Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1882-05-01
RIainn-Ralmnnf.

With the exception OF q lew hiue'
bound organs, which make it their pusl-
ness to defend a Radical, great or SMALL
when cornered, the press of the country,
while in some cases objecting to the pre-
else terms Of Mr.. Belmont's character
ization of Mr.. Blaine when he styled
him ''bully and coward, F." admit that
the retort was fairly provoked, If not
deserved.
Mr. Blaine went before the Foreign
Affairs Committee voluntarily. He was
given full scope, aud talked and ranted to
the top of his bent. He made short work
of Shipherd. but at the same time posed
admirably before the country in defense
of his peculiar South American policy,
which President Arthur threw over
board, and which it does not appear
President Garfield ever sanctioned, if he
knew of it at all.
Unfortunately for Mr.. Blaine. be
penned a dispatch to Minister Hurlbut on
August 4, 1881, of which the gist was
that recognition of the Landreau claim
was to be made condition precedent to
terms of agreement between Chilli and
Peru. This dispatch was Endorsed IN
the State Department as follows: "In
treaty of peace between Chill and Peru
provision must be made for recognition
by Chill of Landreau's claim as prior
lien upon any territory which Peru may
be required to cede to Chilli"
This was Blaines language, in sub
stance, on August 4, 1881. On Decem-
Der 18th Blaine wrote to Mr.. Prescott a
dispatch embodying the harmless por-
tions of that of August 4th.
The committee chose to let Mr.. Blaine
off on his own story, with the exception
of Mr.. Belmont. He exercised his privi-
lege and Intercepted the foxy statesman
as to his August dispatch. Blaine, being
cornered, Immediately claimed, with as
sumed irritation, that Belmont referred
to his harmless December dispatch.
He iterated and reiterated this
view with numerous side features,
in which he is fertile, till
he provoked the retort from Mr. Bel
mont that left him fat on his back. Mr.
Blaine's treatment of the young New
York Congressman was in keeping with
his coup d'efat with Mulligan and his
famous ''sunstroke." He stood fifty
per cent. higher in the estimation of all
parties before he entered the committee
room than when he quilted it.
The New York EUenirg Post, an even
tempered Republican journal, and any
thing but stalwart in its utterances, thus
remarks of Mr.. Blaine's performance:
"Now he BLAINE asserted that every
thing he did was inspired by the most
ardent devotion to the cause of peace;
and then he represented the war in South
America as an attack, not by Chill, but
by England upon Peru for the sake of
plumber, and giving us to understand
that, if he had had his way, England
would not have got that plumber without
fighting for it. Now by most wonder
full perversion of technical terms he
spoke of the Landreau claim as a
thing he was in duty bound to take
up without further inquiry-res Gd-
judjcata-because one house of Congress
had recommended it while the other
refused to notice it, and because the
State Department had declared it TO be
deserving inquiry without passing upon
its merits and without ex ressing the
least inclination to enforce the most
marvellous doctrine of res adjudicata
ever heard of; and then again he repre-
sented the same Landreau claim as a
thing of no importance which had abso-
lutely no influence upon his diplomatic
action. Mr.. Blaine has, in this very ex-
animation, been on so many sides of
every question, that he authorizes us to
use our discretion in judging where he
really was. And looking calmly at the
whole case, most people will come to the
conclusion that Mr.. Belmont was not far
out Of the way"