Senate Silver Bill

The finance committee of the senate has reported a free silver bill as a response to the suggestion of the president that such legislation be enacted as would save to the people in interest sixteen millions of dollars. It is ingeniously worded too, with the view no doubt of trapping the unwary. It provides for the coinage of all silver offered but says that the seignorage shall belong to the United States, and defines seignorage as the difference between the coined value and the bullion value of the silver. That is to say, if an individual should take silver to the mint the coined value of which which would be $10,000 while the bullion value was ónly $5,000, the individual would receive $5,000, or the bullion value of his metal, while the other 5,000 representing the seignorage would be covered into the treasury. This on the surface looks like a willingness on the part of the owners of silver to accept for the same its market value. Such is not the case, however. The silverites have their weathsr eye on the certainty of thus forcing the government to a silver basis, when the bullion value would no longer be the gold value, but the silver value. They would then pocket the entire ten thousand dollars and there would be no seignorage to go to the treasury. The scherne won't work, however. It is too transparent. It cannot pass congress and if it could it cannot pass the president. It will nevertheless have its influence in the impairment of the public credit. Last Tuesday, in various places throughout the length and breadth of this great country, exercises commemorative of the eighty-sixth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln were held. It is most fitting that the memory of this remarkable man should be thus honored, and every year witnesses a growing interest in the obssrvance of his natal day. The minds of the miilions of school children of the country are annually stored with the incidents and stories of his great life. His patriotic utterances are memorized and his heroic deeds are recounted, and those traits of character which made him the unrivaled leader and master are dwelt upon. It is well that this should be so. The more his life and work and character are studied, the more convincing becomes the proof that he was inspired of God for the work he accomplished. This thotlght was beautifully portrayed by Watterson in the closing paragraph of his oration at Chicago. He said: "Born as lowly as the Son of God in a hovel; of what ancestry we know not and care not; reared in penury, squalor, with no gleam of light or fair surroundings; without external graces, ctual or aequired; without name or fame or official training; it was reserved for this strange being, late in life, to be snatched from obscurity, raised to supreme command at a supreme moment, and intrusted with the destiny of a nation. Where did Shakespeare get his genius? Where did Mozart get his musicV Whose hand smote the lyre of the Scottish plowman, and staid the life of the Germán priest? God, God, and God alone; and so surely as these were raised up by God, inspired by God was Abraham Lincoln; and a thousand years henee no story, no tragedy, no epic poem will be iilled with greater wonder or be followed by mankind with deeper feeling than that which tells of his life and death." The senate has passed a bilí appropriating $500,000 with which to commence the construction of a cable to Hawaii and authorizing the president to contract for laying the ■ entire cable. It is extremely doubt' ful, however, whether it can pass the house, and judging from facts now at hand, it ought not to. It would bind the government to an enorraous expenditure - nobody knows how much. No estímate of the probable cost has been made, no survey has been undertaken nor any estimates as 10 its probable earning capacity. This is true, however, that no prívate compiny has ever been willing to undertake the work for the promised business profits. The population and business of the islands can hardly furnish sufficient business it would seem to pay the cost of operating, let alone a profit on the cost of construction. Besides, it has neverbeen the policy of our government to go into the cable laying business, and it is a bad time now to begin when our finances are in their present condition. The bilí should be rejected by the house. Again the silverite and republican croakers and insinuators in congress have been put to route. They have not hesitated to charge the president with bad faith and even w.ith personal dishonesty in the make-up of the provisions of the bond contract. Quite a sensation was gotten up over the imaginings and finally a member of each house introduced a resolution demanding that the contract be submitted to congress. At once the contract was sent to congress and was found to contain nothing that was not foreshadowed in the president's message. The sensation thus collapsed and the Cleveland haters were again caught in their own trap. Let us keep the immediate issue clear. It is whether congress is to be controlled by the silverites to the extent that on a transaction involving $62,000,000, they will Stick the country for an aggregate araount of over $16,000,000. Will congress put this amount into the pockets of the "gold-bugs," the "sharks" of Wall. and Lombard streets? This is the immediate issue. On this issue - and let no congressman deceive himself - on this issue business men are shoulder to shoulder with the president. They realize to the full the object lesson the president has just given. - Cincinnati Commercial Gazette. Every indication seems tp point to the early overthrow of the Rosebery ministry in England. The liberal majority has dwindled so low that the premier evidently hesitates to take up any of the great issues which are pushing forsolution. It looks very niuch as though the liberal party will again lay down the reins of government without having made any particular advance in the direction of home rule for Ireland, abolition of the house of lords or Welsh disestablishment. By-elections show a considerable loss in the liberal vote and an appeal to the country will probably result in an adverse majority. In the matter of the tract of land, jnown as the Missions, which was in dispute between Brazil and Argentina, and which President Cleveland was requested to arbítrate, his decisión seems to have been generally satisfactory. It gives a tract as large as New Jersey to Brazil; in other i words it confirms Brazil in her 1 Dation of the tract as it has always ( Deen in her possession. The Brazilians are greatly pleased with the outcome of the case. The newspapers of various states are scoring do nothing legislatures for their waste of time. The Michigan legislature seems to be tarred with the same stick. Members ordinarily spend three full days in Lansing each week and more or less of each in attending to their legisative duties. The people should' lold their representatives to a stricter accountability. According to the clearing house returns the volume of business last week at New York was fourteen per cent., and of the country at large twelve per cent., greater than during the corresponding week of last year. This is encouraging. . I The Citizens' StreetRailway company, of Detroit, has a new president in the person of Tora L. Johnson, the single taxer and free trade iron manufacturer of Cleveland. He has money and brains and hus; tle and if he can't makc the Citizens' railway "git thar" then it can't be done. The silver conference at Battle Creek, Tuesday, passed resolutions in favor of the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to i and de cided to cali a convention to name a candidate for congress to succeed J. C. Burrows, recently elected to the senate. Thomas B. Reed is said to be industriously acquiring the language of sunny Italy. It is possible that the jumbo statesman imagines that with the totigue goes the fine Italian hand which is the rarest aid to the aspiring