NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10515, 7 August 1897, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Dr. Shaw, the editor of the American Reriew of Reviews, delivers himself of the following judgment) upon American politics to-day:—Wβ have fallen into vioious rats in these latter days. The expression of honest and manly sentiments as regards a question like that of Cuba is sneered at. The redemption of the country must lie in the publio opinion of the West and South. The East has fallen under the bad spell of money; and even the pulpit takes its tone largely from those elders and vestrymen and pillars of religion and philanthropy who do business ip Wall-street. It is a hard truth, and one shocking to the sensibilities; but trne it is nevertheless, that there is often a more genuine ring of patriotism and a higher sentiment for national honour in Tammany Hall itself than in Wall-street There may be little choice between the men who contribute the funds that keep our politics rotten at the core, and the men who receive the money. But the practical politician of the machine variety is, after all, a better figure in politics than the franchise-grabber, bribegiver, and deliberate corruptionist, whose whole study is to break down every veitige of that personal integrity that availed in the past to protect publio rights and the genera! good against private greed. The head of the Sugar Trust, while admitting that his company had been accustomed to make gifts to influence politics in various States, testified that this was merely what all other corporations in this country were constantly in the habit of doing, Doubtless he is in a position to know whereof he affirms. It is not cheering or agreeable to remember that the sources whence flow* this steady stream of corruption to poison our politics, are also sources whence emanate influences for the control of publio opinion.