National Republican., 1877-10-27

man says to an American, on being intro
duced, or who happens to sit beside him at
dinner or elsewhere, is "Why does not
your country adopt free trader" II is la
mentable fact that large number of Amer
ican travellers, tlattered by the attentions of
the English whom they meet become
snobby at once, affect English notions, fall
in with English ideas, and, apologzing for
their own country's errors, according to the
British standard, declare themselves op-
posed to all that at home they pride, or
ought to pride, as right and good.
1t il rare that an American traveller con-
troverts the positions taken by his new
found companions on the other side of the
water against our form Of government and
our national policy. But President GRANT,
though more entertained and more aattered
than has ever an American been before, for
gets never his country and the good Of free
institutions, and the great progress which
under our national policy the country has
made and is making, and when he is at
tackled, as all Americans are, by the English
with complaints against US, he politely an
swers back and boards the British lion in
his very den.
Only the other day, at public banquet
given to him, the everlasting thrust at our
tariff and the common advice to this coun-
try to adopt free trade were given in the
speech Of the presiding officer. Gen. GRANT
did not play the toady and apologize nor
did he let the remarks go unnoticed. In
the quiet, laconic and effective manner
peculiar to himself he said that he had a
kind of recollection that England had II
protective tarifruntil her manufacturers were
established" and that American manufac-
turers were rapidly progressing, and Amer
lea was becoming great free trade nation" |"
And when he was in Manchester, soon
after his arrival, when he was receiving an
unlimited number of invitations to dinner
receptions and public and private enter
tainments from all the nobility and gentry
from all parts of England, he told the work
ingmen in public speech, that of all the
people in England he thought most of the
laboring population Of that place, because
they sympathized with his country in the
dark days of its trial and in its struggle
against rebellion and secession, and that too
ing business in their country that many Of
them were thrown out of employment and
offered themselves for the cause with which
they sympathized. This must have been
bitter pill to the aristocracy and govern
ing classes of England, whose sympathies
were nearly all on the other side but
GRANT felt AS he spoke; his words were
words OF truth, and he was not the man to
suppress them to please the nobility and
gentry Of Great Britain.
1t would be well if other American trav-
elers would profit by the example Of Gen,
GRANTS patriotic bearing, and remember
when they are surrounded by Englishmen
of the upper classes that they are American
gentlemen, and avoid the exhibition ol
themselves as sycophants, toadies and
snobs.
We have no idea that Gen. GRANT will
return home with foreign airs, an unnatural
imitation of foreign accent in his speech, q
contempt for our democratic form of gov
ernment, an admiration for the class and
caste distinctions of England, a plain eye
glass sticking over one eye, and an aban,
donment of all his republican American no,
tions, as too many of our shoddy travellers
do We are glad to see and to believe that
he will continue to be, and will continue tc
rema in, fair example of a thorough re
publican gentleman.