The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-17 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The observations offered by the Attor-
ney-General at Richmond on the subject of the
ironclads in the Mersey will be read with the
deepest attention. We cannot discover, nor should
we perhaps expect, any confident exposition of the
law in these remarks, but as elucidating the general
policy of the Government in this important pro-
ceeding, they will be weighed and scrutinised with
peculiar intereet. It is impossible to deny that much
perplexity is felt throughout the country on the
question at issue. We all wish for a strict and im-
partial administration of the law, be it what it may,
bat we do not wish to see the law strained in
favour or in prejudice of either Federals or Con-
federates. We do feel, beyond a doubt, that if the
despatch of such vessels as the Alabama from a
neutral port is really consistent with the law of
nations it concerns us very closely to get that law
changed, but it also concerns us no less to see
thatjustice is done to everybody by the law as it
stands. Upon the whole, the words of the Attorney-
General are calculated to set the public mind at
ease. We explained the other day that the case of
these famous vessels would involve two distinct
questions, one of law and the other of evidence.
Now, it is clear from Sir Roundell Pal re er's speech
that the great difficulties encountered by Govern-
ment in dealing with this matter have arisen on the
question of evidence and not on the question of law.
Ministers have not been doubting whether these
steamers, if destined for the same service as the
Alabama, could be lawfully despatched, but whether
this suspected destination could be conclusively
proved against them. In this case we say the opinion
of the country will be with the Government. If our
shipbuilders are not standing upon their riehts
as established by the law, but relying upon their
ability to evade the law by artifice they will obtain
no sympathy, It would have been an unfortunate
and perilous proceeding if the vessels now lying in
the Mersey had been detained by any strained or
unreasonable interpretation of the law, but if the
spirit and intent of the law are clear few will be
found to deny that there is suspicion enough in the
case before us to justify the resolution of the Go-
vernment in reserving it for trial. Sir R. Palmer,
then, tells us in the plainest language that the Go-
vernment of a neutral nation cannot, consistently
with its neutrality, "suffer warlike expeditions and
ships of war to be prepared and fitted out in its har-
bours. This is manifest reason. " We all know," he
continued, " as a matter of fact that the Confederate
States have endeavoured to some extent to make this
country the basis of their maritime operations."
That, also, is true. The Alabama was so far pre-
pared and fitted out for service in British waters
that she was able to act against an enemy without
repairing to any port of her own country for equip-
ment and commission. All that she did not actually
get in British harbour she got outside by stratagem
and evasion, and she did, in fact, represent a " war-
, like expedition" despatched from territories which
were not the proper territories of the belligerent.
The Attorney-General goes on to tell us, not indeed
that he is confident of the practical efficacy of our
laws against such proceedings, but that he has no
doubt whatever of their intent and spirit. " We
have got a law," he says," which may or may not be
easy to construes but which certainly was intended
to prevent these things." Unless, therefore, the
law has been imperfectly framed, it would be
found applicable to the transactions now suspected
to be pending, but whether these suspicions can be
developed into proofs is another question. Here Sir
Roundell can only remind us of " the great difficul-
ties of bringing the law to bear by complete and con-
clusive evidence in cases of this kind, where every
artifice is used for the purpose of disguise and eva-
sion ;" but at the same time he bespeaks our support
for the efforts of Government in endeavouring to put
the law in force. If this is the whole state of the
case that support will not be wanting. If the law
is clear against such expeditions as that of the Ala-
bama, and all that is obscure is the real destination
of these Mersey ironclads for the same service, the
public will not be slow to admit that the suspicions
were strong enough to warrant their detention until
trial had taken place. We should be a great deal more
puzzled in the matter except for the precedent of the
Alabama. The case is certainly not to be prejudged , but
it would be affectation to deny that these vessels in the
Mersey are reasonably suspected of a similar desti-
nation and character. Not to speak of the absence of
satisfactory evidence to the contrary, which, if it
existed, we might think would be most easily pro-
ducible, we find the organs of the Southern bellige-
rents actually threatening us with the resentment
of the Confederates for stopping them. Those who
ought to know best make no disguise of information
now that it can do apparently no harm. It does not
follow, even if this presumed destination be indeed
the real one, that the builders of the steamers are
immediately concerned in it, but it does follow, from
the example of the Alabama, that the transaction
would be ultimately such as we are called upon
to prevent. We know, or may reasonably infer
from that example, that even if the delivery of the
vessels from the hands of the builders to these of the
purchasers could be lawfully managed the illegality
of the business would then immediately commence.
When the Alabama appeared at sea as a belligerent
cruiser she must of necessity have been fitted out
for war either by neutrals or by belligerents from
neutral territory. It is quite certain that she never
received her legitimate equipment or commission in
the ports of the Confederate Government. She was
the produce of trickery and evasion. -We cannot
say how, where, or by what instalments her equip-
ment was furnished, hut we can say that she did
not leave our ports in the character or fashion
of an honest vessel. As the Attorney-General
put it, it was an " escape," and such escapes
are exactly the things which we ought to prevent.
Government has now, at any rate, prevented a
like escape in the case of these two celebrated iron-
clads, but it has done so, as Sir Roundell's speech
shows, only after grave doubts and difficulties.
There is not a doubt, we are glad to find, about the
spirit and design of our own laws. That is a great
point in the matter, for even failure will not be dis-
creditable if the attempt to bring the law to bear
has been founded on its obvious intent, and justified
by irresistible suspicion. There is, however, a doubt
about the result, partly from the words in which
the law is expressed, but principally from the diffi-
culty of obtaining conclusive evidence in a case ad-
mitting of infinite evasions. But the Attorney-
General reckons upon reasonable consideration from
the public. He thinks that if the case should fail
people will see that Government has done its best to
enforce what is really believed to be the law. He
tells us, further, that the Americans have done as
much for others as they are now expecting us to do
for them, and that they never, indeed, showed the
least unwillingness to act when urged to such
interference. Whenever they were informed that a
belligerent Power was contriving the equipment of
a ship of war in their ports, they were desirous of
preventing it, but they found, Sir Roundell adds,
the difficulties in the way of such a proceeding.
We can only say, in conclusion, that if this is the
state of the law, it is unsatisfactory in the extreme.
If it is really held both in America and England
that the equipment of ships of war in neutral waters
for the service of belligerents is unlawful, and if
both countries, nevertheless, find the utmost diffi-
culty in bringing the law to bear, the sooner the
machinery is improved the better. There is a right
and a wrong in such matters. What is right should
be done openly and without disguise, but no loop-
hole should be left for the covert accomplishment of
what is admitted to be wrong.
POST.—Up to the present time there is no sign
that the authors of the pending crisis in Prussia are
awake to the importance of the conflict they have
rashly provoked. Count Eulenberg's circular—w hich
very closely resembles the notorious Jagow circular
of last year—is a declaration of war against the free-
dom of election, in perfect freedom with bureaucra •
tic traditions, but calculated to widen rather than
to diminish the breach between the King and his
subjects. It would have been impolitic, if it had not
been contrary to the trath, to denounce the members
of the Liberal majority in the late Chamber as the
enemies of the monarchy ; but for the Minister of the
Interior to take it upon himself to exhort the ens
ployes of the State to vote for none but the Ministerial
candidates—to command prefects and sub prefects,
and all other provincial functionaries, to prove
their devotion to the Crown by turning the elec-
tioneering screw on the side of the Government can-
didates, is, to say the least of it, in the actual situ-
ation of affairs in Prussia, not merely an unpardon-
able impertinence, but also a very wanton act of
political suicide. Yet this is preciselyuo confides wohoatCdeosuntot
Enlenburg has thought fit to do •
the paid servants of the Government the supervision
and manipulation of the elections, and he tells them,
in so many words, that—" It is impossible for any
Government board to act efficiently should its pre-
sident profess political opinions at variance with
those of the Government." No doubt the Minister
writes with a better knowledge of the character of
Prussian officials than we possess, and it may be
that they will, as a body, accept without murmur-
ing or shame the ignominous part he has assigned
to them. Still there are, we will hope, a few
who, like the university authorities of Berlin and
Bonn on a former occasion, will decline to serve as
Ministerial electioneering agents, and their indepen-
dence can prove contagious even in the best drilled
of all European bureaucracies. At all events, such
a bold and unconstitutional attempt to influence
the elections can hardly fail to aggravate the defeat
of the Kiug and his Government ; and if, as is
rumoured, the Minister of Justice intends -tb issue
a similar circular, the only inference to be drawn
from such a flagrant violation of constitutional
privileges will be that M. Von Bismark has made
up his mind to govern without a Chareber, or—

which would be the best thing that could happen
for Prussia and Germany—not to govern at all.
Count Eulenburg's views of the duties of the civil
servants of a constitutional Sovereign are curious
enough. When the King has pointed out and
definitely laid down the constitutional paths to
be trodden by himself, and his officials with
him, all must obey; and those holding offices
o 7 political importance are bound, not only to
render obedience, but active support. The idea
is that the Crown is the living central point of the
Prussian Constitution—that it is for the King to
ordain, and the Parliament to register, his ordi-
nances. This was laid down ex cathedra in the
lately published programme of the Ministerial party.
The King, it was said, had confessed that the utmost
unity prevailed between the Crown and its coun-
sellors, and that, therefore, to look to a change of
Ministers for a solution of the existing crisis would
he of no avail. Royalty—" a strong royalty"—could
alone bring the present confusion to a close and guard
and strengthen Prussia's position in Germany. But
if he King be, as his so-called " friends" in effect
affirm, the only Power in the State, why has Cham-
ber after Chamber been dissolved to procure if pos-
sible the concurrence of the representatives of the
people in the measures which his Majesty deems
necessary for the salvation of the country ? The
present appeal " to the patriotism of the electors and
the judgment of the elected" has, we are assured,
been made under a conscientious observance of the
Constitution ;" but in the same breath the Prussian
people are warned " not to slight the inevitable
consequences of a haughty re-election." What the
King and his Ministers understand by a Constitu-
tion seems to be nearly this—that the Sovereign
shall govern, but that he shall govern under certain
conditions settled by himself. The Liberal party,
on the other hand, contend that a Constitutional
Government, under which the people are taxed
withoat the consent of their representatives, and
under which the Ministers of the Crown are not
responsible to the nation, is a delusion and a sham,
and they have determined to substitute their own
real theory of the Constitution for the theory of
Divine right upon which William I. has been advised
to rely. The elections in which this question between
the King and the nation is to be decided are fixed to
take place on the 28th inst., but neither in Berlin
nor in the provinces are there any symptoms of
feverish anxiety as to the result. The absence
of political agitation shows, in fact; that
the Liberal party are conscious of their strength,
and confident of success. Nor is it expected that
the character of the Opposition in the new Cham-
ber will be much changed. In some places men of
more advanced opinions may be returned, replacing,
probably, a few of Count Schwerin's friends; but,
upon the whole, it appears that the people will be
satisfied with confirming the resolution they have
more than once announced, by sending back their
former representatives; and, as they are still desir-
ous to avoid a direct collision with the Crown, this
is, perhaps, the wisest course they could take, inas-
much as it will leave the way open for the King to
escape by dismissing his unpopular Ministers, and
choosing for their successors statesmen who can
command the confidence of the majority of the
Chamber. It will also be the most emphatic answer
that an insulted nation can return to the appeal of
a Government which inspires neither respect nor
fear. Hitherto the Opposition has been distin-
guished by firmness, unanimity, and moderation ;
and there is no reason for deviating from the con-
duct which has extorted the admiration of Parlia-
mentary veterans, and done more for the political
education of Prussia than could ever have been
effected by louder, but not more sincere, demonstra-
tions of patriotism.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

~P•••

LIVERPOOL-FRIDAY.

At this day's market there was a fair attendance both
of millers and dealers, but the demand for wheat was ra-
ther limited, at about the prices current on Tuesday. Oats
and oatmeal comir.and more attention, and incline upwards.
Flour very steady, but in small request. Indian corn very
firm, at the advanced rates of Tuesday. Barley, beans,
and peas steady.