The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TimEs.—We think that we can trace in the tone
of both Houses of Parliament on the subject of the
guarantee of the Loan to New Zealand symptoms
of a transition period—that is of a change of senti-
ment—with regard to the relations of the Mother
Country to her Colonies, which those Colonies, and
all whe concern themselves with their manage-
ment in this country, will do wall to lay to heart.
Old watchwords are losing their force, and no new
ones are found to replace them. A little while ago
such words as " our ancient and faithful ally,"
the faith of treaties," " the legitimate ieflueace
of England in Europe," " the balance of power,"
" the encroacllments of despotism," or " the excesses
of democracy," were quite sufficient to plunge us
into war with one half of Europe. Now we are
grown cooler and older, and require, in addition to
these time honoured incentives to slaughter, some
proof that our national faith is involved, or our ma-
terial interests directly and unequivocally compro-
mised, before we plunge the country into war. Just
so with the colonies. In former times, and the tra-
dition is not yet worn out, a colony had nothing to
do but pick a quarrel with a tribe of neighbouring
savages in order to convince us that we were at war,
perhaps with people whose name we had never
heard of, and of whose existence we were not aware
till it was forcibly brought to our notice by a de-
mand for half a dozen regiments and a million of
mr:ney. This may still be said to be the official
faith on the subject :—We must defend our empire ;
a colony is a part of our Empire; therefore we must
still defend cur colonies, without troubling ourselves
to consider whether they or we exercise the powers
of government, or ate responsible for the policy
which involves us in native wars. But, though our
officials still hold this faith, proofs are not wanting
that much and grievous experience has shaken this
belief in the mind of the country. We begin to ask
whether we do not do enough if out of the taxation
and population of the British Islands we find the
men for our own wars and the money for our
own expenditure ; whether it is reasonable for
a country mocked with the style and title of Im-
perial sway to be called upon to fight the battles
of some twenty or thirty communities, having
no common link with us except allegiance to
the same Sovereiga, and ready to resent as the
direst insult any attempt on our part to interpose
any check upon their powers of legislation and self-
government, or to remonstrate against any duty
with which they may think fit to burden our com-
merce or any institution which they may establish
at variance with our notion of good government and
sound principle. Lord Granville, in moving the
second reading of the bill for a guarantee of a loan
of a million to New Zealand, spoke by no means as
a man satisfied of the goodness of his case. He was
very far indeed from taking high ground. He ad-
mitted himself to be opposed, as a general principle,
to the guarantee of loans to Colonies, and justified
what was being done purely as an exceptional case.
It was impossible, he thinks, though we know not
why, to divest ourselves of all responsibility for the
commencement of the war, nor was there any good
reason for believing that the colonists bad supplied
arms t,) the natives to be used against them and
against us. For our own part, we cannot conceive by
what process of reasoning this country can be held
reseonsible for a war which is neither commenced
in pursuance of our policy nor conducted for our in-
terest, and which. when concluded, will be so by
Ministers responsible to an Assembly over which we
have no control. No doubt the immediate occasion
of war was the attack and slaughter by the natives
of a small division of British troops ; but this mas-
sacre was in retaliation for a block of land seized
from the natives, and was only a savage way of be-
ginning a conflict long before determined on for
other and weightier reasons. As regards the sale
of arms by the colonists to the natives, we will
meet the denial by a statement a little more dee
tailed. In 1857 the New Zealand Ministry pressed
the governor to relax the ordinance which prohibited
the sale of ammunition and fire-arms to the abori-
gines. The Commander-in-Chief officially protested
against it, and was supported by the Bishop and at
least one friendly chief. The argument in favour
of free trade in arms was the desire to put down the
smuggling trade and the propriety of letting the
profits of the trade come into regular hands. The
measure was eminently successful. In the nine
months immediately succeeding June, 1857, there
were sold eo the natives 7,8'191b. of powder and 752
single or double-barrelled guns. The English tax-
payer will be pleased to learn that very large profits
were realised by these regular traders. Orders for
the sale of ammunition were obtained in blank and
as a matter of course. The natives and colonists
were equally pleased with the traffic, end for
many years the INlaories have purchased little else,
and have formed magazines with a perse-
verance and foresight which do them no little
honour. The colonists also have not only realised
large sums by the traffic, but have succeeded in
attracting a large commissariat expenditure, since
it is quite clear that Great Britain, having under-
taken to defend the Colony against the natives,
roust increase her forces exactly in proportion to
the degree in which they are armed to oppose her.
The worst o' it is that during ail this time the
Government has h- d good rea;.ioa to k'aow tha,t the

natives were meditating war—a war which they
hive foreseen, prepared, and provoked, leaving to
us nothing but the honour of carrying it on and
the glory of paying for it. Lord Malmesbury was
of opinion that the colonies ought to defend them-
selves, and ought not to rely on the mother country
to assist them. The colonists of New Zealand, he
thinks, ought to take care of themselves, and not to
call on this country for ten or twelve thousand men,
thus draining our small army, and staving off the
retribution for their mismanagement at our ex-
pense. If they had themselves to pay and bleed
for their own defence, we should have heard very
little of the present difficulties. We cannot too
soon, Lord Maimesbury thinks, persuade the people
of Canada that it is impossible for them to obtain
Imperial assistance in the way of English troops.
This is tolerably plain speaking for a Conservative
leader, and shows upon what congenial ground Ura
seed of truth has fallen. Lord Lyveden thinks
there is a pretty general concurrence in the prin-
ciples laid down by Lord Malmesbury, the only
difficulty being as to their application. Guaran-
teeing the loan is guaranteeing everything that has
been done by the settlers to the natives, and, while
the saving is small, the loss in point of principle
will be great. Such is the tenour of the remarks
elicited by the discussion on the New Zealand Bill.
Many considerations combine to counsel patience
under the present infliction. In the first place, it
is quite clear that nothing would be more unfair
than to charge these events, however calami-
tous, upon the present Secretary of State for
the Colonies. He has succeeded to an evil

inheritance, and cannot be expected, by any efforts

he may make, all at once to put matters to
rights. Five-and-twenty years of gross mis-
management are not to b© corrected in a week, a
month, or a year. All we have a right to expect is
that measures may be taken to put an end to the
present war and to prevent the recurrence of a new
one. This will not be effected by merely warning
the colonial public against iniquitous dealing with
the natives, either in the way of purchases of land
or sales of arms or ammunition. There is no dura-

ble chance for peace until we can contrive to im-
press upon the colonies that all future wars will be
carried on at their, and no more at our, expense.
We must disabuse them once for all of the notion
that we have any peculiar interest in their quarrels
with the natives, or that we shall be ready hence..
forth, as heretofore, to bribe them into war by the
wealth which our expenditure produces, and the
security which the presence of our troops affords.
As we cannot take from these Democratic Assem-

blies the power of virtually making war or peace at
their pleasure, we must at least endeavour to make
their interest in keeping the peace as strong as our
own. This can only be done, as Lord Malmesbury
says, by calling on them to contribute their own
blood and their own money, not as accessories and
auxiliaries, but as principals in the conflict. if the
Colonial Parliament would not be overwhelmed by
the responsibility which it undertakes, it must find
some means of putting an end to the present
struggle, by which one country creates a war which
another carries on, and reaps the reward in a large
increase of territory for battles which it has never
fought, and expenses which others have defrayed.
HERALD.—The invasion of Maryland by a pore
tion of Gen. Lee's army, at the very moment that
he was supposed to be so hardly pressed by the
Federal forces in his front that the capture of
Petersburg and the imminent fall of Richmond
were matters of daily rumour among the gobe•

mouches of New York, is one of the most mar•
veilons exploits of the American civil war. The
history of this wonderful raid reads to us like a
fairy tale—like one of those picturesque exploits of
knights or paladins of the elder Teutonic times,
who, aided by giants and fairies, had the power
of transcorting themselves at will from place to
place, and confounded their foes by the blast of a
magic trumpet or the sight of a talisman fraught
with supernatural potency. At first laughed at in
New York as a foolish raid, which would so weaken
Lee that he was inevitably at the mercy of Grant
when he chose to advance, the expedition, as it de-
veloped into unknown and fearful proportions,
caused a panic in the North, which laid bare in a
moment the weakness of the war faction. As it
became known that, in spite of all opposition, a
large army corps of Confederates was working its
will in the midst of an unwarlike and sympathising
border population, that it had utterly routed the
two Federal armies that, on the Potomac and Mon-
eau, had attempted to check its career, a revulsion
of feeling took place throughout the cities of the
North, the price of their currency went up, and
their spirits went down. The object of the incur-
sion into Maryland we couceive to have been three-
fold. It was intended to obtain supplies for the
Confederate army ; to create a diversion which
would have the effect of withdrawing a portion of
Grant's army from the front of Petersburg ; to re•
conuoitro the defences of Baltimore and Washing-
ton, and interrupt, as far as possible, their commu-
nications with the rest of the North. All these
objects have been triumphantly attained. The Con-
federates are reported to have retired across the
Potomac " loaded with plunder." The bread, the
sheep, and the oxen, required to feed their army,
creased the Potomac with them. The horses re-
quired for their cavalry were obtained in abun-
dance. The ammunition, for which a dozen
Northern arsenals had been ransacked, the confis-
cated svealth of thousands of Federal sympathisers,
was transferred to Virginia to aid in the patriotic
cause. In the terror caused by this invasion the
authorities at Washington andthtehe p
governorseoplefoor mfith:
border states appealed vainly to
mediate help to save the Government of Mr Lincoln
and protect the capital. This help was not forth-
coming. No hand was stretched out to help the Pre-
sident of the North and his Cabinet. Had the Con-
federates only been sufficiently numerous to invest
places of such size the cities of Baltimore and Wash-
ington would have been at their mercy. Pennsylva-
nia. and New Jersey made no response to the appeal
of their governors for troops. The people of
Pennsylvania are accused by their governor,
Mr. Curtin, of culpable stupidity and apathy in
presence of the enemy. The mayor of New York
conceived that ho required the militia for the defence
of the city in the case of an apprehended riot. The
German and Irish immigrants refused to be enrolled,
their ardour in the war having been somewhat
damped since they have observed that their com-
rades who have enlisted but seldom return to their
homes. The attitude of the North is now far more
peaceful than it was; the people are beginning to
perceive that a war of pretended subjugation, so
uniformly unsuccessful, cannot be prosecuted with
credit or advantage to the nation. The peace party
is becoming more than ever a power in the state.
It looks upon separation as inevitable, and desires
only that the best terms should be obtained. Mean-
while, Sigel having been defeated and Wallace
routed, the President had no force available for the
defence of the North but the army of Grant on the
Appomattox River. We do not yet know whether
this army has not been recalled to the neighbourhood
of the capital. It is stated, at all events, that a
whole army corps has been shipped to Baltimore.
The last great attack made by the army of Grant
was on June 22, when he fell upon the line of the
Weldon Railroad, and was repulsed with loss, Since
that the cavalry, under Wilson, has been engaged
in a disastrous expedition towards the Lynchburg
line of rail, from which it returned to camp with a
loss now stated at 3,000 men, and minus all its
baggage, ammunition, and artillery. The confidence
of General Lee in the strength of his position, and
his belief in the utter impotence of the disabled
enemy, who was perishing in the swamp at his feet,
is proved by the fact that before this raid of Wilson's
he detached a strong force under Generals Early
and Imboden for one of those incursions into
Maryland for which Lee is famous. One hundred
miles to the Potomac this force rode on, and
fifty miles more to the suburbs of Baltimore.
Hunter was far away in Western Virginia, and
the Confederates took their course unchallenged
up the Shenandoah Valley. ti.t Martinsburg they
met with Sigel, whom they put to the rout, and
expelled from Harper's Ferry. They then crossed
leisurely into Maryland, went north to Hagerstown
and threatened Chambersburg, went east to Fredea
rick City on the Monocacy River. Here Wallace,
with 10,000 men, attempted to withstand them,but
was engaged and driven in disorder to the shelter
of Baltimore. The invaders now destroyed the rail-
way between Frederick and Baltimore. Proceeding
to that place, they tore up the line and burned the
bridge on the road to Washington. They also suc-
ceeded in inflicting great damage on the lino from
Baltimore to Philadelphia, and captured on this
railway a train of cars with their passengers, among
whom was the Federal General Franklin and his
staff. The force which approached Washington came
as near as six miles to that city on the north side,
and amused itself with bombarding Fort Stephens.
The sound of their guns must have recalled Presi-
dent Lineoln and his Cabinet to the grim reality of
that war of independence, which they have foolishly
characterised as a petty rebellion, which is certain
to be soon suppressed. Mr. Lincoln in Washington
is eaposed to far more peril than Mr. Davies in
Richmond. For the moment ho has escaped, and
ho will act wisely in not exposing himself to so
great a risk for the future. Mr. Feesenden, his
new Finance Minister, wants a loan of fifty millions
to carry on the war for a fortnight. Mr. Fessenden
will then want three hundred millions to keep it up
till the autumn. And what next, and nest?

PENSION TO MIL DISRAELL—Prom a Parliamen-
tary blue book just published, it appears that in the year
ended the 31st March last Mr Disraeli received his pension
of £2,000, under the act 4th and sth Will, IV., c, 24. There
is one yacinacy under the act.