months Mayor of Buffalo, presided. On taking the chair he delivered the following address, which is certainly as frank and outspoken in utterance in regard to the duties of the American Government to its citizens abroad as any one need ask for :

"FELLOW CITIZENS-This is the formal mode of address on occasions of this kind, but I think we seldom realize fully its meaning or how valuable a thing it is to be a citizen. From the earliest civilization to be a citizen has been to be a free man, endowed with certain privileges and advantages, and entitled to the full protection of the State. The defense and protection of personal rights of its citizens has always been the paramount and most important duty of a free, enlightened government. And perhaps no government has this sacred trust more in its keeping than this, the best and freest of them all; for here the people who are to be protected are the source of those powers, which they delegate upon the express compact that the citizen shall be protected. For this purpose we choose those who for the time being shall manage the machinery which we have set up for our defense and safety.

"And this protection adheres to us in all lands and places as an incident of citizenship. Let but the weight of a sacrilegious hand be put upon this sacred thing, and a great strong government springs to its feet to avenge the wrong. Thus it is that the native-born American citizen enjoys his birthright. But when, in the westward march of empire, this nation was founded and took root, we beckoned to the Old World and invited hither its immigration and provided a mode by which those who sought a home among us might become our fellow citizens. They came by thousands and hundreds of thousands; they came and

'Hewed the dark old woods away,
And gave the virgin fields to-day ;'

they came with strong sinews and brawny arms to aid in the growth and progress of a new country; they came to our temples of justice and under the solemnity of an oath renounced all allegiance to every other State, potentate and sovereignty, and surrendered to us all the duty pertaining to such allegiance. We have accepted their fealty and invited them to surrender the protection of their native land.

"And what should be given them in return? Manifestly, good faith and every dictate of honor demands that we give them the same liberty and protection here and elsewhere which we vouchsafe to our native-born citizens. And that this has been accorded to them is the crowning glory of American institutions. It needed not the statute which is now the law of the land, declaring that all naturalized citizens, while in foreign lands, are entitled to and shall receive from this government the same protection of person and property which is accorded to native-born citizens, to voice the policy of our nation.

In all lands where the semblance of liberty is preserved, the right of a person arrested to a speedy accusation and trial is, or ought to be, a fundamental law as it is a rule of civilization. At any rate, we hold it to be so, and this is one of the rights which we undertake to guarantee to any native born or naturalized citizen of ours, whether he be imprisoned by order of the Czar of Russia or under the pretext of a law administered for the benefit of the landed aristocracy of England. We do not claim to make laws for other countries, but we do insist that whatsoever those laws may be they shall, in the interests of human freedom and the rights of mankind, so far as they involve the liberty of our citizens, be speedily administered. We have a right to say and do say that mere suspicion without examination on trial is not sufficient to justify the long imprisonment of a citizen of America. Other nations may permit their citizens to be thus imprisoned. Ours will not. And this in effect has been solemnly declared by statute. "We have met here to-night to consider this subject and inquire into the cause and the reasons and the justice of the imprisonment of certain of our fellow-citizens now held in British prisons without the semblance of a trial or legal examination. Our law declares that the Government shall act in such cases. But the people are the creators of the Government. The undaunted apostle of the Christian religion, imprisoned and prosecuted, appealing centuries ago to the Roman law and rights of Roman citizenship, boldly demanded; 'Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman and uncondemned?' So, too, might we ask, appealing to the law of our land and the laws of civilization: Is it lawful that these, our fellows, be imprisoned, who are American citizens and uncondemned?' I deem it an honor to be called upon to preside at such a meeting, and I thank you for it. What is your further pleasure ?”

In further illustration of the protection Americans abroad may expect from Governor Cleveland, we reproduce the following from a recent letter to the New York Herald by Wm. H. Hurlbert, who has recently given the subject very thorough examination. He says:

It is of good omen for the Democratic party that it invites the country to put the control of this great issue into the hands of a President trained as Governor Cleveland

has been in that great school of executive responsibility from which the ablest managers of the State Department, without distinction of party, have been graduated from the days of ex-Governor Marcy down to the present time.

There are two great Declarations of Independence in our American history.

On the 4th of July, 1776, Thomas Jefferson drew up for the British colonies in America the declaration of their right, as organized communities, to decide for themselves the political conditions under which they would exist.

On the 20th of September, 1853, ex-Governor Marcy, of New York, as Secretary of State of the United States, under a Democratic administration, drew up and presented to the world another and a scarcely less memorable declaration.

In his reply, then made, to the demand of Austria for the surrender of Martin Koszta, a born subject of the Austrian Emperor as King of Hungary, who had taken part in the Hungarian insurrection under Kossuth, escaped to America and declared his intention to become an American citizen, Secretary Marcy once and once for all made an end of the European feudal doctrine of the indelible allegiance of the individual as impressed on him at his birth.

This was the Democratic doctrine of ex-Governor Marcy. This, we may be sure, will be the Democratic doctrine of President Cleveland. Great Britain, after an obstinate resistance of sixty years, found herself compelled in 1871, by the able diplomacy of another ex-Governor of New York, Mr. Hamilton Fish, formally to acquiesce in this Democratic doctrine.

Our Foreign Policy.

Importance of the Subject.

New foreign markets for our surplus products and manufactures is one of the most pressing demands of the day. The American people think that a century is enough for the adjustment of sectional rivalries, and that the time has now arrived when the public mind must not be limited to the consideration of home affairs. They believe that 2,000,000,000 consumers in the markets of the whole world will do more to relieve the farmer, the laborer, and the manufacturer than a limited home market of but 55,000,000 consumers.

An examination of our trade statistics shows the following remarkable, and we might say, startling and disgraceful facts, viz :

But two per cent. of our annual manufactures are sold abroad, notwithstanding there are fifteen sister Republics south of us on the American Continent, exceedingly deficient in and in need of manufactured articles of nearly every description. About eighty per cent. of our exports are, on an average, the products of agriculture.

Spanish-American Commerce.

Of our total annual exports, eighty per cent. go to Europe, and less than five per cent. to the fifteen Spanish-American Republics.

We allow the trade of those Republics to be monopolized by England, France, Germany and other European powers.

Recognizing the transcendent importance of a change in this respect, the Democratic Party has incorporated in its National platform, the following resolution :

We favor an American continental policy, based upon more intimate commercial and political relations with the fifteen sister Republics of North, Central and South America, but entangling alliances with none."

The total annual imports of these Spanish-American Republics, and our share therein are, as stated in the last annual report of the State Department, as follows, in value :

Their total annual exports, and our share therein, are in value as follows:

It will be observed from the above statistics that we supply less than one-sixth part of their demand, and buy from them but about one-seventh part of their surplus supply:

The present commerce of these countries is, however, but a drop in the bucket compared with the enormous proportions it is bound to assume in the immediate future, owing to the tidal-wave of material development and progress which has already extended as far south as the City of Mexico and is destined to continue throughout the length and breadth of the fourteen other Republics beyond We, as a nation, cannot afford to sit still and see our European rivals reap the benefits of the coming commercial harvest.

The great value and importance of the Spanish-American trade is owing to the fact that those countries are in climate, resources, products, supply and demand, the reverse and complement of the United States. Commercial exchanges based upon such conditions are, therefore, most valuable, and in accordance with the fundamental laws of trade and political economy.

If we are ever to have new foreign outlets for our surplus manufactures they can best be found in these fifteen sister republics-countries in great need of railway iron and supplies, farming implements, wagons and carriages, cotton and woolen goods, boots and shoes, telegraph and telephone supplies, sewing machines, and the various other manufactures which we have to sell. As Senator Maxey of Texas, well said, in a recent speech in the United States Senate, in support of the bill to aid the World's Industrial Exposition at New Orleans : The importance of securing the trade of Mexico and Central and South America cannot be overestimated. We must have an outlet for our surplus manufactured productions, or the shutting down of mills, the placement of workmen on half time, the reduction of wages, and strikes will inevitably follow. We cannot hope for an extensive market for our manufactured products in Europe, The most inviting field is the country south of us."

But we do not wish to be understood as asserting that the foreign policy of the Democratic party will be limited to Spanish-America for its doctrine of " peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none," is broad enough to include the whole world.

We have selected these countries because they are to-day the most important, and because they best illustrate the dangerous policy which Mr. Blaine inaugurated while Secretary of State.

Dangerous Policy of Republican Party.

The nomination of Mr. Blaine as the standard-bearer of the Republican party, drew forth from the Press the following significant comments :

Those of the Boston Herald are of peculiar interest, for the reason that it is published in a city which has taken the lead in the railway development of Mexico. It says, editorially, June 27, as follows:

The criticism we make of Mr. Blaine's foreign policy is, that it was not well calculated to commend us to the South American countries, or to secure an increase of our trade with them. As a matter of fact, our unwise interference between Chili and Peru, as the sponsors of an absurd guano claim, secured for us the ill-will of both of those countries.

Mr. Blaine's policy did not seek peace and trade, or he did not know how to go to work to secure them. The conference of American republics was to be held in obedience to a call which excluded the consideration of commercial treaties.

What we need-what would tend to increase our trade with the countries of South America--is a comprehensive policy of quite another character from that of "jingo" and guano. We need commercial treaties with those countries. Especially we need to be represented in them by able, honest men, who know something about commerce, instead of broken-down party hacks and "bummers," like Kilpatrick and Hurlbert, sent out by Mr. Blaine, and nearly all the official representatives of the United States in South America for fifty years.

The trade of South America is not to be secured by patronage and taffy, but by honest dealing and respectful treatment. The leading men of the South American states are alienated by the condescension of American politician-statesmen. It is their great grievance in dealing with this country, and they will never enter a conference, the apparent object of which is merely to glorify the United States.

Finally, there is no need of a conference, and there is no reason to suppose that it would lead to any important result. We need new commercial treaties and steamship lines, for the encouragement of which we are in favor of the most liberal policy.

In another editorial July 17th, the Herald, says:

It may be said that Mr. Blaine, in spite of his desire to inaugurate a brilliant policy, and in spite of the fact that no national policy is so brilliant as a war policy, would have the coolness and determination to resist temptation, and would neither seize on the Panama canal nor abrogate the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, if he thought that the peace of the nation would thereby be jeopardized. We place very little confidence in arguments of this kind, for the good and sufficient reason that, if Mr. Blane is elected President, the men to whom he owes his nomination, and to whom he will owe election, will also dictate to him the policy which he is to pursue. He has been nominated because he is thought to be intensely and aggressively American, and, if he is elected, he cannot afford to, and will not, disappoint his admirers by proving to them that they have mistaken their man. We do not mean by this that the enthusiastic Republicans in the West would welcome a foreign war, but we do assert that the policy of which they approve would almost inevitably lead to that result, although at the present time we acquit them of having that conclusion in view in so strenuously advocating it. In intercourse between nations, a government cannot assert itself in an aggressive manner unless it is willing and prepared to follow up its demands with armed force. To make a demand, and to then back down from it when resistance is offered, is one of the most humiliating conditions into which a nation can fall, and yet the so-called American, or jingo, policy, for the development of which Mr. Blaine is pushed forward, is one which must lead us either to make demands and back them up with cannon and bayonet, or submit to ungracious snubs from those who are not disposed to yield what they consider their rights, unless they are compelled to do so by superior force.

From the Mississippi Valley, also, which is so deeply interested in the railway and commercial development of Mexico and the other states of Spanish America, comes an earnest protest against Mr. Blaine's foreign policy as illustrated by his acts while Secretary of State. In a speech, opening the campaign in St. Louis, Hon. James O. Broadhead said:

Taking a business view of the matter, Mr. Blaine ought to be peculiarly objectionable to the people of St. Louis and the whole Mississippi Valley. He has made himself