Year: 1874

Whether the declaration of the Union Re-
publican Congressional Committee was the
fruit OF general consultation among the
leaders of the party, or was simply made up
by the members of the COmmlttee-ail OF
them second OF third class p0liticians-out of
their own heads, it is likely to lead to trouble.
On the one hand it is cavalier towards the
President in "A most astonishing degree 1t
deliberately censures some of his official acts
such as the negotiation of the Reciprocity
Treaty; it refuses to approve his financial policy
and it discountenances his evident disposition
to coquette with the x-Confederates,-for
it insists upon the Civil Rights bill, and has
not word of hope for plundered South Caro-
lima and oppressed Louisiana. To the white
people of the South it says in effect that
things must go on in the old way dislOyalty
has not been punished enough; the rebels OF
1861 must still be scourged by rapacious pro-
consuls and mobs OF ignorant and brutal
legislators.


On the other hand, 1t carries dismay into
the distracted Republican camps of the West
During the past year the statesmen OF the
party in the grain regions have been stuffing
wisps of hay down their coat collars and
smearng their boots with the soil of the barn
yard for the particular ediication of the
Patrons of Husbandry. They have haunted
the conventions Of the Changers, and chased
the dscontented Farmers over many rough
field, promising to do anything in the world
to please them, putting anti-monopoy
resolutions into their State platforms.
and passing railway laws with the
most reckless disregard of common sense
and political economy. 1t is only few days
since the Republican Convention of Iowa
declared it to be not only the right but the
duty of the State to regulate fares and
freights on the railroads, and gave its unquali-
fed approval to the statutes by which Iowa
has already attempted to carry out that prin-
cple In Illinois the Republican Convention
last month demanded State and National
legislation for the reduction of transportation
charges. In Wisconsin q large division of the
Republicans resolutely sustains the Potter law
Ia fact, wherever the party has ventured to speak
at all it has taken the Changers side. But
here comes the Union Republican Congress
sional Committee, the Ecumenical Council of
the party, shouting that the Changers are all
wrong. "In some of the States it has been
proposed to place railway fares and freights
"undcr the control Of the State. The objec
" tions to that expcdent are so serious that
at should not be embraced if a better one
"can be found. This country is so new, so raw,
" so undeveoped, the demands for capital are SO
"many, and SO urgent that any policy which
would tend to drive capital from us
"should be avoided if possible TO ruin
the railroads by fixing the rates too low would
be greater disaster, according to the Com
mttee, than to oppress the people by fixing
them too high. If the rates named will af-
"ford slight return on the capital, existing
" companies may continue To run, but no more
"capital will encounter like risks. If the rates
"will yield no return the road cannot he run.
Company and community III that case are
alike ruined. This expedient seems too haz-
"ardous to adopt if better can be found.'
And then the Address proceeds to indicate
another expedent. namely, the great scheme
of river and canal improvement which is to
nobody knows how many hundred millions.


Whatever may be thought of this plan, it
certainly does not meet the present wants of
the Grangers, and is not the remedy they
have deliberately chosen for their troubles.
1t is not to be supposed that, for the sake of
the relief that competition may afford them
at some distant time, they will consent to
forego the heroic methods of treatment they
have adopted to meet an existing complaint
-aeA bs4Sq A9 Aadllsi is uko1 tq increase