The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-14 00:00:00

551 by Mr. CRAMPTON indicated no great confidence in the legality of even this first procedure in the matter. To be frank, his injunctions throughout savoured of the Spartan Code. He enjoined acts, but deprecated their dis closure. In this stealthy policy there is always danger. What may not be done by a represen• tative of her Majesty at a foreign Court openly had better not to be done at all. His proce- dure must seem cowardly, if it he not illegal. Directly the Act passed, Mr. CRAMPTON was instructed by her Majesty's Government to use his " best endeavours to give effect to their wishes." How this was to be done without offending the neutrality laws of the States was the question to be solved. Was it possible for him to offer any kind (,f inducement—or en• courage agents to offer such inducement—for the purpose of getting persons to quit the United States territory that they might be enlisted in her Majesty's service? He never seems to have been clear on this question. But as he knew what service was expected from him by his Government, he seems to have thought it his best course to encourage the operation of the Enlistment Act, but to give all persons with whom he communicated strict injunctions to keep within the letter of the neutrality law. As might have been expected, it was impos sible to carry out courses of action funda mentally inconsistent with eac" other. The attempt to evade a law is commonly sufficient to bring persons under its provisions. In one way, and in one way only, could Mr. CRAMPTON and the British Consuls have avoided ground of offence. They might have informed all applicants that suitable recruits would be enlisted at Halifax without concern ing themselves in any manner as to the means by which they were to get there. The policy of the United States Government is to leave the inhabitants of its territory entirely free to quit the country to engage in the service of any foreign Power ; but that freedom or volun tary action is infringed when any kind of organisation is set afoot to interfere with their voluntary and individual action. Directly the servants of the British Government had any kind of connection with the agents who made it their business to engage numbers of people to quit the States for the purpose of enlist ment, it became inevitable that they must be brought into collision with the United States authorities. On this point we are not left to conjecture. Mr. ChAmproil relates that when he went to Halifax on the enlistment business in April, 1855, he found that a number of the Germans who had come to Halifax from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, to enlist, had re turned to the States to make known to their countrymen, eager to enlist the terms on which it could be dune. And Mr. CRAMPTON con tinues : From what I heard in regard to the proceedings of these people, who were, as was to be expected, very imperfectly acquainted with the provisions of the neutrality laws, I judged that it was highly probable that they would render themselves amenable to penalties, and that it would be inferred that their acts were ordered or authorised by the British Colonial authorities. It seemed to me that a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding prevailed upon the subject of enlistment in the Foreign Legion, and that many of the persons directly and indirectly engaged in the matter were rendering themselves—no doubt without any intention of so doing—liable to the charge of infring ing the laws of this country, and, at the same time, of utterly defeating the object they themselves had in view.— Blue-book, p. 32. Mr. CaAmrrox supposed that by more care ful and cautious procedure he could attain the desired object and avoid the misunderstand ing. He was deceived. He adopted, as he tells us, a plan drawn up by STROBEL (p. 133) to inform the German residents is the vicinity pf the Great Lakes of the offers of the British Government, and " to supply them with the " small sum which would cover their travelling " expenses." Still he insisted on the necessity of a strict observance of the neutrality laws, though we hold it impossible that his own ad mitted connection with STROBEL ,and his parti cipation in the plan for inducing many hun dreds of Germans to quit the States for the purpose of being enlisted at Halifax, could be fairly construed otherwise th p ana ar as the very :*iolation he was constantly deprecating. It is not easy to perceive how this scheme Lot !molding the neutrality laws can be other- THE PRESS. wise viewed than as an infraction of them. Mr. CRAMPTON seems to have supposed that to inform masses of men that they would be accepted as reeruits at Halifax, and to supply them with money to get there, on the under standing or agreement that they would then enlist, could not be brought within the mean ing of the States' statute. Yet that he should have fanned such an opinion, in the face of the legal opinion (p. T), by which ho professed to govern his course, seems incomprehensible ; for that opinion expressly states that the words " hiring or retaining" in this particular connection would be construed with a view to prevent the evaision of the statute, this being the evident intent of the prohibition we are considering I think the words " hire or retain " susceptible of a very broad interpretation in such a statute. I incline to think they would be held to reach every case of payment, expenditure, or other valuable con sideration (however ingeniously devised) moving from the party charged to another person to the end and with the intent that such other should " go beyond," tc. It would puzzle human ingenuity to devise a form of words which would more clearly bring the plan concocted by STROBEL, and approved by Mr. CRAMPTON, within the intent of the statute. It has been said, in defence of the procedure of the British Minister, that he had made Mr. MARCY acquainted with his proposed course of action, and had met with no oppo sition from him. We are sorry to say that the assertion is not true. On the contrary, the Foreign Minister of the United States had reason to complain that he was deceived. On the 22nd March (1855) Mr. CRAMPTON showed to Mr. MARCY a handbill issued by one ANGUS MAcDoNALD (p. 10) stating that he had opened a " passage office " for the conveyance to Halifax of men wishing to enlist. Mr. CRAMP TON assured Mr. MARCY of his disapproval of its having been issued (p 131); yet it is impos sible to say in what respect it 'differs from the advertisement issued by MARTIN at New Orleans with Mr CRAMPTON'S express sanction (p. 191), except in being a little more open as to its object. Again, at the commencement of May, Mr. MARCY was told by Mr. LUMLEY (p. 12) that Mr. CRAMPTON had gone to Halifax, expressly to prevent any infraction of the neutrality law ; and at this same interview Mr. LUMLEY read Lord CLARENDON'S despatch (p. 11), sta ting that " the law of the United States with " respect to enlistment, however conducted, is " not only very just but very stringent, ac " cording to the report which is inclosed in " your despatch; and her Majesty's Govern " ment would, on no account, run any risk of " infringing this law of the United States.l' Coupling these assurances to Mr. MARCY with the issue of the form No. 1 (p. 195), in which Mr. CRAMPTON stated, " I have " received no instructions from her Ma "jesty'sGovernment which would authorise me " to take steps for the enlistment of men or " the engagement of officers for the British " army," can we wonder that Mr. MARCY should have felt indignant when he learnt that Mr. CRAMPTON, at Halifax, had been con cocting schemes with STROBEL to evade the law, and when he found the extent to which recruiting had been carried on by persons whose connection in some shape with the British Legation could not be doubted? Mr. MARCY'S own language was always ex press. He said (p. 192) That there is no law in the United States to prevent any number of persons emigrating, of their own freewill, with the intention of enlisting in a foreign country; but that nothing in the shape of recruitment within the United States will be permitted, and that any attempt to evade or infringe the neutrality laws will be severely punished. On this subject the language of Mr. MAacv has been consistent throughout, and it is quite intelligible how with his views he may have thought that nothing short of the re moval of Mr CRAMPTON and the three Consuls would satisfy the United States Government for the attempts made, at least, to evade the law he had declared his determination to uphold. Mr. CRAMPTON'a mistakes were the inevit able result of the unfortunate position in which he was placed. It was impossible for him to make the slightest attempt to give effect to the Foreign Enlistment Act, and to SATURDAY, r ulfil what he was plainly told were the wishes of his Government, without the hazard or the certainty► of running counter to the law he was desirous of respecting. And this at last was seen and acknowledged by Lord CLAREN; DON himself. In hie latest despatch he writes to Mr. MARCY ,(p. 261) ; It was seen that however strict might be the orders of her Majesty's Government, that nothing should be done in contravention of the laws of the United States, and, how ever scrupulous her Majesty's officers in America might be in obeying those orders, yet a misconception of the precise bearing of those laws might lead some of those officers un intentionally to overstep their limits, while other persons, either from honest zeal, or for the sake of gain, or from a desire to entrap her Majesty's officers, might do things at variance with the provisions of those laws. What a testimony is this to the wisdom of the Enlistment Act ! It could not be carried out even in so free a country as the United States without the certainty of violating the laws, and giving just cause of offence to the Government of the country. The Government of the United States is not unreasonable in desiring frank reparation for the wrong which has (unintentionally) been done it, and such reparation would we ithink be most fitly made by a deliberate vote of the Legislature, that British officers in endeavouring to give effectto the Foreign Enlistment Bill in the United States afforded just cause of dissatisfaction to the Govern. ment of that country. IN INDIAN SALT REPORT. AFTER three years of very patient waiting, Parliament has been favored with the Indian Salt Report. Had it been the pleasure of the Directors, all the information required for the understanding of the subject might have been furnished in three days ; for to the India house the salt question is not a new one, and there was everything that was to be said on it already lying in the archives of Leadenhall street and of Cannon-row. But there is a wonderful difference in the pace of India house progress when a job has to be perpe• trated, and when a reform has to be intro• duced. As might be expected, the Report settles nothing. The Commissioner has no objection to the Government ceasing to be the manufacturer of salt, so that it receives the same revenue from it by way of an excise. He would also willingly see the tax in Bengal re duced by a fifth, it being as it is a fourth greater than the tax levied under the Agra Government, twice and a half as great as that levied in the Madras Presidency, and more than three times the amount taken under the Government of Bombay. To this latter pro position, however, the Government of India have given a decided negative ; and so matters, except as relates to the mere question of manu facture, are to remain precisely on their ancient footing. English salt will continue to be excluded almost entirely from the market by the enormous duty, and the ryot will still be subject in the fullest extent to the intolera ble grievance which now oppresses him. That it is an intolerable grievance is admitted by the Directors themselves in a letter written by them, which is quoted in the Report, when in 1824 the question of establishing the mono poly in Bombay was before them. They therein frankly allowed that in the then cir cumstances of the larger portion of the terri tories under the Bombay Presidency the pro: posal was premature, as " in districts recently " acquired, and still in a great measure un " settled, the taxation of au article necessary " to subsistence must, the Court apprehended ; "be considered grievous and oppressive.' In other words, the Court confessed that they knew that the Mahrattas, then recently subjul gated, would fly to arms to resist the imposi tion, as the people of the Trans-Indus pro vinces did after their annexation—a resist ance iu which they were successful. Indeed, the Bombay Government, as it is, only levies three-fourths of the amount of duty which it is empowered by Act of the Legislative Coun cil to levy, owing to an outbreak at Suratom of its oldest dependencies having shown it that, even with the most passive and unresist ing, oppressive taxation has its limits which cannot safely be passed.