Year: 1872

HE ANN UdL MEDbdbE
The Presidents Message consists largely OF
resume of Department. reports-with which
we deal elsewhere moro in detail. 1t thus
gains in length but hardly in interest.


Its satisfaction over the success OF the
Treaty with Great Britain is natural. We did
not relish many of the steps in that negotia-
ton, and do not think highly of its tangible,
net proceeds. But we do value very highly
the triumph of the principle of Peaceful Arbi-
tration, and as highly the removal
of grave occasions for quarrel between
ourselves and Great Britain; and on
both these beneicent results the Presi-
dent may rightly felicitate his Admins
tration and congratulate the Country. Ihey


constitute q success as worthy of honor as
any he won during the war. We wish there


were not scandalous reports about the Mexican


border troubles, to which the President refers!


but what he says of them is well, and we


must trust Congress to see that no undue


use is made of it. The protest against the


United States citizens continuing to be Cuban
Shareholders is deservedly renewed; but 1t
does not touch the marrow of the Cuban dlf-
fculty. What the United States has needed
is not so much legislation against its citizens
who continue to hold slaves under the Span
ish flag as protection for It's citizens against
the outrages perpetrated under that flag.


We must frankly confess that We look with
apprehension on what the President says con-
cerning the gigantic plan of internal improve
ments, whereof he presents an outline.
Canals from the Mississippi to the Atlantic,
through South Carolina and Georgia
canals from the Ohio to the Allan
tic, through the Virginia mountains
canals around Niagara Falls and land
locked navigation from the coast of Maine
to the mouths of the Mississippi,-all


these constitute a programme which
we may be pardoned for regarding
askance, even when presented in guise


so little alarming as a Commission of Inquiry.


Is it wise for the General Government to


undertake such projects through our oldest


settled regions at all 7 Is is wise to under


take them now, or within the generation that


bears the burdens of war; Is there not
danger in this growing tendency OF


referring all matters of the kind to|
Government support and interference In a


word, are we not already centralized enough


Much may be said for each individual


measure which the President names; but are


they the business Of the General Government
now or soOn7


The renewed recommendation of the Postal


Telegraph system needs no such queries. WEI


believe it full of daDgers,-a wrong step In


theory, and likely to prove worse In practice'


1t will be opposed by many OF the Presidents


warmest supporters, and we sincerely trust


they may be powerful enough to insure Its


defeat.


No part of the Message better deserves the


consderate attention of the country than the


suggestions concerning the treatment OF the


Indian Territory south of Kansas. The


President has fairly struck the vicious point


in the present situation in declaring that the


Indians now situated upon the Territory


should be confined to farms of proper size,
and that tho rest of the land should be
reserved for Others who may be colonized
thither. In effect this means the aboli-
ton of the tribal system. Till that end
is secured, Indian civilization is an exotic.
Even with the best blood of our Anglo-Saxon
race, the abolition of clanship was indis-
pensable to the peaceful progress of the coun-
try. Among the Indians it is indispensable to
any self-sustaining civilization at all.


The District Of Columbia deserves, and we
hope may promptly receive, the Governments
Just share of the expense for the late city i'm
provements, in 80 far as they skirt Govern
ment property. The work of the Washington
Board of Public Works has had much harsh
criticism; but of the essential justice of the
Presidents recommendation in this particular
we do not see how there can be any doubt.
What the President says of the Civil Service
is less explicit and detailed than we could
wish. But we have heartily given him credit


for recent good acts in this direction; and we
hope for more of the same sort, whereby we
may better judge the brief paragraph with
which he here dismisses the subject.
The Message, as q whole, is a plain bust
ness document, exhibiting satisfactory ,con-


dition of the business of Government and the
Country, making no startling recommenda-