THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1906. THE MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13354, 7 December 1906, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. FRIDA Y, DECEMBER 7, 1906. THE MESSAGE TO CONGRESS.

The United States is not only the most populous country in Western Civilisation but is growing at such a rapid rate that it must inevitably wield a greater influence in the future than in the past. Nor is it only gigantic in area, in population, and in wealth, but it is phenomenally energetic, it occupies a commanding geographical position, and it speaks a language which links it closely with our own British States. Provided only that it can avoid a disruption which might introduce to its vast domain opposing political organisations such as those which have exhausted the energies of Europe, there is no reason why it should not ultimately attain to a strength and importance unprecedented in the history of mankind. But the very sources of its extraordinary strength have given birth to no less extraordinary weaknesses, to which the national attention is being called by President Roosevelt in a message to Congress of exceptional interest. This message is, in fact, a confession of the existence of social evils in the very heart of the Republic which must be eradicated if it is to live. The tampering of great corporations with the purity of the elections ; the ferocious vendetta between white and black which is the legacy of the slave trade ; the anarchical crusade against wealth and the. callous disregard of humane considerations by the plutocracy; the -driving of the industrial machine ; the throttling of individual opportunity by the great trusts; the perilous accumulation of stupendous fortunes; the disintegration of domestic institutions by reckless divorce laws ; and the revival of claims to State sovereignty by California against the Federal treaty with Japan ; all occupy place in this most ominous of messages. . President i Roosevelt ha,s long been honoured as an honest and fearless man., but he has never shown his honesty and fearlessness more clearly than in the series of charges and propositions ! which deal with a dozen national problems and cannot claim the support of either of the great political parties. His utterances cannot pos- ; sibly please the Republican Party i managers and will certainly not conciliate the Democratic. Yet they may appeal to a great mass of Americans, hitherto incoherent and unorganised, who retain the. AngloSaxon instinct to deal in a practical manner with political problems as they arise, and who are not wedded to any academic theory or to any political school. If this is the case the United States may be on the verge of a great era of reform and reconstruction, from which it will emerge a stronger because a happier nation. If otherwise, President Roosevelt's message can only, hasten that clash of irreconcilable interests, that battle of unsympathetic sections, in which the great Republic which Washington helped to found and Lincoln to preserve may be shattered to fragments. And it will be a bad clay for civilisation and for the English-speaking world if the United States fails to solve her domestic problem "and no longer presents a solid front to the world.

Like all single-minded men President- Roosevelt depends upon an ideal to serve as a pole-star whereby to steer the Ship of State. His ideal is obviously an intensely persona] conception of Justice and Fair Dealing. When a statesman is confused as to the course he should pursue there is always something pathetic in his efforts to do what he feels to be right. But there is nothing confused and nothing pathetic about Mr. Roosevelt. He is quite sure. And with his surety he has an iron determination which compels the admiration of distant observers and must inspire confidence or excite hatred among those whom it affects. In any British community these qualities would assure him permanent place as a political leader, but in the United States it has. yet to be seen whether the personal following of any loader can enable him to triumph over those who hold the levers of the party "machine.'' And if it is. difficult for the strongest to battle against the complex methods which make party organisation effective in the smallest township elections as well as in the numerous State and the great Federal campaigns, it is no less difficult for great reforms to make head where forty States are jealous of Federal interference. This is the stumbling block in the way of American legislation upon lines which would be easily followed in the United Kingdom. Congress may prohibit corporation contributions to election expenses, but will the Republican States admit its right to interfere if the contributions are made for State election expenses? In the South little children slave in cotton mills as sadly as ever they slaved in' Lancashire, but in Lancashire there were none to challenge the authority ' of Westminster to impose industrial restrictions, whereas in Georgia and Carolina they will immediately deny the Constitutional right of Washingi ton to interfere, And so all down i

the President's list. Even as to the imposing of graduated inheritance and income taxes—which are visibly coming in every European country— the power of Congress is doubtful. Mr. H. G. Wells, in ''The Future of America," says : " Ten years ago the Supreme Court, trying a case arising out of the general revenue tax of 1894, decided that a graduated income lax, such as the English Parliament might pass to-morrow, can never be levied upon the "United States nation without either a revolutionary change in the Constitution or the unanimous legislation of all the State Legislatures to that effect.'"

Every attempt to regulate the trusts ; every movement to reform the divorce laws; every attempt to effectively check lynching ; practically every attempt to modernise industrial legislation ; have all broken down through the difficulty of surmoun '.ng the barrier of State rights. We would not suggest for one moment that the "' State rights" principle is altogether wrong. We British have it in New Zealand and in the Commonwealth, in the Dominion of Canada,, and in South Africa, but our various political amalgamations and federations are recognitions of the superiority Of great and natural over limited and artificial political divisions. Though the United States if thoroughly roused might carry any number of reforms even with its existing composition and Constitution, its methods as they stand provide all sorts of entrenchments and entanglements for the opponents of legitimate progress. Nor is the influence of the unfortunate Japanese question to be overlooked. Mr. Roosevelt is as determined to deal what he considers justly with the Japanese in California as with the negroes in the South, and with the corporations in New England. His determination is an honest one, and entitled to all respect. But it is nevertheless regrettable in the extreme that at the very time when it is so desirable to convert the majority of the American people from any blind adhesion to " State rights," the President should feel himself compelled to threaten California with military force unless she yields upon a question in which she must have widespread sympathy. For it is by no means certain that the Washington Government can overcome the centrifugal tendencies of a continental people if it begins again to rely on force and at a time when the nation is being stirred to its depths by the unsolved political problems discussed in the President's Message.