The Sun.
London, England, 1864-09-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The prospect of an Armistice in the
United States naturally draws attention to the con•
dition of the countries which border on that great
Federation. In the extreme uncertainty which
overshadows the destiny of the American Continent,
in the doubt as to what may be the effect upon the
minds of a proud and now almost a military pet:Tie
of their admitted failure to coerce a smaller nation
by force of arms, we ask ourselves whether the result
will be to disgust the public mind with that vain
appetite for military glory which has led the nation
into such unexampled calamities, or whether they
will seek to avenge the discredit of their arms and
compensate themselves for their recent losses by the
invasion of neighbouring States. Tne question is
momentous for Mexico and for Canada, end we have
endeavoured to discharge our duty by pointing out
the necessity of defence, and endeavouring to arouse
our own colony to a sense of its danger. The lan-
guage we have held has been plain and uniform,
and yet, though plain, not such as could give reason-
able offence to any community which feels a respect
for itself, and estimates properly its duties and its
responsibilities. We have stated that Canada leans
on a broken reed if she supposes that, in case of an
invasion from America, any considerable portior, of
the burden of her defence can bo borne by this
country. We think we need not argue or discuss
what would be the duty of England in such a con-
juecture. It is quite enough for us to confine owe
selves to the consideration of possibilities. Let
Canada consider the forces with which England
took the field in the Crimea, and let her, on the
other hand, reflect on the forces with which for a
succession of years American Generals have been
carrying on a civil war. All, and more than all,
,hat England can spare would not suffice for
the wear and tear, we do not say of a campaign, but
of a single great battle conducted on Gen. Want's
principles. Whatever may be our wishes or our
opinions, it is absolutely out of our power to give
Canada efficient assistance by land in the event of
war. We are the more anxious to impress this upon
the Canadians because we observe in recent news-
paper articles a feeling of irritation against the coun-
try, and a disposition to accuse England of failing
short of her duty. Ws have allusions to the deser-
tion of Britain by the Romans, and a comparison of
the treatment of Canada to the treatment of Den-
mark. We beg our Canadian contemporaries not
to waste precious time in recrimination, or seek to
involve a question i❑ angry discussion which requires
all the good sense and calmness that can be brought
to bear upon it. Were we to hold out to Canada
the most unbounded hopes of the most unlimited
assistance in case of invasion, Canada must very well
know that it is quite out of our power to give effect
to them. By sea we are able to give efficient help;
but all the fair speeches and promises in the world
would not enable us to succour Canada by land if
once involved in a serious contest with even the
' Norther❑ half of the American Republic. If, then,
we urge Canada to do what she has never yet done
—to make an exertion in some degree worthy of the
crisis in which she finds herself—we do so for her sake
much more than for our own. It is upon her, not
upon us, that the miseries of the invasion will fall,
and it is in her power, and not in ours, to take
those measures by which alone that invasion can be
repelled. In a letter signed " An Old Soldier," we
have an authentic account of what Canada is doing
for the purpose of self-defence. If she upon de•
liberate consideration thinks these measures satis-
fectory to her, we have little to say ; but certainly,
if British troops were likely to be called upon to
, make a campaign in Canada, such a statement would
be exceedingly unsatisfactory to us. The Canadian
Volunteers, on paper, amount, it should seem, to
twenty-one thousand ; of these about ten thousand
have been organised into battalions. Again, of that
ten thousand a majority—shall we say six thousand?
—have been brigaded with regular troops, and
gone creditably through a field-day. Fifteen thou-
sand of these Volunteera have been inspected, and
the remaining six thousand have been clothed and
armed, If the General who is to command this
gallant force can contrive to make as much of them
by division and subdivision in the field as our cor-
respondent has done on paper, we do not doubt he
has discovered the means of meeting with twenty
thousand him that cometh against him with two
hundred thousand ; but, unfortunately, the total re.
mains unaltered, but we must accept the startling
fact that ten thousand men aro all that Canada has
to produce by way of disciplined troops in the fourth
year of the great American civil war. There are,
to be sure, besides, eighty-eight thousand Militia—
that is, it is proposed to ballot for them and enroll
them in battalions. They are to be undrilled, but
organised into battalions and companies, and come
mended by officers thoroughly instructed in the mili-
tary profession. Nothing is wanting, our correspon-
dent says, for the annual drilling of a large number
of these men but the voting of a sum of money by
the AEsemlly for the purpose, which will of courts
be forthcoming, The man must be unreasonable
indeed who is not satisfied by these statements that
Canada has at her disposal eighty-eight thousand
available Militia ! To make out enema complete we
ought, to add that very efficient steps have bee❑
taken for the instruction of officers, so that when

the Canadian Militia does come into existence there
seems no reason to doubt that it will be ably and
efficiently commanded. As our opinion is chal-
lenged on these arrangements, we can have no
hesitation whatever in saying that they appear to
us sadly inadequate to the demands of the present
crisis—so inadequate that we are really surprised ,
they should be put forward with any semblance of
satisfaction. Most sincerely do we hope that the
crisis will never arrive by which the efficiency of
these preparations—which have not even the ordi-
nary advantage of looking well on paper—may be
really tried. We earnestly recommend the Cana-
dians to look into the question while it is yet time.
A combined actioa of all the British provinces on
the eastern coast of North America would seem a
primary and indispensable condition for anything
like an efficient defence. The second condition is
equally clear and equally important. Being unable
to encounter their neighbours with a force of any-
thing like numerical equality, the British provinces
should strive to compensate this inevitable defect
by superior drill and discipline. It is only by an
army somewhat on the European pattern that
Canada can hope to maintain her independence. As
long as the rest of America was content with mere
Militia organisation, there was no very urgent
reason why Canada should not be content too. But
the condition of things is altered. In the times that
are coming we shall probably find America divided
into at least two Confederations ; their rivalry and
emulation will maintain their armies at a high
pitch of efficiency, and it will be fatal for Canada
to suffer herself, as seems only too probable, to be
outdone in discipline as well as numbers.
POST.—Lancashire and its prospects during the
coming winter are again deserving of our serious
consideration. We have seen that once unparal-
leled distress soften down all its hard features, and
mitigate its terrible severity before the astounding
influx of national bounty. We have seen it in many
instances deprived of its keenest edge by the noble
liberality of certain millowners who, at great loss
to themselves, have made employment for their
hands when there was no inducement except a sense
of public duty to do so. We have seen, too, an ex-
tensive mitigation of the want of employment
successfully achieved by the change in the law
which enabled the local authorities to undertake
many needful and most important public works,
and we have seen—best sign of all—a gradual
but very decided increase in the imports
of cotton, to be followed, as all eppeare
ances justify us in expecting, by a permanent
supply from various new quarters, which will at
some future day leave us less at the mercy of poli-
tical events in America than we have hitherto been.
For all this we cannot be too grateful. It might
have been vastly otherwise. That terrible want of
work and bread which came with the suddenness of
a summer storm, when first the Northern fleet
blockaded the Southern ports, might have been
but the beginning of a terrible social and political
convulsion. Many of us can remember the time
when such a calamity wou d have been instantly
followed by organised plans of public disturbance,
by riots, by firing of mills, the demolition of mill-
owners' residences, the breaking open of banks, the
defiance of public law, calling out of the military
and shedding of blood. Nothing in English history
is so demonstrative of the thorough, rear, and bene-
ficial progress of the English people than this Lan-
cashire distress. Never in any period would Govern-
ment have felt itself strong enough to have braved
the risk of a Lancashire emeute in preference to
infringing a great principle of public policy, by
departing from the strict attitude of neutrality
which deliberate wisdom had pronounced to be
right. And, emphatically, never before would the
people of Lancashire have had the political know-
ledge, the clear sense of duty, the confidence in
public men, and the self respect and self-control
which in the late trial enabled them to endure the
severest privations rather than utter a word or
lift a hand to endanger peace and order, or tc
reflect in even the most distant manner upon the
men who were directing the policy of the country.
The noble example set by these men told with
an electric force upon the whole nation, It touched
the very heart of all sorts and conditions of men,
till whole parishes vied with one another who could
make the meet sacrifices or most loudly express its
sympathy and admiration. But the bounty of
those who gave their money and their sympathy
from a distance, great and noble as it often was, was
dwarfed to a trifle compared with the self-denial of
people in the upper and middle classes on the spot,
who day after day served on committees and did all
the drudgery of an extensive organisation,and night
after night taught in schools, kept sewing classes
together, cared for the young, instructed the igno-
rant, multiplied the motives to do well, and mini-
mised the avenues of temptation. That time of trial
was one of singular temptation, too, and the meed
of praise must indeed be great which can adequately
extol those who, at the sacrifice of every domestic
comfort, forewent the luxuries of leisure, and ease,
and well-provided homes that they might lend their
aid and influence to preserve unstained the honour
of women and the sobriety of men against
the manifold snares which idleness and want
had cast about their path. Only thirty years
ago the idea of the Church and her members
doing the part of administering angels
would have been scouted with the laugh of the
scoffer, all through the districts which have most
severely felt this cotton famine. Indeed, any reli-
gious agency would have been scorned. For at least
the greater number of the population looked on the
Church as an iniquitous system of priesthood which
fattened at the coat of the people—at Romanism as
something even worse than the Church—and at Dis-
sent as only so far good as it was politically ante.
gonistic to both. But when the crush of an unpre-
cedented calamity fell upon Lancashire three years
ago it smote down almost everything except the
religion and the morals of the people. Nothing
survived that fearful wreck so much as the feelings
of self-respect, religious duty, and regard for the
rights of conscience. Guided by these, the men
and women of Lancashire bore their sorrows with
a brave heart, and attracted to themselves the
bounty of the whole community. The nation
subscribed its tens of thousands, the Legislature
altered the poor law—supposed to be the most iron
thing in Christendom—the Church put forth the
utmost energy of her parochial system, Dissent lent
its force to the general effort, Roman Catholics mus-
tered to the rescue, every combination and organi-
sation of men vied with all the rest in doing its
share. And thus the crisis was tided over, never,
wes trust, to return. Practically, it is now a thing
of the past. But Mr Parnell, in his last report laid
before the central committee, utters an ominous
word of warning, and recalls us to the fact that
winter is at our heels and that, with shortening
days and severer weather, there will be an increase
of distress, and incapability of out-door labour, and
a need therefore of wise and careful provission that a
crisis surmounted thus far shall not be less carefully
treated at its end than its beginning. Every week
will now see an addition to the number receiving
parochial relief, and to the number requiring aid
' from charitable sources. Yet the balance at the
bankers of the central committee is reduced to
£124,000. This would only have sufficed for a
month's disbursements two years ago. It is now
all that can be trusted for the whole of the ap•
preaching winter. Against this, however, must be
set the fact that employment is better and is likely
to continue better than it has been at any period
since the cotton supply failed, so that there is no
chance of the same demands being made upon
charitable resources, which were inevitable at first.
1 To this must be added the reasonable prospect that
at length wiser counsels will prevail with American
statesmen, and that a prolonged armistice and a
raising of the blockade will complete the deliver•
auto of Lancashire from one of the hardest trials
that any class of industry has ever had to bear.

COMPOSITION DEEDS.—Mr Justice Shee was
occupied at the Judges' Chambers on Tuesday with
the vexed questicn of composition deods. Mr Cattlin ap-
plied for the release of the Rev. William 'Wilson King from
Whitecross street prison. He had executed a composition
deed, which was submitted to his lordship as a valid deed.
Mr Justice Shoe after an inspection expressed his dcubt on
the subject, and after a discussion required proof that the
requirements of the Bankruptcy Act had been complied
with. Mr Cattlin said the question was now becoming very
serious. The Lord Chancellor had decided that he had no
power to release sitting in bankruptcy, and the commis-
sioners had, acting on that opinion, declined to discharge.
The only remedy was to a common law judge, and if he
hold that it was not a valid deed imprisonment was likely
to be perpetual, as the Lord Justices had held that a man
who had made a composition deed could no:,- make himself
a bankrupt. Eventually the case stood adjourned for
further information.

LIVERPOOL, Sept. 13.—The steamer Lilian,which
was captured off Wilmington, Aug. 26, was bound from
that port for Nassau with cotton, 50 bales of which had
been thrown overboard. She was taken to Beaufort, North
Carolina, whence she would bo sent to Boston.
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