The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-02-12
CoLFAX ON GRANT.
The Vice Presidents Estimate of the Presi'
dents Administration.
From the independently

From the independents
Standing on the threshold of the New Year,
with ten months of the administration OF Presl-
+ dent Grant before the country and the world. 1t
is a fitting time to consider the present condition
of affairs, and to contrast it with March last,
when he took the solemn oath that invested INN
with the power conferred on him by the popular
vote.
ECONOMY.
In every branch of the public service his orders
initiated r~etrenchments, which have been and are
being carried out with zeal and fidelity. Useless
Offices have been discontinued the clerical force
in the departments has been largely decreased !;
the army was promptly reduced very many OF
the surplus military officers, resulting from the
reorganization OF the. regiments, have been Or
dered into service as Indian agents, thus saving
tine salaries of al equal number OF %cIvlllans ana
unnecessary appropriations have not been used.
HONEST COLLECTIONS.
With taxation diminished from last year, the
revenue has steadily increased, abating the dis
content which always exists when the honest tax
payer is compelled to bear his own burden and
the burden that should fall on the dishonest tax
payer besides.
RINGS.
With this increased efficiency and vigilance on
the part of the revenue officers, the Whisky Ring,
once 30 widespreading and powerful, no longer
exists in an organized capacity anywhere III our
cities or throughout the land. And the Gold
Ring. which caused such wild excitement a few
1nODlns ago, lclJ LIlc power u tHO SoH@Sh "hN
his Financial Secretary at a timely moment 80
that it has not since shown signs OF life or action.
THE DIET.
Month by month the people have witnessed
with intense satisfaction the steady reduction Of
the National Debt. The monthly bulletins Of the
Treasury Department have been successive CAM
paign documents in favor OF the Administration {;
and when the year expires over one-twentieth Of
the bonded debt viii have been paid.
GOLD.
Steadily, with the single exception already al
luded to, the premium on gold has declined not
by any extraordinary attempts of the Admins
tration to force or to hasten the resumption of
specie payments, but by the improved credit of
The nation reacting upon it. Already the very
narrow margin between the premium on gold and
the selling price of our bonds points Enthusiastically
10 the nearness of the time when the debt can be
funded at n much lower rate of interest, enabling
the country, in connection with other savings, to
dispense with scores OF millions of dollars OF tax
alton. PARDONs.
Instead Of the daily release of convicted offend
ers against the law, the exercise of Executive
clemency has been confined within proper and
healthy restrictions, alike just to the criminal
and the country he has wronged.
PUBLIC OFFICERS.
Whatever discontents there may have been as
to this or that appointment, no fair man can deny
that, as a whole, the nation has never had any
better array of officers. If the President could
BOSclDlO hdNC ONCh SdAdCo ny I4tlSl my CBll
ton, all would not have been satisfied with his
choice for, even if q dozen applicants were thor
oughly qualified, but one could be selected and
eleven with all their friends dissatisfied. And,
as there is no Congressman who will deny that
he has sometimes made mistakes in selections in
his own district, where he knows personally SO
many of his constituents, how could any Presi-
dent be infallible when he must depend for knowl-
edge as to Il very large proportion Of applicants
on the recommendations OF others?
RECONSTRUCTION.
BY the prompt and judiciouss action of the
President, under the large authority given to him
last April, in the closing hours of the first session
Of the Forty-first Congress, the work of recon-
struction draws rapidly to its close, and, before
the resurrection of spring g%laddens our hearts, we
may hope to see every state in the Union fully
represented in the National Councils.
THE INDIANS.
Under the Presidents firm but humane policy,
there have been fewer Indian outragcs and out
breaks between the Mississippi and the Sierras
than during any year since 1868. Peace to the
frontier settlements is a boon whose blessings and
joy few here can adequately realize.
CASTE.
In nothing has the Administration been more
positive and outspoken than in the advocacy Of
the Fifteenth Amendment, from the day that it
was recommended in the Inaugural till the pres
cnt hour, when its final ratification seems so near
at hand. And, before its formal adoption, the
President has illustrated his belief in its justice
by appointing to Office, of both higher and lower
degree, many whose race and color, irrespective
of their intellectual qualifications, had previously
placed them under the ban of official ostracism.
The following terse and emphatic remark of the
President to Attorney General HOar, and quoted
by the latter at tie recent New England dinner
in New York, is worthy to be printed in letters
Of gold:
81 hope to see the time when every man in
this country may have power to express his own
npininn m fnlInIy whom he plenspS ta vote oE Le
likes, and to have his vote counted, without mo-
l~estation, or hindrance, or insult. If we can only
unite in maintaining public faith and credit, our
political differences will not be of much account"
THE ALABAMA CLAIMS.
The brief but pointed illusions in the Presi-
dent annual message to " the only grave ques-
ton which the United States have with any for
eign nation y must be fresh in the memory of
all. And also his emphatic sentence:
"a sensitive people, conscious of their power,
are more at case under q great wrong, wholly UNI
atOned, than under the restraint Of a settlement
which satisfies neither their ideas of justice nor
their grave sense of the grievance"
If any amplification of the ground on which the
nation stands on this question was needed, the
mastery and u~nanswerable argument of Secretary
Fish, recently published, investing as it does with
new interest n theme SO deliberately argued here
toforc, shows how faithfully the Administration
is indicating 6 the rights, dignity and honor"
OF the United States.
CUBA.
The Presidents sympathies with sail people
struggling for liberty and selt-goyernment are
frankly stated in his message. But while thus
openly expressing them, he as frankly declares
that, :" no matter bow unpleasant the task,'' he
has endeavOred to execute our neutrality laws in
good faith. On the main subject he thus spoke
"The people and Government of the United
States entertain the same warm feelings and sym
pathies for the people of Cuba in their pending
struggle that they manifested throughout the pre-
vious struggle between Spain and the former
colonies in behalf of the latter but the contest
at no time assumed the conditions which amount
to n war in the sense of international law, or
which would show the existence of a de tacto
political organization of the insurgents sufficient
to justify a recognition of belligerency."
And he adds: Our course should always be
In cnnE.rrnitr Nth strict insticn and lnw intnr-