The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. "WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1891. THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTSHIP.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIII, Issue 2532, 2 December 1891, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. "WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1891. THE UNITED STATES PRESIDENTSHIP.

To England, and m no less a degree to her colonies, the statement that unless President Havrison consent to stand for a second term of office Mr J. G. Blame, the present Secretary of State of the American Republic, will be the next President, is a momentous matter. Mr Elaine's distinguishing characteristic as a statesman has been his steady and anything but scrupulous hostility to England and the English. la the States he is known principally as the high priest of Protection ; but even this is due less to his love for his own country than to his hatred of ours. America's Protective policy has always been directed .specially against the manufactures of England and the natural products of England's greatest colony, the Canadian Dominion ; and when that policy culminated m the McKinley tariff, it was Secretary Blame's hand which pulled the strings to which MsKialey and the ultraBepU^Hcan party danced, and Secretary Blame's voice which gave the keynote to the envenomed chorus of the anti-English press. His illreasoned and undignified despatches m the matter of fche everlasting Behring Sea trouble last year were at first described by his partisans as documents of the highest value to the State, and as reducing the British Government to the alternatives of humiliation or war. Mr Blame's diplomacy, however, was of the rude and unfinished order, and these, despatches " gave him away," as his 5 countrymen gay, to the greater experience and knowledge of Lord Salis. bury. We may be sure that his rebuff has not been forgotten by Mr Blame, and that he wiU make use of his greater power, should he be elected President, to carry his anti-English policy to the extreme. A ra-y ©£ hope is to be found m fche fact that tyv Blame is not personally acceptable to the Americrn people. He iia« been three times defeated as a candidate fof the Presidentship™©n two o£ these «KsCasions a rival candidate from hh own political party having been pr,e" ferred before him. Yet his mateWess sMil as fin electioneering schemer hag ke,pfc him m the imnt rank of American politics, and iias M J>° Ijis be*ll£

placed m almost uncontrolled charge of the foreign policy of his country. In the exercise ot the power thus conferred upon him he has, m the opinion of a • vast number of people* on both sides of the Atlantic, twice very nearly made himself responsible for a war between England aud the United States. With Mr Blame as President, no relaxation need be looked for of the fiscal restrictions which he, by the hailds of his disciple, Major McKinley, has set up against English and Colonial ttude with the Stales ; and the hope for an earl v; remission of the present prohibitive duties on wool and other products must be deferred until the oppressively protected people of the States rebel against them. Mr Elaine's pistory will give a very earnest tone to our prayers for "peace m our ;tim^," should he be elected President.