The latest reports from Washington indicate that the Tariff Bill
will pass, its Democratic opponents having agreed to cease from resistance if the Income-tax is given up. This result does not appear probable on the face of things ; but it is alleged that the debaters in the Senate are only talking against time until the compromise can be finally arranged in the Committee-rooms. This is becoming a regular American practice, and it reveals on the part of Representatives and Senators a capacity which, in its full extent at least, has (never been developed here. These American legislators can stand being bored in a way impossible even to English- men. We verily believe that the Senators would crush our Irish Home-rulers, if they wanted to, by sheer dint of patient stolidity. An obstructive is almost powerless against a legis- lator who can endure an eighteen-hours speech without com- mitting suicide, or throwing his inkstand at the orator's head. Democracy has certainly beaten all other forms of Govern- ment in one kind of productiveness,—that of words.
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