaining
months of the term will fix on him all the worry,
while giving little of the pleasures of office.
Though without the chance of making a career,
he will raise up thousands of enemies by his ap-
pointments, which can be made quickly, but not
friends by his administration, which requires time.
Having been long in Congress he thoroughly un-
derstands its temper, and the first thing he will do
is to bring the Executive Department of the Go-
vernment into harmony with the Legislative. He
considers that all the mischief bas arisen from
Presidents adopting a policy. It is the duty of
Congress to do this, and that of the PRESIDENT to
execute it. He has, therefore, no policy, and does
not intend to have any. His first Executive mea-
sures will be for the protection of the real Union
men in the South. Though in favour of equal
justice, he believes that the Southerners require to
be ruled with a firm hand, and to be prevented from
disobeying the laws, or interfering with the rights
of others. A point on which he feels strongly is the
reduction of expenditure, which ought to come
down nearly to where it stood before the war.
Connected with this is the necessity of stopping the
outrageous system of fraud and peculation beneath
which the Government staggers, which threatens
his party's life and his country's prosperity. He
insinuates that it has grown to its present gigantic
dimensions under Mr. JOHNSON'S administration,
who has used the people's money with a lavish
hand to corrupt the people. This, he says, must
be reversed as quickly as an engineer would reverse
his locomotive when he saw a broken bridge ahead.
In levying taxes he will keep one principle before
him to strive to relieve industry of its burdens and to
secure relief to the labouring classes from foreign
competition; and this, he admits, means a high tariff,
which he considers to be thebest method of protecting
the working men. On the subject of the Alabama
Claims he has never been committed by any public
speeches. He favours the collection of the Claims,
and their immediate settlement by a treaty, consi-
dering the indications abroad confirm the wisdom of
such a course. Pointing to his political career, he
opposed Mr. LINCOLN'S course in pocketing the
Congressional Reconstruction Bill, and setting up a
policy of his own. Only a short time before his
assassination Mr. LINCOLN told Senator SUMNER
that that was the great error of his life. In answer
to the half-frightened glance the country has cast
on Mr. 'WADE, he asks—" Now, what other intem-
perate measures have I taken ? I am very proud
that from the Committee on Territories I reported
:he first provision prohibiting slavery in all the
territory of the United States to be subsequently
acquired. I reported the bill for Negro Suffrage in
the District of Columbia, and I got it, ou the very
first day of the session. I got the Homestead Bill
through the Senate. I got Nevada and Colorado
into the Union, after a whole winter's debate ; and,
right or wrong, I led in the Senate in the division
of Virginia and the formation of the New State of
West Virginia. These are some of my main acts,
and by them I am perfectly willing to be judged."
Alluding to the report that he was not on good
terms with GRANT, he asserted that they had always
been friends, and the story so generally circulated

was untrue of his saying " that when he talked
politics GRANT talked horse," as he had never sail
that nor anything like it. We give here other re-
ported sayings of Mr. WADE, which our readers
will take for what they are worth. In answer to
the question whether he intended to resign, "Of
course I don't; you might as well ask whether the
State of Ohio, that sent me to the Senate, is going
to resign ; and in the interest of that State, I in-
tend to cast my vote on Impeachment." To the
query as to the period the trial would last, he
asserted that "if those fellows in the House had
confined themselves to the first Articles they pre-
ferred, I suppose the whole thing would have been
over in less than four weeks ; but this spread-
ing out of the net may 133 the means of pro-
longing the case." When pushed for an
opinion of the specified time, five weeks being sug-
gested, Mr. WADE considered " that it could not
take much more than five weeks ;" " and then,"
said his interlocutor, " you take possession of the
White House." " Well, I suppose so," was the
answer, "if the Senate decide against ANDREW
JOHNSON. Ido not want the position, but if I be-
come entitled to it, I have no objection." It is
alleged that the hostility to Senator WADE in-
creases daily iu the Senate. The New York Nation
says, " Should he reach the office, he will be the
fourth man of the kind that has filled it. JACKSON
was the first, and although he enjoys, and is en-
titled to, some credit for his manner of dealing with
nullification, he debauched the public service, and
thus inflicted on the country, the disease which, at
this moment, places the Government in greater
peril than secession has ever done, and he set an
example of high-handed contempt for the Legisla-
ture which has probably not been without effect on
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. LINCOLN was the second, and he
was so clearly an exception to all rules, that we can no
more deduce from his career any conclusion favour-
able to the claims of men of his training and ex-
perience to high offices of Government than we can
deduce from NAPOLEON'S a conclusion favourable
to the military talents of natives of Corsica. Of
Mr. JOHNSON we shall say nothing—or only this :
that we could, with a very small amount of trouble,
produce evidence that a good many people who
were most delighted three years ago with his early
ignorance and his want of social experience, have since
acknowledged that it is not a good preparation for
the highest place in the government of a great
country to pass the flower of one's years in the
practice of one of the rudest and simplest of the
'manual arts, and in the company of the most
illiterate and coarsest portion of the community.
We have no desire to prejudge Mr. WADE, but
we have a right, in view of what the country has
just gone through, to say that the presumption is
entirely against his fitness for the place for which
the Senate so strangely selected him. He has a
large number of Mr. JOHNSON'S faults of temper ;
his education is not much if any better. He owes
all his political distinction to his fidelity and courage
in the anti-slavery struggle, and that struggle is
probably the only subject which he fairly under-
stands. He is lamentably ignorant with regard to
the various econeimical questions by which the
country is beset, and if he has any opinions on
finance at all, they are probably not very favourable
to the maintenance of the national credit. In
his selection of his Cabinet, he is likely to prefer
zeal—of which we have already as much as the
country can stand—to discretion and knowledge,
which the country is dying for want of. What is
worse, he will probably, with that blind reverence
for party traditions and practices for which men of
his stamp are generally remarkable, feel that his
first duty in office is to use the Federal patronage
to help the Republican party at the Presidential
election—which is simply another way of saying
that he will do what he can to increase the corrup-
tion and debauchery, waste of the public money
and degradation of Government officials, which
have made the civil service as great a disgrace as
ever befell a Christian country. For the like of it
we have to search the chronicles of the worst Eu-
ropean monarchies in the eighteenth century. This
is the course which experience and principles of
human nature fairly warrant us in expecting
him to follow, and those who have put him in
his present position have no right to expect that he
will not follow it, but then he may disappoint every-
body, ourselves included. The scenes in which he
is now so prominent an actor, and the trials which
he is doubtless receiving, may put him on his guard,
and thus make him harmless. His integrity and
loyalty nobody doubts, and nobody questions his
personal claims to estee:n ; but the world, alas !
has not yet been committed to the government of
the good-hearted." At a meeting in Washington
of Radical Southerners, on the 16th March, Mr.
WADE was nominated for President, and Senator
WthsoN for Vice-President. On calling on Mr.
WADE, however, no encouragement to proceed was
given, neither Mr. WADE nor Mr. WILSON believ-
ing that they had any chance whatever against
GRANT, and both desiring the second place on the
ticket.—AnglozAnterican Times.

AMERICAN MARKE7S.

(Front Beldiny, Keith, and Co.'s Circular.)

liEw YORK, March 20.
Our last advices by mail are to 21st March, when tihe
principal excitement was speculation in Erie Railwiay
stocks, to which even the impeachment had given way in
interest, and schemes in regard to avoiding the crisis
which such speculations produce have succeeded those
offered for funding the public debt—as to which we quote
from Thompson's Reporter :

"After Vanderbilt had ousted Keep, Lockwood, and the
Express Company from the Central Road, he matured a
plan to control the Erie. Drew sold the stock—sold it
short —sold • calb,' and bought puts,' not dreaming
that he was in Vanderbilt's maw. Drew was 'cor-
nered,' and to extrica`e himself obtained a vote of the
Erie Board to make an extra, extraordinary, and, it
is thought by some, a fraudulent issue of shares—the
amount not positively known, supposed to be 10 millions.
These D. sold, and V. absorbed them also. V. is said to
hold now 20 million dollars of the shares. Drew is pro-
bably short about 15 millions. Fearing, or pretending to
fear, that D. and his associates were about to issue an-
other instalment of shares, V. procures an injunction
against any such issue. At this point opens the rapid ju-
dicial cross-firing. Drew and his associates flee to New
Jersey, to avoid the sheriffs', receivers', and judges' orders.
The proceeds of the 10 millions of over-issued stock, some
seven millions, is one of the plums in this pie. D. clings
to it ; V. is after it; the game is in full play. The indica-
tions now ara that a large part of the directors of the Erie
will resign. They are embarrassed. They plead that they
did not understand Drew's operations."

The following plan to relieve the money market of the
pressure caused by such operations is considered the most
favourable that has been offered, and was addressed to the
Hon. E. D. Morgan, of the United States Senate :—" It is
notorious that stock operators have repeatedly made at-
tacks upon the money market in order to win in their
gambling games. Only last week the bears on Erie drew
in seven millions of legal tenders from the banks and locked
them up, and in so doing created a panic in Wall-street.
The banks were forced into a coutraction, and Government
securities declined 2 to 2i per cent. These panics disturb
the whole country. If there is power resting in Congress
to obviate these troubles, it should be brought into action.
I venture to suggest the following for the double object :
First, it will be a terror to stock operators, and they will
let the money market entirely alone. Second, it will
assure the public that no very stringent and protracted
time of panic can take place. The worst that can happen
to the money market is a seven per cent. rate of interest
on Government Stocks, with a wide margin. The plan is
as follows :-1. Pass a mandatory Act that the Secretary
of the Treasury prepare thirty millions of Legal-Tender
Notes, and put twenty millions of them in New York, five
millions in Boston, and five millions in Philadelphia,
with instruetfores to the assistant treasurers in these cities
to loan these notes on Government stocks, on call, at
per cent. interest, always taking bonds as security at not
more than 80 per cent. of their value. 2. As the loans are
paid, the legal tenders to be held in reserve for future loans
of the same kiwi ; and nothing but legal tender notes to be
taken in payment of these loans. The interest to accrue
to the Government. 3. On these terms loans will be made
only in a very tight time; and in such emergencies it
seems to be the duty of the Government to do what the
Bank of Eugland does in the financial revulsions of that
nation —give an expansive feature to the currency, and
break the panics. 4. I do not p:opose this measure with
any idea that it shall run into a fixed expansion of the
currency, but, on the contrary, I believe this measure will
make contraction easier and safer, inasmuch as disaster
and revulsions are guarded against."
The Money Market is reported thus :—Last week we
noted a growing tendency toward derided stringency in
money. This week this tendency has been fully developed.
The last bank statement showed that the Associated Banks
had lost $6,548,000 in deposits, of which $969,000 was in
the form of specie; and $2,278,000 in legal tenders, while

the loans had increased $2,340,0000 This condition Of
things appears to have been due chiefly"to the removal
from the banks of the funds derived from the sale of the
new issue of Erie stock. It appears, however, that at the
same time the Treasury was in want of currency, and that
it had recently called in a large amount from the
National Depositories (whose Government funds are
mostly held on deposit by our banks), and sold a
certain amount of gold; so that, within about ten
days, the Sub-Treasury balance had been increased
over $5,000,000. This movement brought the crisis to
a climax. The utmost difficulty was experienced in bor-
rowing money, and outside the banks the rate on demand
loans has been mostly over 7 per cent. On Wednesday,
the Government bought a round lot of Seven-Thirties and
placed to the credit of disbursing officers a large amount of
funds, causing a reduction in the Sub-Treasury balance of
$4,600,000 ; which produced a slight relaxation of the ex-
treme stringency. But the market has nevertheless con-
tinued very " tight," and up to the close a large amount is
loaned at exceptional rates. Upon Governments I per cent.
has been paid for one day, and i per cent. for three days,
and even in exceptional cases per cent. for days; whilst
on the stocks the differences oa buyer's options above
cash sales ruled in about the same proportion. In Ten-
nessee* per cent. was paid for 30 days, on Erie / per cent.
for 10 days, and 1 per cent. for 30 days ; and upon other
shares, even 1t to if per ceut. was given for 30 days'
option, 7 per cent. interest being added in each case.
Money is 7 per cent. sharp. Gold is 139 to 140.
We quote stocks as folio ws Offered. Asked.
United States 6's, registered, 1881 1111 111/
17 registered, 1831 ... 111 i 111*
5-20 1862 1071 1071
71
77 coupon, 1862 110 f 110
5-20 registered, 1864 ... 107 i 1071
coupon, 1864 ... 108, 1081
5-20 registered, 1165
17 coupon, 1865 ... 198 f 108
5-20 registered, 1865, new... 104 1071
17 coupon, 1865, new ... 107 f. 107
77 5.20 registered, 1867 1071 107
77 coupon, 1867 ... 107/ 107 f
10-40 registered ... 101 f 1081
77 coupon 101* 1011
7-30 notes, 2d series 106/ 1061
77 31 series 106/ 1061
As to finances in Congress, the principal move has been
the passage by the Senate of the bill relieving certain
manufacturers from internal taxation. The overwhelming
affirmative vote by which this bill was passed (thirty-six
to three) unerringly reflects the public sentiment on
this subject. The heavy burdens imposed upon all
branches of manufactures have been more than the
industry of. the country could bear, and while
some $60,000,000 is to be lopped off from the revenue
by the terms of this bill, it must be remembered that
the remission goes hand and hand with an economy
in the appropriations of the Government, so that there is
still left a wide margin of receipts to meet all obligations.
For the evident purpose of making up the deficiency which
will be caused by this reduction, all manufactories are to
be taxed the sum of two dollars on every one thousand
dollars' worth of goods sold annually above ten thousand
dollars, provided that the manufactories are not specifically
taxed.

It seems to be pretty generally conceded that Congress
will not pass any act this session as to funding—the rea-
son for which the Journal of Commerce alloges to be that it
will deprive all parties of political capital and put it in this
mine.

" Our readers will not fail to notice the proceedings in
Congress yesterday touching the shipbuilding interest,
which made our article this morning especially applicable.
Congress •is willing, it seems to take off ene hundred mil-
lions from the revenue in the forlorn pope of thereby
benefiting other branches of manufactures that have been
injured by its previous legislation, but it has not a• word
of hope for the shipping interest. The 'Western mem-
bers who are attached to the majority appear blinded to
everything but the seeming interests of party, and
are laying up for themselves and their constituency a
store of 'remorse for their present course. They are pro-
posing to h Live the revenue, injure the public credit,
tumble down the price of bonds both at home and abroad,
with no prospact of benefiting anybody by the rash expe-
riment. All this time the open path to national prosperity
invites them in vain; it promises no party capital, and has
therefore no attraction for their reluctant feet."

COMMERCIAL EPITOME.
(From the Financial Chronicle.)
Business still wears a rather dull aspect, and prices in
some cases have receded, while in but very few articles
can we note any activity or buoyancy. The removal of a
long list of taxes by Congress, to take effect on the Ist of
April, may cause some disposition to delay, in order to
observe the effect. The sudden stringency of the money
market has also induced more caution among buyers as
well as increased the number of sellers.

Cotton has a dragging market and closes heavy.
Breadstuffs have bean dull and declining, but closed more
steady on an export demand. There has been more doing
in tobacco, but the principal transaction has been a cargo
of Kentucky for Spain. Groceries have shown a good
degree of activity in sugars, molasses and teas, of which
the receipts have been very large, under which there has
been some yielding in prices. 'Coffees have been quiet
until to. day, when, with better foreign advices, prices
improved with some business—prime Rio being advanced
to 19c. gold, duty paid.

Rides have been fairly active and firm ; the late transac-
tions include 12,000 dry Buenos Ayrs kip at 18 c ;
gold. Leather is doing better for hemlock, and oak cropped
is firmer.

Petroleum has been without essential change ; supply
and demand both limited. Crude 18e. in bbls., and refilled
in bond 26c. for standard white. The excise is to be re-
duced one-half.

Naval stores have been fairly active but at declining
prices; the probable removal of the tax on spirits turpen-
tine weakens the prices, and it closed at 65c. Common
and strained rosins were dull at $3 to $3 25.
Oils have been quiet except a quiet business in prime
crude whale at 70c., and in lard oil at $1 40 for prime.
Metals have been weak, but leading to a better business
in lead and speller.
East India goods have been quiet, except a movement
in gunny cloth at 91-c. gold, in bond.
Tallow has advanced, prime closing at 121 c. to 121 c.,
and stearine is decidedly higher at 151 c. to 16c.
Fish, fruits, hops, hay, whisky, building materials, and
other merchandise have been quiet.
Wool has been rather quiet; buyers holding off but with
a reduced stock, prices are well supported.
In provisions the advices from abroad and from the
West are of a more favourable character, and we notice an
increasing disposition to operate on the part of shippers,
speculators, and regular dealers, and prices of hog products
generally have more strength, the advance on some arti-
cles during the past two or three days being very decided.
The offerings are rather moderate, and the stocks not in-
creasing with the rapidity usual at this season of the year,
holders have more confidence. To-day the movement
was especially heavy, pork closing at $24 80 to $24 90
cash and regular for new mess, and $22 50 to $22 75 for
prime mess, including 1,000 ,bbls of the latter for export,
and lard after selling largely at 16ic to 161 c for prime,
was held at 17c at the close. Cumberland bacon firm at
12c.

Freights have been dull and rates drooping. The latest
business by the Liverpool steamers was at fc. for cotton
and 6c. to 6ic. for grain. Several petroleum and stave
charters have been made, with two for corn to Cork at 6s.
3d. direct, or 6.F. 9d. if for orders. A. late San Francisco
circular reports that, notwithstanding the recent disposi-
tion of a large number of vessels, the supply of tonnage in
port continues out of all proportion to the wans of our re-
port trade.

[ADVERTISERENT.3—Henceforth no one will doubt the valuable
properties of Du Barry's health-restoring Revalenta Arabica
Invalids' and Infants' Food, since to the thousands of blessings
it has already received from Invalids whose position had been
deemed hopeless, we may now add that of his Holiness the Pope,
whose health has been perfectly restored by it after thirty years
of unsuccessful medical treatment. We quote from the "Gazette
du Midi," July 25th :—" Rome, July 21, 1866.—" The health of
the Holy Father is excellent, especially since, abandoning all
other remedies, he has confined himself entirely to Du Barry's
Revalenta Arabica Food, of which he consumes a plateful
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de Brehan, of seven years' liver complaint, wasting away,
debility, nervousness, with a nervous palpitation all over, bad
digestion, constant sleeplessness, and the most intolerable ner-
vous agitation. Cure No. 1,771: Lord Stuart de Decies, Lord
Lieutenant of Waterford, of many years' dyspepsia. N 0.49,832 :
" Fifty years' indescribable agony from dyspepsia, nervousness,
asthma, cough, constipation, flatulency, spasms, sickness, and
vomiting.—Maria Joly." Cure No. 46,270: Mr. James Roberts,
of Frimley, Surrey, of 30 years' diseased lungs, spitting of blood,
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Beware of the many unsavoury and more than sloppy imitations
to which, without authority Baron Liebig's name is most auda-
ciously attached

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