A Salutary Check

The New York ZÏTOii comments as follows upon the Republican reverses. We regret what has happened, but we regret it very mildly. The success of the Deinocrats is partly owing to unavoidable causes, and we caunot regard it as an unmixed evil. All ruling parties require a salutary check now and then : and the Kepublican party has received a lessen which will do it much good in coming years. We have now an opportunifcy of revising our policy in many important particulars, and it wil] be our own fault if we do not take to heart the truth that we are only strong while we truly represent the opinions and wishes of the people. It cannot be denied that tho party needed this lesson. After a long term of power, leaders are apt to grow careless, if not reckless, and they forget that there is a power behind theni which can and will instantly punish them when they depart from the strict line of duty. The backpay business of last Scssion has injured us very much ; on the very night the bill was passed, we warned our Republican friends who supported it what they had 1o expect. The financial troubles of the hour have done us still greater injury. As we pointed out on Monday, all such disturbances are likely to prove the ruin of the party while in power when they break out. This may be unjust ; but it is one of the harlf facts of politics which we have to face. The bulk of the people will follow their instinct in such inatters, and their instinct leais them just now to believe the Democratie cry that the Eepublican party is responsible for the panic. Working men out of employment will not voée for the party, but prefer to make it a scapegoat. Their reasoning ia very simple ; 'We are not well off under the Itepublicans ; we may fare better under the Demócrata, and, at any rate, we cannot fare worse." All these may be pqpular delusions, but they exist, and they are powerful forces in politics - so powerful that we are very glad the Presidential election did not happen to be held this year.