The Express.
London, England, 1862-03-08 00:00:00

or had been done to • neutral country. He
like to know what the hon. member for
Galway thought they ought to do. He bad not been able
to gather so much from the honourable member's speech.
The nearest approach whirl the boo. disinter had made to
• suggeetion was that of armed neutrality. Suppose, then,
they came to disregard the proclamation of the United
States, and send ships to break the blockade, he asked what
would that be l He told them that it would be war.
(Hear, hear.) An armed neutrality of any kind was war,
and not the more honourable because it was not avowed.
(Hear.) To set up such a neutrality was contrary to the
wager of nations, and would carry with it all the copse-
gnomes of war. It might by possibility happen that
a nation might be under such a state of momentary
depression as not to be able to resist such an aggression,
but did they think that such an offence would ever be for-
given? (Hear, hear.) Did they talk that friendly rela-
tions could ever be restored? He was sure that he spoke
the sense of the house and the country, when he
said that, under any cirewnstances, it would be
a most grievous and painful thing for Groat Britain
to be irthinged in a war with the United States.
The hon. and learned gentleman then spoke as follows :
They are men of the same blood, language, and religion,
and the children of our forefathers, and united to us by all
the bond,' and ties that unite man and man together, even
in the holiest cause and on the most necessary occasions.
Even on such an occasion as seemed likely to have been
imminent, we should have entered upon a contest with
feelings which I cannot describe. (Cheers.) I venture to
say that if on that occasion we had been forced to enter on
that contest, although we might have had no alternative,
for we should not have been the aggeerors, we could not
have declined it without giving up the most sacred duties
of a nation, and showing ourselves unworthy of being
the depositary of the power which we
.possess.
In &datum to all these deep and bitter feelings which such
a contest under any circumstances must occasion—those
feelings not being without their aggravation in the reflection
that it might be imputed to us due, after having made the
sacrifices we have done for the sake of liberty, we were
obliged to find ourselves in active co-operation with a
country which perhaps, without the fault of the present
generation, is the last stronghold of slavery. (Cheers.)
Aud there would have been, if possible, a more bitter aggra-
vation : we bean compelled to meet our brethren
in arum in the United States, wo should have desired to
meet them as geneaws enemies on • fair and open
field, but we should have been obliged to meet them
with their bands tied down, overburdened with the
weight of a domestic calamity. (Cheers.) But if it bed been
necesiary,in that case they would have created the necessity,
and we could have looked Europe and the world in the
face, and calmly appealed to the verdict of our own age and
posterity, knoitiog that our cause, as it had been without
'elfishness, was also without reproach. But how would it
have been if, for the sake of any selfish ohjects,or from any
mercenary motives, if to prwide ourselves with cotton and
for the purpose of meeting our own difficulties arising from
causes over which we had no control, how would it have
been if, for the purposes of consulting and
consi-
dering our own interests, we had been the first
to break the recognised usages of established law,
' and the first to my that the United States as a belligerent
should not exercise belligerent rights in the ordinary manner
because we wanted cotton? (Cheers.) If we had taken
such a course as that we should not have been able to look
in the face of Europe or the world. (Hear, hear.) We
should not have been able to appeal to the verdict of our
own egg and posterity. (Hear, bear.) If there had been •
government prodding ever the destinies of this country
capable of entertaining such a policy there would have
been a power stall stronger than that government to prevent
it. (Hew, hear.) Who had been the great sufferers by
the lees of that trade which bad been so unhappily inter-
rupted ? The mamas and manufacturers of Lanceskies, the
constituents of my hon. friend the member for Bradford.
(Hear, hear.) Had they demanded this? (Hear, bear.)
Does my hon. friend the member far Galway speak under
their instruction ? (No.) They had set as example worthy
of the noble people to whom they belonged, and had
showed that justice, virtue, honour, and patience, are
better esteemed by those classes who suffered most from
each calamities than any objects of permed interest
which they could gain from provoking an unjust and unne-
cessary war. (Cheers.) The government of this country
had been actuated by the same spirit. It had desired
firmly to maintain our own rights, but to do so according
to the recognised usages of nations, to be con-
sistently and strictly neutral towards both bellige-
rents, not encroaching on the belligerent operations,
or considering whether our neutrality would be more bene-
ficial to one than the other. It had taken that course be-
cause it was not only consistent with our own true interests,
but, because it was the wares of national honour and of
generosity and justice, and because it was the only 001121110
which was consistent with the Divine law that we should
" do to others as we would wish to be dorm unto." (Cheers.)
Lord R. CECIL was not surprised to find that the hon.
and learned gentleman should, to giving utterance to his
splendid legal subtleties, have forgotten the place in wash
he was standing, and have thought that he was
in a court of law. After the boo. and learned
interpretation of the law, not one okra of
protocol of Paris remained. All writers upon isternsticioal
law had shown that the hos. and learned gentleman's inter-
pretation of the law would be most fatal to • blockade
being maintained, for awarding to his authority, even if the
continuity of the blockade were interrupted,still the blockade
would be efficient, and the law of nations could be put in
force. He would ask the house to consider whether the block-
ade of the Southern ports had not been merely a damage toau
individual trader but an injury to the country neurally.
Now the honourable and learned Solicitor-Gene.
ral had very ingeniously not referred to the
port where the blockade was the most inefficient,
viz., the port of Wilmington, where the greatest injury
had been inflicted upon the British traders. He would ask
the house to consider whether the British government had
been vigilant or not when he mentioned to the house that
between the 10th and 19th August no less than 14 vessels
bad ran the blockade. The principle of international law
was that there must he • boot fide force to support the
blockade statiored at the poet, but the house would see by
the reports of the consuls that there hail been only a paper
blockade. He thought it would appear clear to bon, mem-
bers after a careful study of the papers laid before them that
the government had shown a desire to favour the
Northern States, and that, therefore, they had sot
been strictly neutral towards both parties. (Hear, bear.)
What made him moat doubt the alleged neutrality of the
government was, their unwillingness to carry into effect,
with respect to the Confederate States of America, the
principle on which they had acted during all the revolutions
which took place in the present century. It bad beam
their practice to recognise • government which had bean
chosen by the people. They did so in the cases of Belgium,
Italy, and the Spanish colonies in America, without in-
quiring into the cause of quarrel in any instance, or asking
whether slavery was carried on in the state they recognised.
The first time that principle was departed from
was in the rase of the Confederate States of America.
Now, for the first time, they heard of supporting the legiti-
mwe government end discouraging rebellion. He believed
that if there had been true neutrality, the former prece-
dents would have been acted on ; and he looked on the
policynow pursued as being as wider as it was inconsistent.
The Northern States of America could never be the sure
friends of this country, because they were the rivals of Eng-
lend politically and commercially. Both aspired to the go-
vernment of the sea, both were manufacturing countries,
and • law mightier than either brought them into constant
antagonism. With respect to the Southern States
it was exactly the reverse. Their population was an agri-
cultural people, they [washed the raw material which the
iodustry of this country wosumed, and the interest of
each led them naturally into friendly relations one with
the other. If therefore this country recognised an illegal
blockade, and refused to recognise the independence of the
Southern States, they would be led to look upon England as
taking part with their oppressors. He could drum the
house that if any real or honest construction of internatioaal
law dictated to the people of this country to act so con-
trary to their own interests, he would be the last to protest
against it, but it seemed to him to be a most fatal and
suicidal policy to break the laws which bound the com-
monwealth of tedious when by so doing our population is
sleeved and our trade destroyed. (Hear, hear.)
After • few words from Admiral WALCUIT.
The motion for the production of papers was negatived
without a division.
THE RECENT ARRESTS AT TANGIERS.

- -
Mr. D. GRIFFITH stated, that according to accounts
published that morning it appeared that the two gentlemen
arrested a short time since at Tangiers, on the requisition of
the! American Consul, after landing from the Sumter, had
not been released. He wished to know from the Under
Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether the government had
received any later information on the subject than that
already given to the house.
Mr. LAYARI) said that be regretted being unable to give
the hon. gentleman any further information than that re.
ferred to. The telegram be received stated that the two
gentlemen but been released, He had no reason to doubt
the accuracy of that statement, and believed that it was of
man recent date than the report to which the hon. gentle.
man alluded.
The house then went pro forms into committee of supply,
and immediately maimed.
SUPPLY. - . .