The platform adopted by the Convention has three distinctive features.
It is plainly and strongly Protectionist, making that, in fact, the one issue at this election, even if the surplus revenue can only be got rid of by repealing the taxes on tobacco and on all spirits "used in the arts," the latter a phrase intended to conciliate the teetotalers. The platform also favours a ‘‘ spirited foreign policy," and it distinctly encourages financial waste. The delegates demand the reduction of postage to a halfpenny an ounce, large appropriations for the Navy, expenditure on harbour works, " encourage- ment " for the shipping interests, national grants for education, and an increase of the Pension List till every man who bore arms for the nation in the great war shall be placed beyond the chance of want. The object, of course, is to deplete the Treasury, and thus render the reduction of tariffs more difficult. It seems unlikely that the sorely pressed and unprotected agriculturists of the Union, who may be taken as nearly seven-tenths of the population, will support such a programme.
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