CHESTER A ARTHUR AS PRESIDENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IX, Issue 454, 23 December 1881, Page 23

CHESTER A ARTHUR AS PRESIDENT.

The New York Sun thus outlines the policy of the new President : " During more than half a century after the organization of our national Government no President died in office ; and there came to prevail among the common people a seari-superstitious belief that any one holding that office bore a sort of charmed life, as many also believed of Gen. Washington, on account of his many marvellous narrow escapes during the Revolution. , The sudden death of Gen. Harrison, in 1841, just one month after his inauguration, broke this spell. But though Harrison's death was followed by the death of Gen. Taylor, sixteen months after his inauguration, and, later, by the assassination of Lincoln, the American people have not yet become sufficiently familiarised with the idea of a President's dying in office to give much effect to it in nominating and electing candidates for Vice-President. Heie is Gen. Arthur ; though Ms title of General, amid the thousand of soldiers of the present day who have seen real service, is little more than a purely ornamental prefix to his name ; a gentleman amiable and sensible enough, but whom probably not one man in America ever thought of for President ; now, through the terrible crime of Guiteau placed in that high office with almost an entire term of four years in prospect, should he himself live so long. While Mr. Arthur is not a man who would have entered anybody's mind as a direct candidate for the office, it is not at all certain that he will not make a successful administration. He is a gentleman in his manners, neither obsequious nor arrogant. His bearing is manly and such as to prepossess in his favour all whom he meets. Truth in speech and fidelity to his friends and bis engagements form a pait of his character. He has tact and common sense. Of the three former Vice- Presidents who have succeeded through the death of the incum* bent to the Presidency, be bears much more resemblance to Millard Fillmore than to Tylur or Johnson. The greatest objection, by far, that can be brought against Mr. Arthur, is the fact that he was a warm and earnest supporter of Gen, Grant f~r a third term. This, however, in the nature of things, may now be expected to work its own cure. The possession of the Presidency will remove the scales from his eyes, and he will soon perceive the folly of running Gen. Grant for a third term, and the superior wisdomand expediency of running instead a certain man named Arthur for a second.

Mr Parnell's mother has said that her son's imprisonment was in her opinion almost the consummation of his labours and aims, and would materially benefit the Irish cause. She intends going to Ireland to visit her son daily in his confinement.