The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-23 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.--There has been something like a feeling
of surprise in this country at the readiness with
which the people of British North America have
assented to the main principles of Federation. We
were hardly prepared for so much unanimity. Pro•
vincial isolation is commonly one of the most uncon-
querable of traditions. Poverty, slackness of trade,
difficulty of communication, weakness against ex-
ternal enemies—in fact, all the evils which beset
small and unfavourably placed communities will
sometimes be borne by men rather than abandon
the local jealousies with which they love to
feed their hearts. People with no ports have gone
on for generations grudging to their maritime
neighbours the slightest concession, and cities that
lived by trade have cherished a constant distrust of
those who must furnish the materials on which all
trade is based. Such has been the experience of
Europe, and even in America the process of weld-
ing together provinces, all with one common type,
has been by no means easy, The early annals of
the American Union bear witness to the difficulties
which had to be encountered by the first generation
,of statesmen after they had succeeded in asserting
their independence of the British Crown. Several
years of confusion and weakness were neceFsary to
convince the people of the new States that their
interests would be better advanced by a strict
Union than by the loose Confederation under which
they had begun their career. Very different from
this mutual distrust is the feeling of the British
Americans. No so neer was the word Federation
pronounced than every one acknowledged that it was
in his thoughts. A union as close in theory as
that of their neighbours has been decided upon by
acclamation, and it seems likely that it will be car-
ried into effect without opposition or discontent in
any quarter. The principles are settled, the details
present no difficulty, aid politicians of all parties
speak of this matter as one on which there is no
longer any difference of opinion. With extraor-
dinary unanimity the scheme of Federation has
been adopted by the Conference, and now awaits
only the assent of the various Legislatures and the
sanction of the British Parliament. Avoiding too
centralised a polity, which the jealousies of Lower
Canada might cause to fail, the Conference has
decided on leaving all purely local matters to local
control, and giving to the Federal Parliament at
Ottawa a power, greater, indeed, than is constitu-
tionally possessed by the American Congress, but
still only general, and with regard to matters such
as finance and military defence, which relate to all
the provinces. The Governor. General will be ap.
pointed as heretofore by the Crown ; the Parliament
will consist of two branches, a Legislative Council
appointed by the Government, and a House of Com.
mons of which the fundamental principle will be re.
presentation by population. The Upper House will
consist of 76 members ; the Lower for the present
of 194, But after each decennial census the repre.
sentation will be readjusted according to population
on the principle that Lower Canada shall always
have 65 members, and the other provinces such a
number as belongs to them respectively on an ap-
portionment in the same ratio. The discrimination
between the authority of the general and that of the
local Legislatures will re quire some care, but from the
summary lately given by the Hon. Geo. Brown in a
speech at Toronto, the subject seems to have been
discussed at length, and such a division of labour
agreed upon as will maintain the rights of the several
provinces without weakening the Ottawa Parliament
as the embodiment of the national will. At Montreal,
at Toronto, and everywhere that the members of the
late Conference have addressed the public, the pub-
lished result of their labours is received with uni-
versal satisfaction. The cause of this unanimity is
no doubt to be looked for partly in the ideas which
have become popular during the last few years as the
consequence of English free trade end European aspi-
rations for nationality, and partly in the conviction
that only a Federation which can inspire respect by
its strength will be able to preserve to the British
Americans the security of their territory in the
neighbourhood of a people so numerous and ambi-
tious as the Americans of the Northern States.
With regard to the first of these causes the opinions
expressed by 'Kr Cartier at a late banquet at Mou-
treal must have been formed by every man of sense
in Canada. This flourishing province is, as all the
world knows, shut out from direct communication
with the sea for six months of every year. What-
ever victories may be reserved for science, it ij not
likely that it will ever be able to break down the
barrier of the winter's ice in the St. Lawrence, and
to the end of time Canada must remain a country
only partially and periodically maritime. With the
same instinct as that by which Russia pushes to the
ports of a temperate climate Canada tends to con•
solidate with regions which can give it a regular
intercourse with the Atlantic and Europe. As yet
the communication has been through American ter-
ritory. The Governments of the two countries have
been wise enough to assent to Customs' arrangements
of sufficient liberality, and both the British province
and the Atlantic States of the Union have received
the benefit. But this dependence on a foreign, and
at some time possibly a hostile Power, appears to
have made the Canadians unquiet in the midst of
their prosperity. They lacked, as Mr Cartier ob-
served, the maritime element of greatness. " For
six months of the year, in fact, they had to knock
at the door of their neighbours for permission to do
their trade through their territory, and he held
that, whatever might have been thought sufficient
20 years ago, the two Canadas were now too popu-
lous and their commercial wants too numerous to
have their trade done in that way through six
months of the year." Here .speaks the material
genius of the age. These are the considerations of
utility and security which urge the Canadians to
consolidate their new nationality. The delegates
from the Lower Provinces speak is a correspond-
ing tone, and explain how much they have to offer
to Canada in return for the service it would render
them by uniting them to its larger territory and
more numerous people. They remind their hearers
that the trade of the Lower Provinces amounts
nearly to the half of that of Canada, and that their
population is 900,000. While Canada cannot reach
England, nor England Canada, except through a
foreign territory, while the Canadians have to ask
a permission which is inconsistent with the dignity
of any country that desires a position in the world,
the Lower Provinces offer to add a marine to theirs.
" That done, British North America will be-
come the fourth maritime Power in the world."
Such opinions have, no doubt, been long maturing.
For many years the deliverance of Canada from
commercial dependence on the Republic by the con-
struction of the International Railway has been the
favourite speculation of the local patriots; and the
isolated communities of New Brunswick and Nova
Scotia, seeing the rapid advance of other regions of
the world, and especially the growth of the Ame-
rican Union in power and prosperity, have long
overcome any jealousy they may have had of
a foreign race in Canada. But it is undoubtedly
the great convulsion of the American civil war
which has suddenly given aciivity to these tenden-
cies towards union. The colonies might have been
content with their former loose relations to each
other for many years to come if they had not found
that there was on their frontier a Power capable of
raising men by the hundred thousand, a Power
whose citizens do not scruple to utter remarks now
and then of ominous import, and to speculate on a
union of the whole continent in a manner which the
people of the Provinces could not but construe as a
threat. The Canadians and the men of the sister
Provinces have felt that the best safeguard against
any such sinister embition would be the establish.
ment of a Federation similar to that of their neigh-
bours, possessing respectable military strength, and
protected furthermore by the sacredness which
attaches to nationality. We do not, indeed, believe
that there is any design on the part of the Ame-
ricans to disturb their good relations with the people
on their northern frontier, but still no community
ought to be at the mercy of another, as the colonies
would be at the mercy of the Federal Government
if they remained in future years isolated from one
another. The establishment of a Federation is the
best precaution they can take—the most sober, the
least indicative of suspicion, the least offensive in
any way. No one will have a right to complain,
for the union which binds these colonists together
will be a benefit not only to themselves but to the
Federal States and to the whole American conti-
nent. If the traditional jealousies of the two Cana•
diau populations can be soothed, we may see in a
few years a new nation, with a territory equal to
that of the American Union in its happiest days,
inhabited by a people united as the Americans have
never been, because free from any source of internal
enmity. The relations of the Federation to our-
selves will present features of novelty on which it
is useless at present to remark, but whatever may
be in the future we can now cordially congratulate
its people on the assumption of their new position,
at the same time that we recognise the good feeling
which leads them to desire the supremacy of the
British Crown. We have no doubt that the ques-
tions which have perplexed politicians will be easily
settled now that the British Americana have learnt
that to depend on themselves is an advantage as
well as a duty. One speaker on a late occasion told
his countrymen they had all the privileges, all the
powers of freedom, without one of its burdens, but
that they could no longer expect to maintain so
exceptional a position. " They felt they could no
longer call upon the people of England to tax them-
selves for their benefit while they did nothing."
This is the true tone of men who are fitting them-
selves for freedom and national life, and with such
men it will not be difficult for the British Govern.
ment and nation to deal.

Post—The great event which both Americans
and Europeans have long and anxiously awaited

has taken place, and to all appearances the excite-
ment to which, while yet in the future, it gave rise
has entirely subsided. Mr Lincoln has been virtu•
ally, if not officially, proclaimed President of the
United States for the next four years, and accord-
ing to electoral usage, has replied to the congratu.
lations of his supporters with a speech big with
promises and redolent with hope. His competitor,
as unsuccessful in the political as in the military
arena, not venturing to question the validity of the
decision which has been pronounced, takes the ear-
liest opportunity of withdrawing from the service
of a Government of which he is not permitted to be
the Chief. Political distinction being denied to
him by his fellow-citizens, and military distinction
being impossible of acquisition under an Adminis-
tration whose policy it is to prefer the ruin of the
State to the exaltation of a political rival, General
M'Clellan has apparently resolved on retiring into
private life, and devoting himself to those more
humble but more useful pursuits from which, four
years since, he was taken away, Cincinnatus re-
turns to his plough, and the circumstance may be
accepted, according to choice, as a parody on, or
a repetition of, history. Passing from the candi-
dates to their respective parties the Republicans
are jubilant with success; the Democrats, we
might almost say, are cowed by their defeat. That
the latter would be beaten they themselves have
long since been aware ; but knowing as they also
did the causes which contributed to their failure, it
was not unreasonable to expect that they would at
least have recorded a protest against the means by
which their defeat was secured. Such, however,
has not been the case. Even in New York, the me.
tropolis of the Republic, the large majority of the
citizens, though supporting the rejected candidate,
have not ventured to murmur at a result the legal
force of which they might nevertheless have fairly
called in question. It is doubtless the duty of the
minority peaceably to acquiesce in the wishes of the
majority, but in the apparent indifference with
which the issue of the Presidential election has
been received we see something more than the
mere discharge of a political obligation. The party
in the ascendant not only enjoy that supreme power
which their numbers give them, but they have
manifested in a manner not to be mistaken their in-
tention of using that power to prevent the
possibility of their opponents gaining the ascen-
dant. The Republicans are the State, and their
rivals appear satisfied to admit an assumption which,
for all practical purposes, ignores their political
existence, The opening of the Confederate Con.
grass simultaneously with the election of the Nor.
thern President invests the former event with more
than ordinary interest. The established Governs
ment has always affected to treat the Confederates
as rebels, but it must be confessed that the insur-
gents conduct Zhe administration of the State which
they are attempting to found in a manner no less
methodical, and much more seemly, than their for-
mer fellow-citizens in the North. indeed in almost
every particular the machinery of the two Govern.
ments is the same. Each is ruled by an elective
President; each possesses a Parliament created on
principles and exercising functions in all respects
identical; and each, to complete the parallel, is
engaged in a war which taxes its energies to the
utmost, and which threatens at no distant time to
swamp its resources. But, though resembling each
other in so many particulars, there is, setting other
distinctions aside, a marked difference between the
two Republics in the temper in which the peoples
composing them discharge the functions allotted to
them in the administration of the State. Both are
Democracies, and in both the multitude, in the
simplest acceptation of that term, are supreme. But,
whilst in the South the people speak with one
voice and concentrate their energies into one com-
bined effort, in the North the voices of one section
of the community are employed to drown those of
another ; and the efforts of all, instead of being
directed against what is assumed to be a common
enemy, are neutralised by being in part turned
against themselves. The Federal Government
have a twofold duty to discharge—that of
subduing the enemies of the State, and of coercing
a large section of the people whom they profess
to represent; whereas the Confederate Govern-
ment have but one object in view, an object
shared by every citizen in the Southern States—
namely, to secure, no matter at what cost, national
independence. We will postpone the consideration
of Mr Davis's message to the Southern Congress
until its text is in our hands, but the telegraphic
summary of its contents, published in our columns
yesterday, calls for a passing remark. The general
tone of the President's speech, we are told, is bold
and defiant. It may well be so. Nearly four years
have elapsed since the new Confederacy found its
soil invaded by a Federal army, and yet not only
since then has the tide of invasion been successfully
repelled, but in many respects the infant Republic
is in a better position to carry on the war in which
it is engaged than when that war commenced.
Louisiana and Tennessee—the only States which
the Federal Government go so far as to pretend
have been submitted to their sway—arc not even
held in subjugation. Atlanta, the city to secure
the possession of which so many sacrifices were
made and so much blood spilt, according to the
latest advices has been pronounced untenable, and
its evacuation by the Federals may be considered
imminent. Richmond is more secure now than it
was when the first Confederate Congress was assem.
bled within its walls, and the army by which it is
defended is stated on good authority never to have
been so numerous or so efficient as at present. The
ranks of their enemies are divided, whilst their
own have, if possible, become even more closely
knit together, and therefore the Confederates may
well feel confident of the final issue. Mr Davis, as
their spokesman, may naturally express surprise
that the nations of Europe have not sooner recog-
nised their independence. Possessing all the ele-
ments of an independent Power, and having, though
opposed to terrible odds, and under disadvantages
the most embarrassing, successfully resisted every
attempt to crush that independence, the Southern
Confederacy may with some appearance of justice
complain of the non-recognition of an accomplished
fact. If Mr Davis has deemed it his duty to com-
plain of the attitude so persistently maintained by
the European States, and especially by Great Bri-
tain, we may at least rest assured that the manner
in which the complaints have been conveyed has
been courteous and dignified. We could not say as
much of Mr Lincoln or any of the members of his
Administration.

Railway and other Companies.

MANCHESTER, SHEFFIELD, AND LINCOLN-

SHIRE.

The directors of this company have given notica of in-
tended application to Parliament in the next session for
power to purchase the Marple New Mills and Hayfield
Junction Railway, authority to subscribe to the Liverpool
Central Station Railway, to raise additional capital, and to
confirm agreements made with the Midland, the South
Yorkshire, and the Barnsley Coal Railway companies ;
power to run over and use with their engines and carriages
so much of the Midland Railway as lies between Barnsley,
Leeds, Bradford, and Skipton ; also to enable the South
Yorkshire Railway Company to run over part of the Mid-
land Railway and to make working arrangements ; to enable
the Midland Railway Company to run over and use with
their engines and carriages so much of the Manchester Shef-
field, and Lincolnshire Railway as lies between Barnsley
and Ardwick ; and to enable the company and the Midland
Company to provide joint station accommodation at
Barnsley. Another notice is for power to enable the com-
pany to construct a railway from the Knott Mill station to
the Old Trafford station on the main line; and to authorise
the Manchester, South Junction, and Altrincham, and the
London and North-Western Railway Companies, or either
of them, to subscribe towards the intended railway and
works. It also provides for power to use a portion of the
London and North-Western Railway at Manchester. In
another notice the company intend to apply for powers to
make railways from the main line at Worksop to Mansfield
by a junction with the Midland branch railway; also to
make a branch from Worksop to Hagginfield, and to autho-
rise the Midland Railway Company to subscribe towards
the intended railways and works; power to use the Mans-
field and Nottingham Railway and Stations of the Midland
Company, and to authorise agreements with the latter
company. They also in another notice express an inten-
tion to ask for power to make a railway from the Man-
chester, South Junction, and Altrincham Railway, near the
Old Trafford station, to the Garston and Liverpool Railway
at Garston; also a branch to the Stockport, Timperley, and
Altrincham Junction Railway at Timperley ; to enable the
company and the Great Northern, the London and North-
Western, and the Midland Railway Companies to subscribe
towards the said intended railway and works, and to enter
into traffic and other arrangements, and to enable those
companies to run over and use the intended railway and
works.