The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-11-03
ARE WE A SMART PEOPLE.

The time was when it was the fashion TO
depreciate Grant as a soldier and fairly
boot at him as q statesman. The great
ness Of his soldiership Is now placed be-
yond respectable dispute, and the time is
not far distant when Grants promptness
to urge the construction Of the Nicaragua
canal; his anxiety that the United States
should possess great naval and coaling
station in the West Indies; his ceaseless
iteration, on his return from his foreign
tour, concerning the vast field for Ameri-
can trade that would some day be found
by the Pacific coast in China and Japan,
will be appreciated as standing for supe-
rior qualities of practical craftsmanship.
Grant secured for US an option on the Bay
Of Samara and We CONTEMPORARY threw
it away and vilely impeached the motives
and wisdom of the great man who urged
rs 70 accept ii. Today we are suffering for
the want Of a naval station in the West
Indies.
Grant urged Us to keep on good terms
with China and TO nourish our trans
Pacific steamship line. Wehave managed
to give wanton offense to China; have lost
all the influence we once possessed at
Pekin, and it is reported that the Pacific
Mail and the rival steamship line on the
Pacific have joined their issues and made
an arrangement for joint venture in the
Asiatic trade. The trade of China and
Japan naturally belongs to the Pacific
coast, and under the continuous enforce
ment Of our old-time national policy, MAN.
tanned by Secretary Seward and Minister
Burlingame, the China trade would have
been ours. We are nearer to Shanghai,
measured by the present time Of ocean
transit, than We were to Liverpool twenty
years ago. With the completion of the
Pacific railways, the China and Japan
trade ought to have been assured to US,
but we have thrown away our opportunity
and England mas made the stone that we
rejected the head of her commercial
corner.
We had the first start in Japan, but Eng
land has taken her trade; we once had the
start in China, but England has It's trade
today and America has gone to the wall.
England has pushed her Canadian Pacific
across the continent and the Japan and
Chinese trade, both passenger and freight,
feeds the Canadian Pacific steamship line,
and crosses the continent in its cars.
Are we smart people? In our own
estimation, yes; but in sound foreign COM
mercial policy we are the most arrogant
and shallow people on the face of the
earth. We get there first generally, but we
never stay there: we are the worst-hated
foreign traders in all the ports of the
world; in South America, China and
Japan because we are arrogant, domineer-
ing and contemptuous in our treatment Of
foreign officials and their people. Eng
land, Germany and France all behave
with tact, courtesy and self-restraint
in dealing with foreign ports but your
average American is staggering "smart
Aleck" wherever he goes, and as conse-
quence the American smart Aleck" has
got badly "left" in his competition for the
trade Of the world, even when the natural
advantages of the situation were all in his
favor. Our foreign policy with China has
been foolish, and in the meantime England
has kept her temper, gI5en no needless,
wanton offence either in China or South
America, and the result is that England
has the trade Of these nations, and we
have to ride behind and take England's
dust. In large, long-headed sense we are
not people or a government of profound
commercial policy or sagacity, for we
always behave like those clumsy people
who never can drink without first splitting
in the cup.