As the law makes no provision for any report from the department of State, a brief history of the transactions of that important Department, together with other matters which it may hereafter be deemed essential to commend to the attention of the Congress, may furnish the occasion for a future communication.
Grover Cleveland.
Washington, December 6, 1887.
Mr. Blaine’s Answer to Cleveland.
By Cable to the N. Y. Tribune.
Paris, Dec. 7, 1887.—After reading an abstract of the President’s message, laid before all Europe this morning, I saw Mr. Blaine and asked him if he would be willing to give his views upon the recommendation of the President in the form of a letter or interview. He preferred an interview, if I would agree to send him an intelligent shorthand reporter, with such questions as should give free scope for an expression of his views. The following lucid and powerful statement is the result. Mr. Blaine began by saying to the reporter:
“I have been reading an abstract of the President’s message and have been especially interested in the comments of the London papers. Those papers all assume to declare that the message is a free trade manifesto and evidently are anticipating an enlarged market for English fabrics in the United States as a consequence of the President’s recommendations. Perhaps that fact stamped the character of the message more clearly than any words of mine can.”
“You don’t mean actual free trade without duty?” queried the reporter.
“No,” replied Mr. Blaine. “Nor do the London papers mean that. They simply mean that the President has recommended what in the United States is known as a revenue tariff, rejecting the protective feature as an object and not even permitting protection to result freely as an incident to revenue duties.”
“I don’t know that I quite comprehend that last point,” said the reporter.