The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1891-05-27

The present immigration law is not
effective and satisfactory, although it
is an improvement on the old one.
The New Orleans episode has made
such decided impression on the coun-
try, and has brought the evils of un-
restricted immigration so clearly before
the people, that it seems probable that
the next congress will feel impelled to
take radical stand on the subject.
There are already far too many vicious
and undesirable foreigners in the coun-
try. 1t will be difficult job to assimi-
late them to our institutions, and an in
crease in the number will make the
problem far more serious.
The Japanese government is taking
steps toward altering its treaties with
foreign nations on the subject of COM
merce and internal business, and an in
structive lesson can be gained from the
attitude of the interested parties. II
is proposed to raise the tariff duties
from five to twelve per cent dd valoren,,
and to debar foreigners from the priv
ilege of acquiring freehold rights in
property, holding railroad and mining
shares or taking part in the coasting
trade. These are perfectly proper
measures, and they are just what the
United States to limited extent has
adopted in the spirit of protection.
But this course will be sure to injure
British and German financial interests
in Japan, and the governments of those
nations therefore unite in calling on
Japan tie reconsider its "illiberal " po-
sition. Any act is illiberal," of
course, which shuts out enterprising
Englishmen and Germans from max
ing money out of the less commercial
Japanese. If the United States were
not powerful nation, capable of look
ing out for itself, by force of arms if
necessary, we may be sure the same
demand would be made on it in respect
to the Mckinley law. The trouble
with Great Britain and Germany is
that they want markets for the great
quantities of goods which they manu-
facture, and they want markets from
which they can take away more than
they give. 1t is all very plain if one
thinks about it a minute or two, and
the strange part of it is that there are
not more nations which, like the United
States and Japan, prefer to do their
own business instead of having it done
in Europe.
THE one thing that can be said with
confidence about the Cincinnati con-
vention is that it expressed hostility to
capital, so far as capital is the instru-
ment by which the poor are kept poor
When that has been said, however, we
must leave all unity behind and ad-
vance to positions vague and contra
dictory, When the convention as
serted in its platform that it demanded
treasury instead of bank notes, free
silver coinage, national control or
ownership of railroads, loans on land
and crops, reclamation by the public of
land not in actual use, limitation of
revenue to expenses, an income tax,
popular elections of the president and
senators, eight hours as a working day,
ETC., it could hardly have believed that
in any or all of these demands lay sub
stantial relief from the evils the party is
organized to remedy. In this uncer-
tainty the weakness of the movement
will be found. The men at Cincinnati
have not advanced a principle-a CEN
trial idea-to which they can rally, i'm
pressed with the profound conviction
of its justice and practicability. In
concluding that the convention was, so
far as definite theory is concerned, at
sea, it is only fair to say that the very
small number of nationalsts and So
cialists who were present knew Just
where they stood. They were there
because they believed the convention
would show, unconsciously perhaps,
a drift toward industrial democracy,
and they wished to encourage it as
much as possible, hoping that the
movement would ultimately assume
socialistic shape. These nationalists
understood perfectly that loaning money
directly from the treasury TO farmers,
and even the naturalization of rail-
roads, would be but short step toward
their goal, yet they wished to have that
step taken in the hope that others in
the same direction would follow.
SOME of the Boston papers are a trife
mixed in their discussion of Vermont's
relations to the general government in
respect of the latter's alleged claim for