Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 January 1906 — WASHINGTON LETTER. [ARTICLE]

WASHINGTON LETTER.

Political and General Gossip of the National Capital. The House Committee on Merchant Marine has about completed a bill on ship subsidies which it says stands some show of getting a hearing after Congress re-assem-bles. It is just the old ship subsidy bill in a new guise and its only virtue seems to be that it does not on the face of it reach quite so deep into the National Treasury as did some of its predecessors. Put briefly, the bill proposes to net the Treasury a gain of half a million dollars in increased revenue in the first year and thereafter creep up at the rate of about a million a year for the next ten years when the maximun “subvention” will be paid. There are a great many compensating advantages claimed for the bill. It will, according to the committee, result in the ' establishment of ten new steamship lines and result in the strengthening that is to say divided paying power, of several of the existing lines. It is to add 200,000 tons to the countrys merchant marine, all of it available as auxilliary cruisers in time of need, and will add a naval reserve of 10,000 men to the navy much on the same footing aud relation as the national guard to the army on shore. It is a very cheerful program and one for which a good many leaders of the House are determined to work. So many unexpected things have happened since the assembling of Congress that it is quite possible this scheme may get a serious hearing. But it hardly seems likely that such a measure can get through a Congress that is professedly committed to a policy of retrenchment in all branches of the public service.

The Philippine Federal Party has come out with a manifesto. Just where the party got its authorization to speak for the islands the document does not say. But copies have been received at Washington and beside them the territorial organization of the Isle of Pines dwindles into insignificance. The FederabParty wants not only home rule of a sort that would almost satisfy even Ireland, but it would like live representatives in Congress. There are a lot of other provisions in the manifesto, all of more or less academic interest. But the only one that looks liken concession to the United States at oil is that the President of the United States shall the veto power over measures passed by the Phillippine House of Representatives. The manifesto doubtless will be presented to Congress. There is always someone found who is willing to introduce anything fn Congress up to a subsidy bill for flying machines. But it is doubtful if the manifesto will have any material effect on the government beyond swelling the revenues to the extent of the postage that' was necessary to bring it here.

Senator Morgan has announced that he will move for the consideration of the Santo Domingo treaty in open session under the form of a joint resolution when it comes to the Senate. The bulk of the Democrats are behind him and there probably will be a good deal of plain speaking over the treaty and against the position in which it has placed this oouutry of acting as bill collector for European citizens in South America. It is pointed out indeed that this country has established a very dangerous precedent in administering the finance of Santo

Domingo, and that the Monroe Doctrine is woefully distorted when it not only excludes European powers from a territorial foothold in this hemisphere but makes the United States the policeman to keep the little South American states in order. Senator Morgan’s position in that this country should stop where the Monroe Doctrine has been supposed to stop since it was first enunciated, and leave the European powers to deal with their subjects financial interests in South America and the West Indies by process of international law. The little states are prQne enough to borrow at any rate of interest the lenders choose to demand. Under ordinary circumstances their borrowing power would be limited by their own credit. The people who loaned them money would know the risk they ran and charge a commensurate rate of interest. But if the United States undertakes to act as bill collector, the small republics will have practically the credit of this government behind them and foreigners will be much more ready to lend their money, knowing that this government will see it repaid. Senator Morgan and his colleagues do not believe that this is a good position for the government to place itself in, and there will be a lot of very bitter criticism of the whole of the government’s Santo Domingan policy as soon as the treaty is sent to the Senate.

Gen. Davis, chairman of the board of consulting engineers of the Panama Canal, has just left Washington for Brussels where he will meet the other consulting engineers and sign the report , of the board on the sea level canal project to which the engineers committed themselves while in session in this country. There is little question that the report will be signed just as prepared in Washington and its contents will be officially announced somb time in January. Now is the time to subscribe for your winter’s readiug. Subscription taken for all papers and magazines at J. H. Cox’s news stand.