The Press.
London, England, 1853-10-01 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

" ture. An officer of the United States' navy
" said the other day. when the conversation
" turned on General WASHINGTON and the non
" intervention doctrines, that he would talk
" differently were he now alive—he 'd be no idle
" Whig, but an active Democrat."
This dictum corresponds with that of the
New York Journal, which recently declared
that Captain INORAHAM, had he but opened a
broadside on the Austrian corvette in the
waters of Smyrna the other day, would have
been the next . President of the United Stales
_ _ _

We have been familiarised of late with this
vague threat of intervention in European po
titles from more than one section of the
American press ; and in the valedictory address
of M. SOW:, the newly-appointed Minister to
the Court of Spain, there was a still more tan-
gible allusion to the duty of the model republic
to render itself henceforward a tutelary inter-
vener between democracy and despotism.
The origin of this inclination has been
ascribed to the increasing impatience of the
citizens of the United States at seeing the
continued intluen-e of England, exercising, as
she does, a potential and a recognised authority
in adjusting the interests and misunderstand-
ings of her European contemporaries. They
grow weary of the never ending allusions to
" Aristides the Just"—and their fretfulness is
nourished by contrasting their own powers for
intervention with the fact of their practical
exclusion.

We are not altogether unprepared for the
manifestation of this feeling, marking, as we
have done, the unprecedented and almost
incredible pace of American development.
Our readers will no doubt be startled at the
fact that the mercantile navy of the United States
is at present greater than that of the United King-
dom ; and that the tonnage of the single city of
New York is within a trifle of being equal to that
of London and Liverpool put together !
According to the American returns, their
mercantile marine was, tit the close of last
year, upwards of 4,000.000 tons, whilst that of
Great Britain was but 3,300,000 tons.

Seven years ago the tonnage of New York
was considerably less than that of London.
At the end of 1852 it exceeded 1,000,000 tons,
whilst that of London was 682,000 tons. and
that of Liverpool 684.000 tons.
These are marvellous facts ; and, coupling
with the unconcealed ambition of the Republic
to assume a " mission" amongst the nations of
the earth the knowledge of her prodigious
energy and strength, it ►s neither premature
nor presumptuous to infer that in the coming
crisis of Europe the statesmen and the fleets
of the United States are not likely to rest
contented with playing the part of mere
observers.

LORD PALMERSTON'S LATE
SPEECHES.

LORD PALMERSTON has proved himself more
than a match for the Lord Provosts, and
Bailies, and M.Ps., and Deans of the Guild
of the fair city of Perth and the good town of
Glasgow. Cunningly they lay in wait to watch
him as he flitted past from Balmoral towards
the south; more cunningly still they baited
the trap with exactly the article likely
to be most tempting to a statesmen sup-
posed to be .uttering, under unmerited in-
jury. Provost This told him of the glories
of his foreign policy : and the Honour-
able The Other. with more breadth and
bluntness than delicacy, blurted out that
the country" wished to see him cure more
Foreign Secretary, even should the present
holder of the seals make way for hill. But
all in vain. Not even the self-evident truth
and the gratifying appositeness of these well-
buttered compliments could extract from Lord
PALMERSTON one word more than he himself
chose to say, or than was exactly fitted to the
occasion. All they could get in reply was an
elegant tissue of generalities. and an ironical
dissertation on the actual solid value that
might be extracted from a bushel of chaff."
Its a delicate and dangerous thing to joke with
civic functionaries, more especially with Scot-
tish Provosts and Deans of Guild ; and to
the other diplomatic merits of Lord PALMIRS-
TON must now be added the dexterity with

SATURDAY,

which he enjoyed his quiz at the expense of
his disappointed but unconscious auditors.
Lord PALMERSTON, however. has taken a load
off the mind of the Coalition Cabinet. If we
are to judge by the delight of their organs at
the fact of the Noble Viscount having said
nothing to indicate the existence of a "split,"
we must infer that the difference of opinion is
serious indeed which could render such a
breach of official duty and etiquette possible
on the part of so highminded a statesman and
so thorough a tactician as Lord PALMERSTON.
Because the Noble Viscount, being most im-
properly and indelicately " pumped" by the
worthy Provosts and their satellites, did not
at once betray Cabinet secrets, and virtually
proclaim a weakened Government at the
crisis when strength is most demanded, they
jump to the conclusion that all the " rumours"
of a difference as to the principle of our foreign
policy have been wholly unfounded. They
are welcome to an inference which is contra.
dicted, not merely by the past lives and
professions of Lords PALMERSTON and ABER
DEER, but also by the actual events of the last
few months.

Yet, all that Lord PALMERSTON Could say in
self-vindication, without self-compromise, he
did say. Jesuitism is so completely the order
of the day, that even this plain-speaking
Briton finds himself compelled to resort to a
kind of double-dealing. In the same spirit that
dictated his two-edged compliment to the
Emperor NICHOLAS on the last day of the
session, he told his astonished auditors of the
foresight and firmness of Lord CLARENDON,
and the certainty that all would be rightly
managed by him, if he was supported by the
country. This, we presume, was part of the
" sample" whereof they were to judge of the
contents of the " bushel ; " but the good
Provosts, Deans of Guild, M.Ps., end honour-
able satellites, will have to winnow a long time
ere they get anything good out of such talk as
that. Again, although Lord PALMERsTos
could not. as a Minister of the Crown, say in
plain terms, " I disapprove altogether of the
policy which tends to the exaltation of abso-
lutism, and the substitution of mere force for
opinion,"—although he could not at that
moment, as he had done a hundred times
amidst the enthusiastic cheers of the House
of Commons, thus denounce the proceedings
of Lord ABERDEEN and his supporters,—yet, by
a skilful juxtaposition of the glories of the
constitutional system, and the efforts he him-
self through his long career had made in its
support, the Noble Viscount dextrously re-
minded his hearers and the country at large
that though silent on a question of immediate
controversy, there still remained between him
and " the Minister of Austria " an irrecon-
cilable and ineradicable difference of prin-
ciple. After a very careful" winnowing," this is
nearly the sum total of our gatherings from
Lord PAtmensrox's well-filled bushel. If the
good people of the North have arrived at a
similar conclusion, they will have attained all
that they could have desired, and a little more
than they had any right to expect from a
MU in Lord PALMERSTON'S peculiarly delicate
situation.