The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-28 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The two States of Maryland and Kens
tucky have been kept within the Union by force.
Had not the Federal Government occupied them
both by strong bodies of troops, the feeling of the
population would probably have carried these ter-
ritories into the Southern Confederacy. At first
the public opinion was sufficiently divided to retain
them from throwing in their lot with the South.
But time gradually increased their Southern sym-
pathies, and they were held within the Union only
by the Federal arms.. Kentucky is a central State
in which the Northern troops had the special mis-
sion to " discover Union opinion." It was assumed
that a mass of this sentiment existed unable to ex-
press itself, and requiring liberation. There has
been ample time for the Unionists to declare them-
selves. Every protection and encouragement have
been given them, yet the cause of the North has not
been strengthened. The Federal authorities have
lost their influence, and are at last compelled to re-
sort to a severity without precedent. Kentucky is
subject to a treatment harsher than martial law. It
is handed over to the caprice of a Federal General,
who has devised a peculiar system of tempting men
into " loyalty." Kentucky fares worse under its
military occupation than Louisiana ander General
Butler, who is exceeded in cruelty and fanaticism.
The object of the conquest of a revolted State is os-
tensibly to occupy it and treat with the population
for the restoration of the old political relation with
the North. But the manner in which Kentucky
and Louisiana have been governed has been calcu-
lated to deepen the hostility of the South, and make
any accommodation impossible. Since the 20th of
July the western district of Kentucky has been ad-
ministered by a General Paine, one of those officers
who are far more " Federal" than the Government
he serves with such furious zeal. The President
insists on the restoration of the Union as a question
of policy; his deputy insists on it as an object of
religion—something to ba accepted and worshipped.
He professes to preach " Federal salvation" to un be.
lievers, and announces that he will enforce the creed
by any degree of violence. If the population are not
ready to accept the Union " they must die." It does
not require any overt act of disloyalty to bring them
under the ban. Neutrality or doubtful opinions are
to be punished with exile. All business is to be
suspended for those who cannot prove their alle-
giance. For the vague offence of disloyalty, which
may have many degrees, citizens are to be punished
by deprivation of every right. They are not
simply brought under martial law; they are placed
beyond the pale of all law whatever. The disloyal
are not to be permitted to pay money or receive
it. They may, indeed, lodge money in a bank, but
Gan give no draught on the account to a " rebel."
Tenants are released from the obligation of paying
their rents except to " unswerving, unconditional,
and undeviating Union persons or corporations."
A spacial permission from headquarters must be ob-
tained to authorise any bank to pay out or transfer
any sum of money. These prohibitions are described
without the slightest doubt that they will be effec-
tual. " Capital," it is said, " the ever-ehanging
lever of trade, commerce, and war, is virtually dead
within the district." Or rather, the capital and
rents of the " disloyal" are transferredto the agents
of the Federal Government, who are to decide what
deficiency of enthusiasm for the cause is to incur
the penalty of forfeiture. It is difficult to believe
that such decrees are expected to have any effect.
The regulations will be evaded in every possible
manner. Of course, all payments of money into the
banks will cease. The most unimpeachable certifi-
cates of character will be produced, and it will be
discovered that all who have anything to receive
have entertained the most profound admiration for
the Union all their lives. There will be an increase
of professed support of the Federal Government,
which will break down the moment the pressure is
lightened. The system adopted in Kentucky is an
extension of the practice of exacting an oath of
adherence to the Union from everybody suspected
of doubtful allegiance. It has never strengthened
the power of any Government. In New Orleans
taking the oath became a mere mockery, and it will
be impossible to draw all the distinctiona of cha-
racter that entitle men to an exemption from the
official orders. The theory of General Paine is that
no "disloyal" person has any rights the Government
is bound to respect. By his decree a citizen of a State,
not held by conquest, but occupied merely or "pro-
tected," a non-combatant, whose hostility has never
gone beyond the passive form of disapproval of the
system of government, may have all his property
confiscated. No civilised nation has ever inflicted
such penalties on an army, even when it had yielded
to the fortune of war, and was defenceless, as a con-
quered people. The armies of France occupied
most of the great cities o. Europe, but the Govern.
went of Napoleon never forced the citizens to buy
and sell, and pay and receive their debts. The
aversion to the French occupation was as strong as
national feeling could be. But the Emperor did
not punish that adverse opinion so long as it pro-
duced no overt act. The truth is, that opinions
held by an entire community, with few exceptions,
must be recognised and dealt with in some discri-
minating manner. The attempt to exterminate it
is futile, except by destroying the community
itself. General Paine seems to contemplate this
measure as possible, but he will be baffled. " I am
going to manage this district so that when I have
done with it the men and women who remain can
come together in the name of the Lord, and say,
'We belong to the United States.' " And what
would the Federation have gained in the aeherence
of ihis poor remnant of population ? It must admit
that Governments were made for men, and that no
political system ever yet existed for which the ex-
termination of a whole people could be justified.
There is nothing more sacred in the American
Union than in a score of other Governments that
have been created and set aside, leaving the commu-
nity little the worse for its many changes. The
Americans are making a fearful mistake in eleva-
ting the Union into something divine and immus
table, to which they are bound to sacrifice all
who do not yield it the most abject sub-
mission. They have inverted the importance of
a population and its Government. One is
essential to the existence of the nation ; the
other may be modified whenever necessity dee
mends it. If the people could perceive how favour-
able would have been their condition if they had
assented to some political compromise four years ago,
contrasted with their present state 1 After all the
sacrifices of lire and money wasted for an extinct
Union, they must regret the spirit that can produce
such bigots as General Paine, and lift them into an
authority they have too little common sense to use.
Such men are obliged to hide their real weakness
under violent language or acts of revolting ferocity.

FosT.—A Minister who comes into the ,field to
pass a review of the policy of his Administration so
late in the season as Lord De Grey has but a poor
alternative before him. He must either be content
to run in the old ruts of his colleagues who have
preceded him in the same task, or he must content
himself with the discussion of those subordinate
questions which they had passed over in silence.
Lord De Grey, however, on this occasion has chosen
the former course. The agricultural society at Ripon
had a right to hear his opinions upon the Danish
question, and he therefore prefers to go over the
old ground. The gist of his remarks may be ap-
prehended in a word. It is, that the first principle
of our foreign policy is non-intervention; and that
the only exceptions to its application must lie where
either our national honour has been pledged, or
oar national interests command us to intervene. It
is very reasonable to suppose that, upon the latter
point, different individuals may entertain opposite
opinions in particular cases. Lord De Grey places
the Danish war, the Italian war, and the American
war together, as the three most remarkable in-
stances, during the reign of the present Adminis-
tration, of our observance of the-principle of non-in-
tervention. It is quite clear that the Danish question
has been an extreme illustration of this policy ; and
it does not serve to bear out the doctrine of M. niers
that England would at any time take up arms to
save territory on the German Ocean from falling
under the dominion of one of the great Continental
Powers. If, therefore, we have not taken so bold a
part as many perhaps would have desired, we have at
any rate not shown ourselves so selfish or so sensi-
tively jealous as the French historian describes us. The
Danish question, however, as we perhaps succeeded
in showing on a recent occasion, is not a question by
any means past and gone, and the delays inevitably
incident to the progress of an almost insoluble
difficulty admit of many fresh phases yet presenting
themselves before a settlement can be had. It is
therefore as a living rather than as a historical
question that Lord De Grey now deals with it. His
sympathy with the Danish cause finds an echo in
every heart; nor is it possible to deny that the
momentous conclusion at which we arrived on the
break up of the London Conference has a nearly
similar parallel in the coarse adopted by the French
Government on the Polish question in the previous
year. When we declined to follow France in a course
of diplomacy amounting to an intervention on be-
half of the Poles, France refused to take on herself
the responsibility of proceeding alone ; and Lord
Do Grey argues much in the manner before adopted
by Lerd Russell, that we did no more than decline
for ourselves alone in Denmark the responsibility
which France singly had refused to assume in
Poland. This is certainly a fair precedent, so far
as concerns the dignity of Great Britain, whatever
may be thought of the course that was the Trost
expedient for our Government to adopt. Lord De
Grey turns with more felicity to the subject of the
department of which he is master. The Government,
he says, have not lost sight of the necessity of com-
bining financial reform with the exigencies of our
distant empire and our scattered commence. This,

in fact, is the difficulty of all combinations. The
Treasury cries out for retrenchment, the Admiralty
and the War Office for more money for fresh ships.
and fresh guns, dictated by fresh experiments; and
the Prime Minister holds his authority to preserve
a juste milieu between these conflicting demands:
That we are living in an experimental age of naval
and military art is the source of oar greatest difficult/
in united efficiency with economy. Sir J. Paklngtoo
came forward, as First Lord of the Admiralty,
ua
1858 with a grandiose plan of "reconstructing the
navy." It is true that the Warrior was laid dovi¢
.
under his rule at the Admiralty ; bat, with that es
ceptlon, his " reconstruction" chiefly consisted ,
laying down a number of fresh wooden ships, chiefli
differing in point of construction from those the!
already afloat in the fact that they were o..oraeville.k
larger. The Duke of Somerset •succeeded hut:1,1;o
11
1859, and it was then very soon discovered that tu'
wooden reconstruction of the navy was almosti,
worthless. Now we are building nothing but IN,.
and iron-plated ships; but at the same time our art!'..
lerists are exerting their perverse faculties in develf
ing cannon of a calibre to pierce any thicknee° °1
iron that can possibly float. What is true of nevse
architecture being an experimental science lstrnil,
in a lees degree of the expenditure of the arroY• aih d
invention is ever warring upon retrenchment, 1-4•0
De Gray, however, does the tax-paying public es
more than justice when he says that they °o
be unwilling to pay for whatever is needLe't d
defend us, and to protect our shipping, scatter
as it is over the whole globe. The public vvls;
naturally enough, to have all they can for the:o
money—to make it go as far as it will ; and, eb° t
all, to see that what is necessary is done at the lets,
possible cost. The failure of financial refortnef:
has been caused by their disposition to opposeille
sures of preparation which are needful for
public safety. If they could prove, on the other
at
hand, that the same measures could be executeo, 11
a less cost, their arguments would be irresistible;
It was impossible for Lord De Grey to turn aws(„,
from a discussion of public affairs before an agrleu 0
tural society and forbear allusion to the pros. at
o f peaceful legislation. He says, very troll, th
it
has been one main result of political ecouoo1p.
to simplify the labours of Ministers and Perl/Eld
m ents. After so much ingenuity had been devised
in determining what degree of protection shelll
be conferred, first on one industrial interest 00
then upon another, it wAs at last discovered that thcs..
discussions started from a false basis, and that it Was
the true interest both of industry and commerce tt
be left alone, at once without shackles and withetld
protection, to make their own way, and to 0.
their own level among rival nations. He is
bably old enough to remember the hard battle with
his father, the late Lord Ripon, had to fight vit"o
the Yorkshire agriculturists when he went over 'd
the cause of free trade:with Sir It. Peel in 1846,.610
brought the bill for the repeal of the corn laWol.ll`i
the House of Lords. Those who so vehementlyaseal:cto
Lord Ripon among the north country Protectionl°v
have before this learnt that the free-trading P°l,,ic:o
has largely augmented their own wealth, while it l';„
increased the total rental of the country by 031
thing like 20 per cent. The Yorkshire agricultered
interest may fairly, therefore, put itself under Lera
de Grey's lead as that of one of the more advaneet
Liberals in the Government, and may rely tilt,l,o'
whatever measures will be found beneficial to t't
country in general, will promote also the cause °he
farming, and tend to raise at once the rents of t'
landowner, the profits of the farmer, and the Nvegeo
of the agricultural labourer.