Year: 1873

pectstiens az the Country and the
Prospect.


We are within two days of the meeting Of
Congress. The appointed time for the
assembling of the two houses is the first Mon
day in December, which this year will be the
first day of the month, Monday next. The
President in the discharge of his constitutional
duty, as usual, will submit to the two houses,
in his annual Message, Conformation OF the
state Of the Union" embracing the executive
acts OF the government since the last session;
and, upon our foreign and domestic affairs, he
will recommend ssuch measures as he shall
judge necessary and expedient" A financial
crisis and questions involving the honor OF
our flag and the rights Of our citizens abroad
are upon us, and prompt and decisive
measures OF relief and reparation in
regard to these important matters
are demanded aud expected by the people
from the President and from Congress Look
ing for relief from our existing financial en-
barrassments, and for a definite and final
settlement of our complications with Spain
and Cuba the eyes and the hopes of the
country are turned to Washington. The gen.
eral inquiry upon these great and weighty
questions now SO actively agitating the public
mind is, What will be the Presidents report
and recommendations and what will be the
measures adopted by Congress?


1t is not yet settled that diplomacy will
take the place of iron-clads in the adjust
ment of our difficulties with Spain and her
ofN Nv1I,o
Between peace and war the issue seems to
be trembling in the balance. We expect,
in any event, heightened list of recon
mendations to and requisitions upon Con-
gress from the Message adapted to the
conditions Of the peace establishments, and the
peculiar conditions of the peace establish
ment we apprehend, win be held by the
President and by Congress as calling for ex-
traordinary expenditures of the public money
in every direction. Carried in by the great
tidal wave of 1872 the administration has an
overwhelming majority in both houses. No
President since Monroe has had such pow
erful backing in the House and the Senate as
General Grant will have in this our Forty
third Congress. With this majority, too,
there is apparently prevailing opinion that
desperate cases call for desperate remedies,
| and that the administration shares in this
opinion, in regard to our present financial
troubles, there are many reasons for believing.
The country expects relief, and immediate re-
lief, and, failing to give it, the administration
and the party in power know that they will be
held responsible in the elections OF next
autumn for the Forty-fourth Congress.


What, then, will be the recommendations Of
the Message in the form of measures of re-
lief from our existing financial arrangements?
From General Grants reported conversations
on the late panic, its causes, consequences
and remedies, he will propose some radi cal
changes in our national banking system, the
conversion of certain bonds into currency,
temporary imitation of greenbacks for immedi-
ate necessities, real or imaginary; a postal
savings bank, increased taxation in external
and internal revenue bills to meet the de-
mands of the national debt and increased ex-
penditures for the army and navy, including
new vessels of war with the latest improvements
in iron-clad ships. The Indian tribes and
reservations will call for millions of money.
The extensive system of projected trans-Alle-
| ghany and seaboard canals, first submitted to
the two houses in December last; Niagara
ship canal, river and harbor improvements and
large appropriations for the public works Of
the District OF Columbia, and for public build
ings in many of the States and Territories,
WILL it is reported, be among the recommen-
dations of the Message And we know from
experience that the annual appropriations of
Congress are more likely to exceed than fall
short of the budget of the Message. They
who expect retrenchment and reform from the
opening session of the Forty-third Congress
will find themselves at its adjournment, we fear,
as grievously disappointed as were the hope
full believers in the purity Of the republican
party at the close of the Forty second Con-
gress. We dare say that the propositions of
the Message will require an extraordinary cata-
logue of heavy expenditures and increased tax
alton to cover them and that the two houses
will go far beyond the Message in their drafts
upon the public Treasury and the pockets of
the people.


We understand that there will be larger
and more powerful lobby, or congregation of
lobby companies, at Washington this winter
than at any other period since that hopeful
city became the national capital. We are in
formed that conspicuous among the lobby
companies will be the third house operating
for relief, in the shape Of q loan, to the unfor-
tunatc Northern Pacific Railroad; that there
will be joint stock alliance of various Pacific
railroads, under way or projected, for grants of
lands and bonds; that the Western grangers
will probably put in a claim for a double track
government railroad from ST. Panl OF St.
Louis to the seaboard (; that various other gov
ernment railway enterprises will be brought
forward, and that all the forces of the lobby