The Outlook on Foreign Affairs [excerpt]

The Czar has come and seen and not exactly conquered; in fact, Paris is not altogether delighted at having been ignored. But there were good reasons for the omission of a Parisian visit. The crime at Buffalo must have warned the Russian Court, and still more the French police, of the danger of crowds; and the Nationalists on the Paris Municipal Council would have done their best to “capture” the Czar for their party or make trouble.

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Honour and grief have been given their proper display in the solemn funeral of President McKinley, and his successor has taken up the reins of government. President Roosevelt’s first utterances seem to show that he means to follow out the commercial policy announced just before his death by the late President. The tragedy that followed somewhat obscured the importance of that declaration. The author of one of the most rigid protective tariffs ever devised said in effect that rigid protection had had its day and the time was come for reciprocity. He had realised that American industry had outgrown the supports of an exclusive tariff, and that no nation can export without importing as well, unless it takes the world in pawn or accumulates useless gold. Now a world in pawn to one state would probably repudiate the liability, and the one state could not enforce the obligation. Therefore reciprocity must replace exclusion.

President Roosevelt is likely to go more heartily than his predecessor into the negotiation of reciprocity treaties. He has never been personally identified with protectionism as was Mr. McKinley, and his attitude towards the great trusts built up under the shadow of the tariffs has been one of hostility. It will be impossible for the party press of the United States to represent him as the henchman of the capitalists with any probability. A jingo he will be called, no doubt, but he has seen war and made war, and that should be enough to make any intelligent man peaceful.