PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume II, Issue 221, 13 November 1888, Page 3

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

GENERAL HARRISON’S FIRST ACTION. Washington, Nov. 11. The Republican party will probably have a majority of six in the Senate. General Harrison, President-elect, has drawn up a reduced tariff which has been revised on a protective basis.

A New York correspondent wrote as follows by last mail; —Politics rule the day just at present, as we are on the eve of a presidential election, and everything is shaped for the benefit or detriment of political parties, according as one’s way of thinking happens to be. President Cleveland being a candidate for re-election is governed by the exigencies of the situation as much as the lower corner politician, and his every act and word is praised by his adherents and ridiculed by his opponents to a degree fairly bewildering to the impartial observer. With a view of capturing votes, at least so his opponents say, he has recently issued a State paper which seriously concerns our foreign relations, and at any other time than this might bring us into unpleasant contact with Great Britain, and especially with our Canadian neighbors on the North. The rejection by the United States Senate of the treaty with Great Britain relative to the fisheries, brought a recom-

mendation from the President that a law e enacted, giving him retaliatory powers to stop all transit of goods in bond over the United States, and do other things that would be very inconvenient for the Canadians. He seemed to ignore the fact that he already has retaliatory powers which he has never used, and which were aimed directly at the fisheries, about which the disputes have aiisen. His opponents say that his object was to pose as an enemy of Great Britain, and thereby capture the Irish vote. If the election could have come off on the day following the publication of his message there is a probability that he wou’d have gained many thousands of votes, but with a few days for the public to think over the matter and consider all its bearings it is doubtful if he has gained anything. His opponents in Congress did not think it good policy, from a point of view, to vote against his request, and so it was granted at once. The orators among the republicans lashed him without mercy for his demagoguery, but they voted for the retaliatory powers all the same. There is no likelihood that he will do anything in the way of retaliation, in view of the fact that he has never used the powers which were granted more than a year ago; the whole thing was a political trick, and as such is pretty well understood by every voter in the country.