The Sun.
London, England, 1864-02-20 00:00:00

that no such rule existed either at the Horse Guards er the
War• office.

officers has rendered it unnecessary for no to insist upon
the questions which, under other circurns,ances, it would
have been my duty at once to instruct you lordship to dis-
cuss with the Government of the United States, namely,
the wilful and flagrant violation of her Majesty's territory
by the officers of the United States cruiser Ella and Annie.
" The Government of the United Stabs having subse-
quently made, as reported in your lordship's dispatch of
the 12th of January a full apology for the violation of
her Majesty's territory, committed by its )fficcrs in the case
of the Chesapeake, it is only necessary fo. me to authorise
your lordship to state to Mr. Seward, tint her Majesty's
Government accept the apology in the sane spirit in which
it has been offered, and are truly glad tint the matter has
been settled in a manner honourable u both parties, and
calculated to improve the friendly relations which her Ma-
jesty's Government are always anxious b maintain with the
Government of the United States.—l an, &c.,

After a few words from Sir J. SHELLEY, the subject was
allowed to drop.

CAPTURE OF A SHIP UNDER THE CONFEDE-
RATE FLAG IN BRITISH WATERS.
Mr. HALIBURTON asked the Under Secretary for

Foreign Affairs for information relative to the capture of
a ship under the Confederate flag by a Federal vessel of
war, within the harbour of Pankbar, in Nova Scotia, and
under the guns of the fort ; and whether complaint had bean
made of the outrage to the Government of the United States,

and with what result. The hon. member stated that the

people in the North American colonies were alarmed for
their safety in consequence of the inroads which were con-
stantly made upon them by parties belonging to the United
States—parties who cared nothing for law and order, and

who thought they were privileged to commit every sort of
outrage with entire impunity. He did net wish to inquire
whether this wes a piratical act, or whether it was a lawful

capture, nor did be want to inquire into the subsequent pro-
ceedings of the Court of Admiralty at Halifax; but simply
to call the attention of her Majesty's Government to the
state of alarm which prevailed in the colonies, and to ascer-
tain if any proceedings were taken to prevent outrages of
this character.

DENMARK.—TREATY OF LONDON.
Mr. KINGLAKE called attention to the way in which
the operations of the treaty of London of the Bth May, 1852,
was effected by a note addressed on the same day by Baron

Brunnow to the Danish Minister at the Court of St. James's,

and asked whether th© communication of the note to her

Majesty's Government hPd been received by them with ac-
quiescence, or had been the occasion of correspondence
which could be laid upon the table of the house. The hon.
gentleman said that, at a time when the Treaty of London
was a matter of complexity and confusion, ho might be
pardoned for endeavouring to bring to:the knowledge of the
house a transaction which had occurred on the same day
the treaty was sigaed, but which, so fer as he knew, had

not yet been communicated. Tbis was a treaty which could
have no application until the King of Denmark had taken
the necessary measures for changing the succession, not
only to Denmark Proper, but to the two Duchies which
ware subject to all this dispute. He believed there was a
growing opinion among the people of this country that it
would be grievous indeed if there were any words in that
treaty which could lead Great Britain to force by diplomatic

pressure upon a reluctant people a ruler chosen by diplo-
macy. His present object was to bring before the house
the true tenor of the arrangements which had been entered

into on the Bth of May, 1852. To mako this clear, it waa

necessary to give the house the report of the Warsaw pro-
tocol. The protocol of 'Warsaw, fur from being a conces-
sion by the Emperor of Russia, was rather a retractation of
the concession formerly made by the Emperor Paul. But

whether that was the true interpretation or not, it was quite
certain tnat the protocol of Warsaw did carefully seek to
keep alive the rights and claims of the Emperor of Russia,
in the event of the failure of issue on the part of the King
of Denmark. There were at the time as many as 17 lives
intervening between the succession to Denmark and the
Emperor of Russia ; but by the protocol of Warsaw 14 of
those intercepting persons were put aside. He had heard

the noble lord at the head of the Government had approved

of the -Warsaw protocol, but that he had ceased to be a sup-
porter of it. The treaty of London dealt only with the enc.

cession, and in a general way indicated how Europe should
act in case of failure of issue on the part of the King of Den-
mark ; and it dealt with it in this manner, setting forth
that, in the event of the failure of issue on the part of the
King of Denmark, it would be competent for the King of
Denmark to propose new arrangements to Europe, and this
new arrangement was to be taken into consideration by the
parties to the treaty, by which the initiative was given to
the King of Denmark. Accordingly the second article of
the treaty had been relied upon as a safeguard, and Lord
Clarendon, when speaking on the subject, declared that the
second article of the treaty guarded against the dangers
arising from a failure of issue on the part of the King of
Denmark. But.on the very day when the treaty was signed,
and while the ink of the treaty was "tot yet dry, another
paper was prepared, which was signed by Baron Brunnovr,
and addressed by him to the Danish Minister at the Court
of London, which, if acquiesced in by the several parties of
the treaty, would positively annul the second article of it,
and would do more, for it wou!d bring into force and make
obligatory on the King of Denmark the stipulations of the
Warsaw protocol. Tho hon. member read a translation of
the note, the purport of which was that the terms of the
protoc-1 of Warsaw held good between Russia and Dea-
-1 mark, and asked whether a similar note bad been addressed
to her Majesty's Government and acquiesced in.

THE SUN, LONDON, SATURDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 20, 1864.

or fifteen years ago ; and ho is alarmed—alarmed
because he sees only one fact, instead of perceiving
a whole truth. Had he true perception he would
see that, in advance of Expenditure, is marching
Income, with a certain and still larger stride, And
such is the increase in the wealth of this country,

and such, by the judicious manipulation of the
Finance Minister, the availability and elasticity
of its resources, that, concurrently with this state of
things, taxation is subjected to yearly remission,
instead of being strained, as in the years to which
we have referred, to the point of unproductiveness.
Under such circumstances our expenditure now can-
not be justly described as either dangerous in ten-
dency or extravagant in fact. A man who spends

three hundred a-year may be more truly extrava-
gant than another who spends fifty thousand. And
as it is with an individual so is it with a nation. A
truth which we the more earnestly desire to impress
upon the public, because altholgh some reductions
may bo effected by care and skill in administration,
we do not anticipate that there ever can be, at
least so long as the country continues to advance
in wealth at its present ratio, such a retrenchment
of expenditure as would satisfy the so called Fi-

nancial Reform School. Every year the commu-
nity adds to its functions,
_ and every yenr, as the
wealth of the eountry becomes greater and the
profits of professions and trades are augmented,
the discharge of these functions becomes neces-

sadly more costly.
TIMES.—The Australian colonies are finally re-
lieved from the doubts and uncertainties by which

hey have been tormented during last six months.

They have received an explicit assurance from the
highest authority, and in the moat public manner,

,h-st it is not the intention of the Government to

give effect to that recommendation of the Commis

;inners which contemplated an increase of the num-
ber of convicts annually transported to Western

Australia. The controversy has ended as it was
sure to end, and as persona of much less experience
than the Royal Commissioners ought to have anti-
cipated that it must end. When people are so fond
of pointing to the great and free colonies of Great
Britain, established by the potent agency of liberty
—that pearl of great price, as Mr. Burke said, of
which we only have the monopoly—they ought to
remember the means by which they have created
and the tenure by which they hold this mighty em-
pire. It is not our fleets and armies, it is not our
parental care, it is not the bonds of commerce, it
is not the community of language, literature, and
tradition that mainly attach our colonies to us;
it is because they can enjoy under the sceptre of
Queen Victoria a liberty equal to our own and
superior to that which can be obtained elsewhere.
It is of the very essence of this lib srty that it re-
fuses to be constrained within narrow bounds or
cramped within technical fetters. It is apt to de-
mand not only all that is strictly granted, but all
that is necessary in order to give that grant full
enjoyment. It is of course strictly true that no
colony has a right to interfere in any portion of the
Queen's dominions beyond its own limits, and it is
equally true that the British Parliament has a right
to transport convicted offenders to any part of the
Empire. But these two rights together make one
grievous wrong, if the result is that the criminals so
transported really find their way to the colonies
which are unwilling to receive them. In such a case
the technical law is on one side, and the substantial
merits entirely on the other. The price of labour
is much higher in the eastern colonies of Australia
than in Western Australia. The climate is suitable
to a European population, and under these circum-
stances it is impossible to doubt that as fast as sen-
tences expire the prisoners will find their way from
the barren and stationary West to the wealthy and
prosperous East. It was not likely that communi-
ties founded on the principles of liberty should ac-
quiesce in this, and it was equally improbable, that
England should be willing, even if she were able, to
coerce them. In the present state of opinion with
reference to our colonies, we have but one alterna-
tive in case of a serious difference between them and
the mother country. If is question arises with a
foreign country, there is always the last and worst
resource of war; if any part of the United Kingdom
were to refuse obedience to authority, the civil
power, supported by the military if necessary, is
ready to enforce it. But with a Colony practically
neither of these resources is available. in case of
resistance to the decisions of the Home Government
we could not rely on the colonial authorities to sup-
port us, for they are responsible to the Colonial
Parliament, the emanation of popular will ; and as
for the exertion of military fore, opinion in this
country has long pointed to a peaceful separation
as au alternative far preferable to a renetition in any
shape of the blunder and crime of the American war,
the darkest episode in English history. It follows
that within limits defined by the alternative of
separation from the Mother Country the more im-
portant colonies enjoy a freedom from our control
greater than is possessed by any other country in
the world. We Cught not to repine at this, for it
is the very tenure by which we bold them, the
glorious tenure of a common liberty, a liberty capa-
ble of being exercised to some extent even against
ourselves. As, therefore., the success of the Colonies
in this country was inevitable from the first, we
wish that the concession which we have had to
make had been made less grudgingly, and with less
effort to prove that the apprehensions of the Colo-
nies were unfounded, or even exaggerated. If "he
who gives quickly gives twice," it is no less true
that he who gives avowedly under compulsion can
scarcely be said to give at all. Why insist that
the Commissioners were clearly justified in mak-
ing their recommendation upon the evidence be-
fore them, although the Government is equally jus-
tified in refusing to act upon that evidence ? This
might have been true if the attention of the Com-
missioners had been exclusively confined to the
wants of Western Australia, and if the case of the
other Colonies had never been brought before them.
The contrary is, however, notorious. Among the
witnesses examined we find the name of Mr.
Nowlantl, a magistrate of South Australia, who
fully stated to the Commission the very facts upon
which the Colonies have since relied, showing the
great immigration into South Australia from
Western Australia, about half of whicn consisted of
" expirees ;" the increase of crime, the excitement
in consequence, and the facilities for accomplishing
the voyage. Mr. Childers, once a resident in Vic-
toria, himself served on the Commission, and sub-
mitted to it an amendment, pointing out, among
other things, the discontent which was sure to ensue
in t'ae Colonies, which amendment the Commission
unanimously rejected. This plan of making every-
thing pleasant to everybody by showing that the
holders of two contradictory propositions are b sth
in the right has, no doubt, the advantage of pre-
serving good humour for the moment, but to us it
seems much better that an error should be con-
fessed when it really has been committed rather
than that such strained inferences should be adopted
in order to conceal it. Nor do we think it
should be said that " the alarm and apprehension
of the colonists are no doubt to a great extent
" unfounded." Our whole colonial system is
founded on the assumption, which facts have
abundantly verified, that the colonists understand
their own local affairs much batter than we do, and
that we are just as unfit to govern them as they
are to govern us. Whether it is for our interest to
send our convicts to Australia is a question of which
we are much better judges than the Australian
colonists. Whether it is their interest to receive
them is a question of which they
.are much better
judges than we. So far from their apprehensions
being unfounded, it is quite certain they
that would
be fully verified as to the ultimate destination of
convicts whose sentences have expired. Western
Australia must be, from the very nature of the case,
a sponge to be periodically emptied into the Eastern
Colonies, for the same reasons which draw the people
of Ireland to America. All that can be said is that
the convicts who will go there will be so reformed
that they will be a valuable acquisition. On this
point also the Australians are the best judges.
Their great want is labour and population ; and, if
they refuse to receive able-bodied men, we may
be very sure that they do so for sufficient reason.
There is one part of this subject to which we
earnestly beg to draw the attention of our fellow-
countrymen in Eastern Australia. We have a
right to be beast, for we did not even wait for the
announcement of their opinion, but pointed out
immediately the grave error the Commissioners had
committed in menacing them with a renewal of
transportation. They have gained a com plete and, we
should think, to them most gratifying triumph.
The debate on which we have been commenting
will show them how reluctantly the scheme of in-
creased transportation has been abandoned. Let
them use their success with moderation. They may
contend logically, no doubt, that they are aggrieved
in like kind, though in less degree, while a single
prisoner is transported to Western Australia ; but
we hope they will not insist on this extreme view,
and we are quite sure that it is not for their interest
to do so. A very strong feeling would certainly be
excited in this country at anything which could
fairly receive the name of an attempt at dictation
on the part of the Colonies as to the manner in
which the Home Government ought to dispose of
its prisoners. Even between the Mother Country
and the Colonies it is not reasonable to suppose that
the concessions are all to be on one side. They
participate in all the advantages and they bear none
of the burdens of the Empire to which they belong,
In New Zealand our blood has just been poured out
like water for their service in a quarrel in which we
have no manner of interest of our own. Let them
be content with what they have achieved, and re-
member that to the continued union of the Mother
Country and her Colonies the goodwill of the
former is just as necessary as the goodwill of the
latter.