The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-16 00:00:00

plan involves very grave d:Tarture from the true prinei-
pleB of relief administration.

"6. Contracts for public or private works can only be
safely entered into by boards or committees charged with
the execution of such works, apart from the question of
relief of indigence. Such boards or committees of public
works reduc3 the sum of indigence in the same way as any
private capitalists may do by such works as they undertake.
But they assume no obligations to find employment, and
they strengthen the relations between capital and labour by
increasing the employment of capital and the demand for
labour. These functions, though they indirectly relieve in-
digence, are not to be in any degree confounded with the
functions of boards or committees, whose primary duty is to
rolieve indigence so as to sustain health.
" Adopted and printed by order of the Central Executive
Committee.

" DERBY, Chairman;

" JOHN WM. M'CI.LRE, lion, Sec."

°rants were made from the General Relief Clothing
Fund, including the following :—/Luitton, .1;450 ; Staly-
bridge, £l5O ; Dukintield, £300; Tintwistlo £100; Heywood,
:C300; Farrington, £lOO ; Blackburn, £4OO ; Bucup, £2OO ;
Oldham, £BOO ; -Whitworth and Facit, £l5O ; Royton,
£2OO ; Broadbottcm and Charlcsworth; £lOO ; Hyde, £SSO
Crompton, £100; Stockport, £1,250.

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The public will certainly have learnt
with Borne satisfaction that the two ironclad steamers
now approaching completion in the Mersey will not
be allowed to leave that river until something more
is known of their ownership and destination. As
Lord Russell acknowledged a short time ago the
inability of Government, in default of evidence, to
venture upon this step, we may presume that the
grounds for interference have since acquired
strength, and, indeed, although notoriety is no war-
rant for conviction, it was hardly possible to over-
look the universal impression, whether justifiable or
otherwise, in the case before us. Whatever might be
the complicity or the innocence of this party or that,
it was everywhere accepted as beyond reasonable
doubt that these two vessels were ultimately des-
tined for the service of (the Confederate States,
and the precedents of the Alabama and the Florida
enabled us to conjecture the future stages of their
equipment and the uses to which they would be
turned. The law of the case is certainly obscure,
and its application is perhaps not likely to be facili-
tated by much clearness in the facts, but the rea-
son of the question can be readily apprehended.
It is not denied that a neutral may sell munitions
of war, ships included, to a belligerent. inter-
national law deals considerately with neutrals, and
limits the extent to which their customary trade
may be curtailed in aid of belligerents and their
operations. It is not our fault that the Americans
are fighting each other, and our share in the suffer-
ing produced by the war ought to be as light as
possible. We, therefore, or any other neutrals, are
entitled to pursue our ordinary business in all its
branches, provided only that we do not violate the
principles of neutrality by refusing to one bellige-
rent what we grant to the other. If the goods in
which we deal are contraband of war they are liable
to confiscation, but even that trade, subject to the
risk, is perfectly lawful. According to these doc-
trines, it is undoubtedly competent to any British
shipbuilder to build a ship and sell it, as another
merchant might sell a battery of fieldpieces or a
cargo of gunpowder. Even if theship be manifestly
and exclusively designed for purposes of war the
transaction is not necessarily unlawful, for the con-
struction of ships of war for foreign States is noto-
riously a branch of our customary trade. We can
thus, without much difficulty, see our way to both
the construction and sale of such vessels; but then
comes another point of the greatest importance—
their delivery. If a ship of war thus built and dis-
posed of were delivered at the belligerent port, as
other munitions of war might be delivered, we do not
see that the transaction could be impeached. Sup-
posing, for the sake of argument, that these steam
rams in the Mersey were avowedly destined for deli-
very at Charleston, there tote equipped and received
into the service of the Confederate Government,
the obligation of stopping them would then lie with
the Federals, who would be entitled to capture
them on their way, just as the Confederates, if
they were strong enough, might capture a siege
train on its way to New York. Under such condi-
tions, there would certainly be no difference between
the sale of a steam-frigate and the sale of a park of
artillery; but such are not the conditions to be as-
sumed. The Alabama was not delivered at a Southern
port, nor are we sure, indeed, that she has ever en-
tered one. The Florida has run in and out of
Charleston, but she only entered those waters as a
ship already in commission, fully manned, and fully
equipped. Where and how was this equipment
effeeted ?If it was not effected—as it certainly was
not—in a Confederate port, it must apparently have
been effected in or from some neutral port, and that
deprives the adventure edits lawfulness. Ashipbuilder
may not sell a ship ready armed, for that is not a cus-
tomary trade, and no such sales are effected. But if
the purchaser, after receiving the empty hull, goes
elsewhere to purchase guns and elsewhere to obtain
men andstores, then the transaction in the aggregate
amounts to the equipment and despatch of a hostile
expedition from a neutral territory. To put the cave
clearly, let it be supposed that we were ourselves at
war with the Federals, and that our Government,'
being pressed for ships, ordered the construction of
vessels in private yards, as was actually done during
the wae with Russia. Suppose, also, that in the
urgency of our need guns were purchased from pri-
'ate manufacturers, and stores of all descriptions
obtained in like manner. All this would be per-
fectly natural, but all this, and nothing less, is what
probably happened in the case of the Confederate
cruisers, though we are notat war but at peace with
the Federal States. The Confederate Government or
its representatives did not simply buy ships in this
country for transport to a Confederate port. These
agents bought ships and guns and stores, and
having thus got all the elements of a man-of-war
together, sent the vessel to sea on her business fully
equipped. Bat wo ourselves could have done no
more than this if wo had been the belligerents, and
consequently our ports or our territory would have
been used by a belligerent for purposes of war.
When th© Alabama commenced her attacks on the
enemy's shipping from what port had she sailed ?
That is the important question, It had been
answered by the assertion that she never sailed, as
a rally-equipped man-of-war, from any port at all ;
that when she left the blersey she was unequipped,
and therefore innocent; that she borrowed her guns
and her men from a Confederate consort at sea, anis.,
supplied herself after wards with stores in a Justifi-
able manner. But would an adventure so planned
be lawful in its inception ? Would it, for instance,
be allowable for a British merchant to build a ship
of war for delivery, with all but her guns and stores,
to the Alabama or the Florida, lying conveniently
off to receive her, end ready to put men and guns
on board directly We have more than once
remarked that the transactions in question have
been conducted in such a manner as to indicate
consciousness of trespass in some direction or
a
other.
The law is loose enough, and there is
great latitude reserved for genuine commercial
adventure, but this recognized license has never
been pleaded. No shipbuilder has openly avowed
that he was building a ship for a belligerent
Power' but that he intended to confine himself
throughout the transaction to the limits imposed
by the law. The vessels have been buiit without
any admission of their real destination, and
despatched covertly or under pretext. When,
therefore, we find two more vessels of a descrip-
tion apparently similar preparing to leave one of
OUT ports, there can be nothing unreasonable in re-
quiring some certificate of character or destination
before we allow them to depart. Of two things one
—either the despatch of the Alabama was perfectly
lawful and need not have been disguised, or the
despatch of a vessel reasonably suspected of being
another Alabama may be justly prevented. Which
of these assumptions may be the sound one we can-
not take epon ourselves to say. The law admits of
so many evasions, and the facts of the case have
been so imperfectly ascertained, that we could not
pretend to forecast the issue of a trial. In favour
of the step on which Ministers have at length
decided there are many considerations, It is not
affirmed on any side that the despatch of the two
iron-clads which have acquired so equivocal a re-
putatian wouid be really allowable if their
character is such as is imputed, while no suffi-
cient evidence has been tendered to rebut this
imputation. They are war vessels, and war vessels
of exactly the kind which would probably be be-
spoken by the Confederates for the purposes alleged.
They must have a purpose of some kind, and no
other purpose appears to have been conclusively
shown. These being the grounds of suspicion, it
is argued by some, and felt by almost all, that the
departure of the vessels should not be permitted
without some effort either to fix their alleged cha-
racter or to clear them of suspicion altogether.
'There may be obscurity about the law, but there is
none about the reason of the case, We should not
submit, if we were belligerents, to the despatch of
cruiser after cruiser from a neutral port to make
war upon our vessels. We believe that, except for
some evasion, such proceedings could really he proved
unlawful. We cannot but euspect that such service is
the service for which these steamers are destined, and
we therefore ask that these suspicions may be dies
polled before we let the vessels go.

HERALD.—The passionate anxiety of the Federal
government and its agents in this country, English
and American, to pre7ent, by all means and at all
hazards, the building of ships in British ports,
which may eventually find their way into the hands
of the Confederates, is a little surprising. We can
quite underatand that the North phould be yery