The Portland daily press., 1878-09-21
Kin Beyond Sea.

Ourna.
Kin Beyond Sea.
Mr.. Gladstone's paper In the current North
American is SO fatteringly phrased, and
abounds in so many and so evidently sincere
expressions of good will toward our people
that 1t will be read on this side the Atlantic
with great appreciation. The distinguished
author does not hesitate to express his be-
lief that the America will be stronger than
the England Of the future, and he points out
that while the United Kingdom has been ad-
vancing in wealth and material comfort dur
lug the last fifty years with portentous rapidi-
ty, the The United States is passing it by in
canter, and will by 1880 be the wealthiest of
all the nations. He dwels with unrepressed
admiration upon our history since the civil
war; how upon the restoration of peace our
innumerable soldlery was at once dissolved,
and "Cincinnatus no longer a, unique exam
pie, became the commonplace of every day,
the type and mould of nation" He recalls
to the minds of his countrymen that sWe
emancipated million negroes by peaceful
legislation; America liberated four or five
million by bloody civil war; yet the indus
try and exports of the Southern States are
maintained, while those of our colonies have
dwindled; the South enjoys all its franchises,
but we have, prob pudorl found no better
method of providing for peace and order in
Jamaica, the chief of our islands, than by the
hard and vulgar, even where needful, expe-
dent of abolishing entirely its representative
Institutions
sMore remarkable STILL" he says, "was the
financial sequel to the great conflict. The
internal taxation for Federal purposes, which
before its commencement had been unknown,
was raised, in obedience to an exigency of
life and death, SO as to exceed every present
and every past example. 1t pursued and
worried all the transactions of life. The in
terest of the American debt grew to be the
highest in the world, and the capital touched
e560,000,000. Here was provided for the
faith and patience of the people touchstone
of extreme severity. In England at the close
of the great French war, the propertied
classes, who were supreme in Parliament, at
once rebelled against the Tory government,
refused to prolong the income tax even for a
single year. We talked big, both then and
now, about the payment of our national
debt; but sixty-three years have now elapsed,
all of them except two called years of peace,
and we have reduced the huge total by about
one-ninth. that is to say, by little over e1OO,-
100000, or scarcely more than 91,500,O00 a
year. This is the conduct of a state eabor-
ately digested into orders and degrees, famed
for wisdom and forethought, and consolidated
by long experience. But America contin-
ued long to bear, on her unaccustomed and
still smarting shoulders, the burden of the
war taxation. In twelve years she has re-
duced her debt by 100000, or at the
rate of e13, 100000 for every year. In each
twelve months she has done what we did in
eight years; her self-command, self.denial,
and wise forethought for the future have
been, to say the least, eightfold ours. These
are facts which rebound greatly to her honor;
ana the historian will record with surprise
that an enfranchised nation tolerated burdens
which in this country a selected class, pos
sesssed of the representation, did not dare to
face, and that the most unmitigated democra-
cy known to the annals Of the world resolute-
ly reduced at its own cost prospective liabili-
ties of the state, which the aristocratic and
plutocratic and monarchical government of the
United Kingdom has been contented ignobly
to hand over to posterity."
These are the words OF admirat ion of the
greatest of living statesmen. Let US not in
the madness of the hour suffer ourselves to
become unworthy OF them.
But the chief object of Mr.. Gladstone's
paper is not to praise America and Ameri-
cans; it is to describe the practical workings
of the British Constitution. The "Kin Be-
yond Sea" are our British knsmen with
whom he seeks to make US better acquainted.
ThatxConstitution naturally enough, he pre-
fers to ours. He acknowledges that the two
peoples are much alike in many things.
They alike prefer the practical to the abstract.
They tolerate opinion, with only reserve on
behalf of decency. They set high value on
liberty for its own sake. They desire to give
full scope to the privileges of self-reliance,
and they deem self help to be immeasurably
superior to help in any other form. Fortu-
nately for the comparison and our reputation
the Eoglish statesman has taken no notice of
the rapid development in this country of
late of the doctrine of "Paternalism," the
dogma that the Government is in duty bound
to take care Of its subjects as father takes
care of his children, ito furnish them farms and
money. He did not know we were becoming
Russianizedl. Above all these people alike
mistrust the Capitalization of power, and
cherish municipal, local, even parochial liber-
ties, as nursery-grouAds, not only for the
production here and there of able men, but
for the general training of public virtue and
independents But in his view the two
Constitutions of the two countries express
rather the differences than the resemblances
of the nations. "The one is thing grown,
the other thing made: the one praris,
the other a poiesis: the one the offspring of
tendency and indeterminate time, the other
of choice and OF an epoch. But as the Brit
ish Constitution is the most subtitle organism
which has proceeded from the womb and the
long CESSATION of progressive history, so the
American Constitution is, so far as I can see,
the most wonderful work ever struck off at
given time by the brain and purpose of
man."
Yet he inclines to the belief that our instl-
tutions are on the whole less popular than
the British, that the British scheme gives
more rapid effect than THAT Of the Union to
any formed opinion and resolved intention of
the nation. He contends that our people
give over their power for four years to the
President, while the ever-shifting member
ship of Parliament, the provisions for its
dissolution and for a responsible ministry
liable at any time to retire in obedience to
the popular demand, keeps the Administra-
ton more in sympathy with the people and
more dependent upon popular opinion. To
sustain this view he exhibits at considerable
length the practical workings of the British
constitution, the limited power of the King,
dependent always upon the House of Com