Changed Conditions

The Republican organs that preend to have discerned a weakening of Mr. Cleveland's purpose to secure 3. reform of the tariff probably do ïot deceive themselves. They cerainly will not deceive the country. The man who risked defeat for an otherwise sure re-election to the 5residency by forcing the issue of ariff reform because he believed it o be right, and who has adhered steadfastly to that issue ever since, s not at all likely to weaken in its support now that he has been sustained by the people and put in )ower to carry out his policy. To the sneering inquiry whether Mr. Cleveland now thinks that "it s a condition that confronts us, not a theory," the reply is: Yes, but, thanks to Republican profligacy and misrule, tfce condition is different and more perilous. When Mr. Cleveland spoke in 1S87 the condition was thus: A surplus of $60,000,000 in the treasury and an annual revenue of $100,000,000 in excess of the needs of the government; a strong gold reserve; a silver coinage which the jusiness of the country absorbed without serious consequences, and a war tariff af ter twenty-five years of jeace. Today, after four more years of S.epublican rule, the condition is this: An exhausted treasury; a revenue insufficient to meet the expenses of the government; the free gold reduced to $8,000,000, threeiourths of which has been loaned by the banks; a compulsory silver purchase and paper inflation which have driven gold out of the country and impaired public confidence, and a worse than war tariff that has been twice condemned by the country. Obviously the first duty is to meet the dangerous condition created by an empty treasury and a demoralized currency. All other reforms must wait upon these. If there shall be any delay in reforming the tariff it will be due not to Mr. Cleveland but to the men who have thus far refused to get the hindering