The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The 9th of May, 1864, will ever be re-
markable for the exact but fortuitous concurrence of

two events having the most important bearings the
one on the other. White the representatives of the

belligerents and of the allied Powers were sitting in
Conference with a view to the cessation of bloodshed
on some terms or other, an Austrian and a Danish
squadron were engaged in action several hundred
miles off, neat the opposite shores of the German
Ocean. Almost at the very hour that Denmark,
declining an armistice which would give a greater
sanction to the past than she chose to allow, was
agreeing to a simple suspension of hostilities, an
Austrian frigate was on the point of destruction, and
its consorts were taking refuge in the British waters
of Heligoland. Such a concurrence was possible at
any time, for we have heard before of simultaneous
victories by sea and by land I but that both events
should net only happen together, but be simultane-
ously known in Downing-street, would have been
impossible and incredible a very few years ago. The
telegraphic wire brought the news of the one event

acress the German Ocean as fast as messengers
could bring the other to the office next door.
When the Conference had agreed to a suspension of
arms, they heard within an hour that they had been
too late to stop a battle in which Denmark had re-
trieved, at the cost of one of her assailants, the re-
verses she had suffered at the hands of the other. It

is scarcely possible for the most impartial or the
most indifferent bystander not to rejoice at this
opportune change in the hitherto sad tenonr of her
fortunes. It has come not only as a substantial
proof of her pruitess, but also as if to reward the

moderation with which he has agreed to endure for
a time the hostile occupation of her soil. There never
was a time or an occasion in which the British people
were not disposed to give their sympathy to, the weak.
On that, if on no other ground, they would delight
to see Denmark making up on her own element for
indefensible earthworks and over whelmitag foes. But
it was something more than this British instinct that
prompted the enthusiastic cheers of the House of
Commons when they heard the result of the action
off Heligoland. Whatever may be the rights of this
inscrutable question, they regard Austria and Prussia
as aggressors, who without a legal footing in Den-
mark use their overwhelming numbers for evidently
selfish purposes. The allied German Powers had
agreed to recommend an armistice, involving, among
other things, that Denmark should suspend her
blockade of Baltic ports and should surrender
to her invaders the island of Alsen, while they were

also to withdraw their armies from Jutland. It was

supposed that Denmark would readily give up a
small island lying at the mercy of the foe, in order
to save the Danish inhabitants of her mainland from

.heir present humiliation and misusage. The Dines,

however, preferred a mere suspension of arms, as
being the simple continuance of a state of things in
which it could not be pretended that they for a
moment acquiesce. Being purely negative, it com-
mits them to nothing, and is not even a step to any
consummation. That Prussian and Austrian armies
occupy all Jutland is a deplorable fact, which the
Danes have only recognised in the language of in-
dignant remonstrance. The abandonment of Alsen
a day earlier than was expected by the exigencies
of war would have looked like the abandonment of
a just claim. That the Danes would agree to any
species of armistice, and especially that they would
suspend their blockade, was what the Conference
rather hoped than expected. They knew that they
had to confer, not with men before them, but with
the telegraph wire, and the men at the other end
of that wire, and they knew that in the case of Den-
mark the men at the other end of the wire were un-
der the influence of a turbulent and irrational de-
mocracy. Copenhagen, safe in an island, and with
Sweden to flatter its vanity and foster its hopes,
gives laws to the mainland, not so secure or so irre-
sponsible for its deeds. Would the Danish re-
presentatives even:make the smallest approxima-
tion towards a settlement ? It was feared not.
However, reason has at last prevailed, and we have
now the happiness of seeing a Conference for Peace
which is not carried on paripassu with a sanguinary
war. We trust the Danes will not be too much
elated with their naval victory to take that part in
the further proceedings of the Conference which
facts may require. That victory we have no wish
to disparage. It seems to have been fought against
odds, and the Austrians could hardly be worse
armed than the Danes themselves. It is probable
that both sides had the old style of armament, but
even were it otherwise, on the open sea the advan-
tages of the new ordnance might be counteracted
by better manoeuvring and by close quarters. No
such victory, however, would enable the Danes to
make their blockade of the German ports effective.
As the camel is the " ship of the desert," so the rail-
way is the ship of the Continent in these days, anti
is fully competent to do all that ship has ever
done. We trust, then, the Danes will bear their
new honours meekly, and remember not only that
they are but men, but that they are also not
many, not rich, and somewhat behindhand in
military affairs. if they keep that in mind, it may
lead to a peaceful and even to an equitable settle-
ment of this long and disastrous controversy. The
result of the suspension of arms is most pro-
pitious for our own affairs. It has reinstated a
Government which every rumour tnreatened to
shake from its seat. So long as England was com-
pelled to stand by and witness a slaughter which
she utterly abominated, but had neither the autho-
rity to stop nor the wit to avert, no Ministry could
hold itself safe from the indignation which, justly
or unjustly, must find some object or other. Had
the Conference broken up without an armistice,
though by no fault of the Government, the Con-
servatives would have had a majority to back them
in censuring the impotent friends of Denmark and
the successful champions of public justice. "Nothing
succeeds like success." All the labour and anxiety
which have been expended in conciliating Danes
and Germans, in smoothing difficulties and calming
susceptibilities, however unreasonable, would have
won for those who endured it no consideration in
the House of Commons or in the country if it had
failed to vanquish the obstinacy of one side or the
rapacity of the other. It is the injustice which all
public men are taught by experience to expect.
Happily, on this occasion reason, and perhaps a
better feeling on both sides, possibly, too, a fear of
ulterior consequences, have come to the aid of the
peacemakers ; the fighting is over for the present ;
the Austrians and Prussians will retire to their
quarters, and the Conservatives, who but yesterday
were ready to storm the Treasury Bench, may
make up their minds to an uneventful Session,
and return es soon as they please to the pleasures
of country life.
pose.--The present eontlition of the cotton opera-
tives in England is described and discussed very
minutely in the last report of Mr. Redgrave, the
factory inspector in whose district the chief seats of
the cotton manufacture are situated. It appears
that from the beginning of the crisis to the end of
last year very nearly three millions sterling were
expended by the Guardians, the Central Relief Com-
mittee, and the Mansion House Committee, in
maintaining those who suffered from the distress.
To this must be added that of which an estimate
cannot easily he made—the sums given by private
charity unconnected with the public bodies, and the
stores of clothing that have been distributed. This
large amount of relief has been distributed at the
smalleet per-tentage of cost, but at the expenditure
of time and labour by the several committees and
their officers, with an earnest devotedness which
none can appreciate fully &wept those who have wit-
nessed their operations, and have a personal know-
ledge of the difficulties of their task. We are glad
to learn that the reduction in the number of per-
sons in the receipt of relief, with which 1863 began
continued throughout the greater part of the year;
and in spite of a relapse during the autumn the re-
turns for the last week of December contrasted very
favourably with those of the first week of the pre-
ceding January. Not only have the numbers of the
operatives in full-time and in halftime employ-
ment increased, but their position in regard to the
amount of their earnings has improved. Notwith-
standing this change for the better, the average rate
of their wages is still very much below what it was
before the war in North America. Several causes
co-operated in reducing their earnings, besides the
dirty condition and the shorter staple of
the Surat cotton, which the mill-owners
haste had to use so largely. It is now the
practice to use cotton ""waste" largely with
Surat, and this inciT ies of the
'rho threads,cult from their
spinners and misiders• ere -
ases the diffi
shortness of fibre, are Mori.;
•to break in the
s, twisting of the
drawing out of the mule and in se (3 •
eentinuouslY
yarti, rind the mule cannot be kept so e. sioa re-
in motion. Then, frota the greater littera,_
quired in watching the threads in weaving, meelv
weavers can mind only one loom, and very few can
mind more than two. In these and in other ways
the efficiency of their labour, and with it the
amount of their earnings, is diminished. But some i
improvements have been made or are making in the
machinery employed ; the new materials are better
understood, and the operatives are learning to
handle them more easily, and are becoming better
able to overcome the difficulties they have to con-
tend against. In estimating the real worth of their
wages it is to be remembered that this depends
chiefly on the•price of the main articles of food and
on the nature and quantity of the food they re-
quire. Factory labour, it is ackowledged, requires
a more generous diet than employments of a less
skilled description, carried on in the open air or
under cover in a moderate temperature. The
comparatively high wages
of the cotton opera-
tive in good times serve to pay for the food
which is necessary to supply
the great waste of
the system that he has to sustain; and it is