The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-17 00:00:00

The Chicago Convention.

If we read these Chicago resolutions, framed and
introduced, as is worthy of remark, by the repre-
sentative of the Federal Senate of a slaveholding
State and a native Southerner, although not a
favourable type of the Southern statesman, by the
light of the deliberations after which they were
adopted, it becomes more than ever clear that the
keynote of the Democratic policy is conciliation, and
this fact is of vastly greater importance than the
precise phraseology in which that policy is an-
nounced. There is in the various speeches and ad-
dresses a significant absence of a threatening alter-
native. The speakers all profess an implicit confi-
dence that conciliation will result in reconciliation,
and they are silent as to the means to be employed
in event of failure. We had fully expected a cer-
tain amount of " last man and last dollar" oratory,
and it is in this, more than in anything else, that
the convention has agreeably disappointed us. We
venture to say that, for this reason alone, the Con-
federate Government and people feel more kindly at
this moment towards the Northern Democracy than
at any time since the war broke out, and will meet
them with as hearty good-will as it is posbible to
have for men who still hold the attitu le of armed

enemies.
In keeping with there gratifying indications, to
which we direct attention, is the absence from the
debates of the convention and from its published
resolutions of any allusions, even indirect, to slavery.
It is not even casually referred to as a possible ele-
ment of difficult in the adjustment of the quarrel
between North and South. Nothing could be more
eloquent than this silence on a subject which the
partisans of the North have so sedulously repre-
sented as the sole cause and object of the war. If
the Democratic party should seize the reins of go-
vernment, and afterwards unhappily a war fever
should again seize upon the minds of the Northern
people, they will stand denuded of the last rag of a
pretext either to themselves or to the world. Here,
then, is another, and perhaps the most hopeful,
promise of peseP.
Endeavouring to review the action of the Chicago
convention without partisan bitterness, and making
allowance for its unavoidable shortcomings, we must
give it the credit of having done probably the best
that could be done under the circumstances. It has
at least had the manliness to make an emphatic and
solemn avowal of the hopeless failure of the attempt
to restore the Union by any other than peaceful
means. So wide an abyss as the unprecedented
magnitude of this war has placed between the two
peoples cannot be jumped at a single bound; it must
be bridged over, and the convention might have
selected a worse foundation and less available
materials for the construction of the bridge. We
look hopefully, therefore, to the probable success of
the Chicago nominees as a hcavenssent opportunity
for bringing about a peace honourable to both
parties, and conducive to the safety and prosperity
of both. At the same time it behoves the South to
strive harder than ever, and not to allow herself to
be beguiled into temporary security or remission of
exertions. If it is wise, as Washington said, "in
time of peace to prepare for war," it is assuredly
not less necessary in this instance " in time of war
to prepare fur peace." And the true preparation
for peace with the North is to enforce by deeds the
truth which the North has been so slow to learn—
that of the two the South is the better able to pro-
long the struggle, and that while the North con-
sumes accumulated resources the South develops
exhaustless ones. If we had ambitious wishes of
empire far the Sous h we should desire, great as the
cost of life would be, another four years of war. As
' self-preservation is its only object, we hope for
peace,—lndex.
ur-

RAILWAY EXTENSION IN WALES.—On Thurs-
day the first sod of the Caernarvon and Llanberris Railway
was cut by the Ron. Emily Wynn. An immense number
of people witnessed the interesting ceremony, which passed
passed off with much dclai.
SOUTH-WESTERN RAILWAY.—Several journals
have erroneously stated that the Hon. it, H. Dutton,
M.P., is going to retire from the directory of the London
and South. Western Railway Company. This statement is
quite inaccurate; the hon. gentleman will continue to oc-
cnpy his seat at the Wald. The retiring director, in fact, is
Wyndham S. Portal, Esq., for whose place Viscount Bury,
N.P., is a candidate.