The Waikato Times THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Four Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1906. AMERICA AND CIVILISATION.

Waikato Times, Volume LVII, Issue 8052, 8 November 1906, Page 2

The Waikato Times THAMES VALLEY GAZETTE, AND KAWHIA ADVOCATE. Established Thirty-Four Years. THE OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE WAIKATO. THE LARGEST CIRCULATION OF ANY DAILY PAPER SOUTH OF AUCKLAND. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1906. AMERICA AND CIVILISATION.

Tin contcsi betweeu Mi' Hughes, the Republican candidate, mid Mr William Randolph Hearst as Democratic candidate for the Governorship of NV-w York State, has resulted in the return of Mi Hughes by a majority running into many thousands. Mr Hearst's candidature was violently discussed by his critics. He is described :ts " unscrupulous, a traitor, an agitator and a living and glaring reproach to American civilisation." Jiy his .supporters he is eulogised, and they predict his election to the presidency of the United Slates, if lie lives. As ! the millionaiie owner of a chain of "yellow" newspapers stretching right .across the .States, his influence is enormous, and his political pro- ! gramme radicaj cf the radicals. The [ remarkable intervention of I'resideid Roosevelt, who describes Mr Hears! I as " sowing she .seeds of class hatred " j has apparently had some effect, but Mr Hearst may yet stand with one foot ! on the Presidential chair. Hut before his adoption as Democratic candidate for the Presidency many , things may happen. Mr Bryan is . the present candidate for the Presidency, and when Mr Roo&6va!t re- , tires, is looked upon as a likely sue- i c cessoi- at White House. To us in ! 3 New Zealand the differences in the ; programmes of Democrat*, Re- | ( publicans seem veiy much of the c nature ul Tweedledum and Tweedle-j J dee. While vast trusts control the!, necessaries of life, and monopolise j ' the railroads and nteana of communi>')

cation it seems to be beating the air to elect one party or the other, for what practical reform is secured r The horrible exposures of "The .1 tingle" have perhaps affected the sales of canned meat, but the railroad monopoly goes merrily on, granting its secret rebates and crushing out individual enterprise. Mr Herman Scheffauer, who is a native of San Francisco and a writer of vigorous and trenchant verse, in an article entitled " Bribery, Fraud and Corruption " offers a powerful indictment of American commercial methods generally. The source of the evils, he slates, is found in the insatiable greed of gain, "in the damnation and the disen.se of dollars." With the problems of the negro and the native races of the colonial possessions ever before them, and these grave evils of the great cities to 'contend with, the Ameiican people have s.illicient weighty issues to solve to last for several generations to come. " What become of your men above forty ':" was asked by a lecenl visitor to a big American locomotive works. "Come for a car-ride to the cemetery," replied the young manager, "and I will show you." Now, we may be slower, we people of British stock, and the wear and tear of life, especially in our colonies, is less harassing, but need it be argued that the shorter hours, the simpler lives, the healthier surroundings of most New Zealand people, do not make for a more enduring happiness and a more vigorous and stalwart race '? Let us hope with that tine old gentleman, Sir John Logan Campbell, that we may never be infected with the love of money for its own sake, but that civilisation with us in these isles. may be the peaceful cultivation of healthy and happy human beings, who in education and bodily vigor may be the equal of the best that Ancient Greece or Rome could offer. That ideal, it seems to us, is high enough and big enough for any people. THE MONROE DOCTRINE. ProfesSoh Biiwkss, of Berlin, in describing the Monroe doctrine as " antiquated and senseless," has only put into somewhat tactless language what thousands of his fellow countrymen believe to-day. Germany presents the spectacle of a vigorous, rapidly increasing people, numbering sixty millions, hemmed in on all sides, with only deserts as colonies, and when emigrating, only able to go to lands under foreign Hags and speaking an alien tongue. The vanGerman League casts its eyes on the fair places of the earth, and finds them appropriated, Britain has taken the cream and the rust has gone to other Powers. Beyond Turkey Minor and South America there is nothing suitable or available. But the Monroe doctrine covers America. North and South. and as understood in I lie States, it is taken to mean that no power shall lake possession of territory in the Western Hemisphere and that the United States will see to this being adhered to, Germany has large trade relations with the various countries of South America, and a considerable German population has settled in the commercial centres of the several provinces. The rapid growth of the German Navy may be taken as one of the means by which it is intended to take possession of a suitable country, when the time arrives. -Meanwhile. Germany has never reeoguiscil the Monroe doctrine ita valid, though Great Britain and other nations have dune so. and if ever a war arises between Germany and the United Slates it will probably be in connection with the Monroe doctrine.