The Tribune of Tuesday publishes a summary from its New
York correspondent of a statement by Mr. Grover Cleveland is to the advisability of providing pensions for ex-Presidents. rhe argument in favour of pensions might be taken as personal to Mr. Cleveland himself, as he is the only living ax-President ; but he expressly rules himself out on the ground that he is well enough sUpplied with this world's goods. He wishes to establish the pensioning of ex-Presidents on principle, and we think there is a great deal in what he says. An ex-President is beset by claims on his purse, and he cannot avoid paying the price of having served his country in so conspicuous a position ; he must choose his occupation and order his life in consonance with the public sense of what is proper to the dignity of an ex-President. In every way he is made a poorer man just because he is an ex- President, and we believe that the United States would act in the interests of her own dignity, as well as in those of ex-Presidents, if she paid reasonable compensation for what are really sacrifices to the public service. A pension of twenty-five thousand dollars a year would be an addition to the remuneration of the President to which the richest ccuntry in the world would surely not object.
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