The Sun.
London, England, 1863-09-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TIMES.—If our readers would like to contemplate

a pleasant picture of happiness and prosperity, we
recommend them to the speeches of Sir Charles
Wood and Mr. Roebuck at the Sheffield Cutlers'
Feast. It was certainly a happy regulation which
prevented the speakers from referring to party poli-
tics, and led them to reflections on the general state
of the country. Drawn off by this means from par-
ticular grievances, and compelled to contemplate the
general features of our condition, every one was
carried away into expressions of enthusiastic con-
tentment. The dullness, if not inactivity, of the

[ate Session of Parliament seemed only an argumen

that there was very little to do; that the interests
and institutions of the country had been placed by
the exertions of the last few years in such a healthy
and natural condition that they merely required to
be left free to their unfettered development; and
that Ministers of both parties were now so equally
able and energetic that it did not much matter
which party was in power. And when Sir Charles
Wood was led on to reflect that this comparative
Equality in successive Administrations arose from
their being all more or less controlled by the supe-
rior power of public opinion, "aided and enlight-
ened," and—we must add—expressed by the press,
he found it impossible, in the face of the prosperity
he was witnessing, to view the new power with any
jealousy. It was in itself a subject for congratula-
tion that the Secretary of State tor India should be
able to speak in terms of satisfaction and hope of
the prospects of that hitherto unmanageable, or un-
managed, dependency. The gloom which had fallen
on " the sister country" was the only piece of

shadow in the picture. Wherever else our eyes wore
directed, at home or in our vast dependency, nothing
but prosperity and contentment met the view of the
speaker. Nor• can it be said that there was anything
exaggerated in the brightness of the picture. The
Master Cutler, we are sure, gave his guests a very
good dinner, and they were, no doubt, the more
disposed to take a bright view of things in general
by their own sense of internal satisfaction. But the

dinner did not disturb their mental digestion, and
their reflections were perfectly sober. It is as true,

as it is gratifying, chat the trade of the country as tt.
whole was never more prosperous ; that we have
solved the most d'ffieult problems of government
at home, and are fast solving them in India. To
illustrate and demonstrate the argument it was

only necessary for Mr. Roebuck to compare our
condition with that of almost any other country
in the world. Mr. Roebuck's admiration for the

Emperor Napoleon did not prevent his pointing out
the absence of freedom in France. The Germans

are still struggling to effect a unity in their Father-
land which we have long ago attained. Austria
"is in the very throes of establishing a Constitu-
tion," while we have enjoyed an equable and a
strong one for more than a century and a half.
Prussia is still suffering from the caprices and ob-
stinacy of Divine right, a malady which we passed
through safely a hundred and fifty years age. Rus-
sia, bleeding with a great revolution, and America,
torn to pieces with civil war, and breaking up in
anarchy, despotism, and blood, completed the dark
background, and left the eye resting in relieved
contentment on the quiet and brightness of the
immediate and present foreground. We live, indeed,
it sometimes seems, in a sort of "happy isle," far
from the confusion, the clamour, and the darkness
of the Old and New Worlds. But, though it is wise
and useful occasionally to encourage our exertions
and enhance our contentment by these pleasant re-
flections, they ought to be balanced by a caution.
It will not do to talk or think as if the happiness of
this country had come by fate or chance, or as if
prosperity were tied to our chariot-wheels. We are
blessed, indeed, with almost every physical as with
every moral and intellectual advantage whieh can
give the means of wealth and insure the attainment
of happiness. But, though we are less liable to
the dangers which threaten other people's pros-
perity, we are not secure from them. We cannot
depend on our commerce being always self-support-
ing, our manufactures always vigorous, or our lands
always productive, We do not refer to any prospect
of failure in our trade or of blight in the produc-
tions of the earth. The operations of nature are
uniform on the whole. There is the same balance
in the productions of the earth which
philosophers
are constantly tracing in the amount of force
always in play, in the fall of rain, the change of
seasons, and the apparent confusion of the atmos-
phere. Now that our trade is free to adapt itself to
the varying operations of nature, we need have no
fear but that a deficiency in one direction will
always be balanced sooner or later by a correspond-
ing increase in another. If no artificial disturbances
interfered with the ordinary play of natural causes
we might give ourselves up to the healthy work
and the enthusiastic enjoyment of the present, care—
less of the future and unconcerned for our own or
our children's safety.
lIERALD.—Mr. Seward has attempted to enlist
the sympathies of Europe on the side of the
Northern States in the American civil war. lie
undertakes to convince our statesmen that the
North has gained such great advantages over its
enemy during the past year that it will be impos-
sible for the South to continue the strife much
longer. We may therefore look forward at some
distant period to a reconstruction of the Union and
a settled state of things. Peace in America is
understood to be the wish of Europe, which ha
suffered much, and may suffer much yet, from this
s
deplorable war. If we wish to hasten this peace we
have only to refuse our sympathy and withdraw
our support from the South. If we leave the two
sections of the late Union alone, they will speedily
contrive, says Mr. Seward, to " arrange their
domestic controversies," Now we need not pause
to argue that this presumption
all
able to subdue
events on tbeSoutft is founded on false pre-
mises, or atinsufficient data. We need
not point out what must bo obvious to every one,
that supposing such a conquest possible, the recon-
struction of the Union on its old base does not
necessarily
fall,ovleVli.w.A 11 this has been so often
reiterated that
say no more about it just at
Present. What we would ask is this—What right
bus this Secretary to assume that the Governments
of Earo__,
et are si) drat to every claim of justice and
morality as to ms:asure all national quarrels by the
rule of their private interests, or to give their
countenance only to the successful side ? If we
believe the South to be in the right ; if, from the
commencemen t of the struggle, we have sympathised
with the South, can our jodgrnent be altered by the
issue of a hundred battles, or our sympathy be sup-
posed to wane with the declining fortunes of the
cause ? We wish for peace it is true ; but we
loathe the very thought of the peace which Mr.
Seward anticipates. To exterminate the Southern
men, to ruin the southern commerce, to make a
desert of the Southern land, this would be doubt-
less to make an end of the war. Kira words do but
little tor a people in such extremity, but irony sym-
pathy of ours could avert such a catastrophe, it is
not to be supposed that we should refuse it. We
wish all success to the South, and confusion to Us
enemies—the triumph of a people that is doing
battle for, the rights which it inherits from its