The Republican majority in the American House of Representatives is
so angry with Mr. Bayard for denouncing Protection as State Socialism, that it has only been prevented by the Speaker from voting his impeachment ; and has actually appointed a Committee to inquire into his conduct. That is rather an odd way of increasing the authority of a national representative ; but we believe that the true explanation of the incident is that the House knew it was acting as a debating club. It has no authority whatever over Mr. Bayard, who does not take his instructions, as an English Ambassador does, from a responsible Minister, but from the President, who, daring his term of office, is irremovable. The House can refuse the money necessary to carry out a policy, but it cannot prevent Mr. Cleveland from approving, or at all events condoning, Mr. Bayard's conduct. That conduct was merely an epigrammatic statement of his private opinion on a fiscal question of purely American concern, in which opinion Mr. Bayard's only superior notoriously agrees.
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