there can be no shifting of
responsibility for bad legislation. The defeat of the Democrats is
clear, clean-cut, decisive.

It looks at first blush a temporary triumph for protection as against
free trade. There is no mistaking the fact that the country in a four
months' campaign could not be educated to give up ideas which had been
advanced by leading statesmen of both parties for the past twenty years,
and which met but very feeble protests from true Democrats. The
protection fetich has been shattered, but not overturned from its
shrine. The result shows the folly of half-hearted campaigns. Even the
very authors of the Mills bill, filled with fearful tales of the New
York workingman's aversion to free trade, when they came to the
metropolis, instead of avowing that they proposed gradually to remove
all restrictions upon our commerce with the world, began to apologize
for their position, and to protest that they were not engaged in a
free-trade campaign. Mr. Cleveland could not have been worse beaten had
the fight been openly made for the abolition of all duties whatsoever
and the closing of every custom-house. But those who think with the New
York _Sun_ that we have had the last of an "educational campaign" very
much deceive themselves. What could not be done in four months may be
achieved in four years. The free-trade fight is on, and it is not at all
impossible that Grover Cleveland may yet be the standard-bearer in a
victorious campaign for human rights against combined monopolies. Other
reasons for the Democratic defeat were: the greed of local halls for
petty patronage, divisions among the Democrats of New York City over the
mayoralty, jealousies of rival bosses in King's County, the free use of
money by the Republicans, especially in Indiana, and the superior
management of the Republican leaders, who were at least honestly
fighting for what they believed in.

The longest session Congress ever held closed on October 20th, having
lasted 321 days. Its most interesting features were the tariff
discussion and the unparalleled deadlock in the consideration of the
direct-tax bill. With the short session which begins on December 4th the
present Democratic ascendancy will come to an end, as the Republicans
will have a good working majority of at least thirteen in the
Fifty-first Congress.

The diplomatic world is laughing at Lord Sackville for his foolishness
in falling into a Republican trap, and his summary dismiss