New-York tribune., 1873-01-01


to save France from any partisan follies, while
the Middle Ages in the person of NJ. de Cham
bord are waiting at FrohsdOrf for summons
to return, and the Man of Sedan is growing
stout at Chiselhurst and rehearsing new
comedies for his next engagement at the
Tuileries. France has not sinned deeply enough
to be punished by either of these scOurges.
AS to England, we cannot be expected to join
in the jeremiads which those two laureates OF
privilege, Mr. Punch and Mr.. Carlyle are
uttering over the downfall of caste
and the rise of the Plebeians in that happy
group of Islands. While English statesman
ship is doing its best for Ireland, while Ire
land is determined to show it can do still better
for itself while noblemen are becoming radi-
calls, and artisans are running for Parliament,
while the House of Lords does not veto the
act of the Commons, and the Government
thinks town meeting safer guide than the
counsel of peers, it is natural that alarm
should be excited in conservative bosoms.
But the democratic revolution is inevitable,
and it is pleasant to reflect that the inevitable
is usually the best thing III the end.
At home, the most important feature OF
pubic affairs has been the Presidential cleo
ton, of which the characteristics and results
are still freshly remembered. The Liberal
| movement originated in feeling OF dissatls-
faction at the methods adopted by the Grant
Administration for restoring the States recently
! in rebellion to their original Federal relations
| and i'm the sense Of need for general and
thorough administrative reform. The local
and temporary Governments of the Southern
l baI ING
ruinously expensive and sngularly ineffi-
cient Enormous taxation might have been
endured, if it had brought with it, through the
energy of State officers, anything ike peace
order, and the protection of personal liberty.
The organization of party sympathz-
ing, though quite within loyal limits, with
those who were so bitterly expiatng
their political errors, gave its opponents
an ample opportunity to revive the pas
sions. the batreds, and the prejudces of
the war; and it is hardly necessary for us to
say that the opportunity was amply improved
| Perhaps in no previous election has the enor-
nous power of President been so vigorously
and Systematically employed 1t is more evil
! dent than even in the days of the old Demo-
| cratic ascendency that the Presidents name
il a tower of strength, and that his bluDders
l
must be many indeed and his incompetency
unusual it, with the whole machinery of the
Government at his disposal, the Executive is
unable at the end of his first term to retain
his chair for vet another. 1t is to be hoped that
indirectly at least, the movement did some
| thing toward restoring the Government
| to q wiser and kindier policy. There may be
no opposition just now to be feared, but con-
tinued mistakes and a prolonged ineficiency
would be sure to create one. An Administration
by no means escapes difficulties, though it
may have an enormous majority of the popu-
lar vote behind it. Confidence abused might
soon be changed to cold distrust. If Presl-
dent Grant had received every vote cast at
the election it would not have made the Lou
lsiana trouble, for instance, morsel less press
| ing and puzzling. A glorious Republican VIC
| tory does not in the least alter the fact that
several of the States are still in condition
of anarchy or public insolvency. When the
guns have been fired, the flags displayed, the
banquets enjoyed and the general rejoicings
completed, the problems of finance, of recon-
struction. of social and public pacification, of
an honest and efficient Civil Service, are found
| to be as pressing for solution as ever.
There is reminiscence of this great contest
which will ever recur to us with the deepest
personal and private interest. The candidate
of those who could not cOnscientiOusly support
| Gen. Grant was the Founder and the Editor
of this newspaper. We might well have
borne his political defeat the death of such
man was not to be met with a similar equa-
nimity. His eulogy we have already pro-
nounced, and may THE TRIBUNE be monu-
ment not altogether unworthy of his great
mind, his greater heart, his simple wisdom,
and his unslumbering conscience! No Ameri-
can has departed during the year whose pres
ence will be so generally and feelingly missed
by so many different classes. No public man
has gone who has left behind him so pure
| and so wel-earned a fame. But we must
resist the temptation TO speak of him longer
on this OCCASION; and truly there is little need
that we should Could he but have lived he
might still have been at least the President of
his old and well beloved TRIBUNE constit-
uency. 1t is our consolation that the legacy of
his example could hardly have been brighter.
or, in his vocation, more complete.
In the world of trade and finance, three
causes of the first class have been actively at
work throughout the year, and are destined to
produce in all probability important effects
upon the future. /. The great demand for
manufactured products which arose on the
conclusion of the war between Germany and
France had already, at the beginning of the
year, produced an unprecedented rise in the
prices of the great staple articles of British
export. AT the same time the price of coal
more than doubled The consequences are
now showing themselves unfavorablY to Eng
lish commerce, for while the aggregate values
of most articles sent abroad have increased,
the quantities of IlaDy are decreasing. At
the same time an impetus has been given to