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

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

- -4-

TretES.—The observations offered by the Attor•
ney-G,:neral at Richmond on the subject of the
ironclads in the Mersey will he reed with the
deepest attention. We cannot discover, nor should
we perhaps expect, any confident exposition of the
law in these remarks, but us elucidating the general
policy of the Government in this important pro-
ceeding, they will be weighed and scrutinised with
peculiar interest. 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
aim-
partial administration of the law, be it what it may,
butv wer
not wish
of
to secei t
htehre
rl law
rsatirsa strained in
do
orin p
Con-
federates. We do feel, beyond a doubt,ef
u
thatfr if the
despatch of such vessels as the Alabama
neutral port is really consistent with the from
af
y g
nations it concerns us very closely to
changed, but it also concerns us no lesset thate law
law o
that justice is done to everybody by thelaw
w to
as se.;es,
stands. Upon the whole, the words of the Attorney-
General General are calculated to set the public mindat-
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 Palmer'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. Hoar
shipbuilders are not standing upon their rights
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. Tots 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."
['hat, 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 construe, but which certainly was intended
to prevent these things." Unless, therefore, the
law has been imperfectly framed, it would be
found applicable te the transactions now suspected
to be pending, but whether these suspicions can be
developed into proofs is another question. Here Sir
Roundell can oniy 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 t o be prejudged,bat
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 evilly 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
new that it can do apparently no hem. It does not
follow, even if this bi!es4rne4 dosiinaiion be indeed
the real one, that the builders of the steamers are
immediately concerned In it, but it does follow, from
the exaraVe of the Alabama, that the transaction
would be ultimately such as we are nailed upon
to preveet. We leecw: er 41 ay reasonably infer
from that examole, that even if the delivery of the
vessels from the hands of the builders to these of the
purchasers could be lawfuliy 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 iegitireete 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.
talent was fUrnished, hvit eie c4ll qLly 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 whnih 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
.11 the matter, for even failure will not be dis-
creditable if the attempt g
to blot the law to bear
has been founded An 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.
witting of infinite evasions. But the Attorney.
General reck )ns 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 apt 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 unlawlul, 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—which
very closely resembles the notorious Jegow 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 truth, 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 em
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 r,ctual situ-
ation of affairs in Prussia, not merely an unpardon-
4ble impertinence, but also a very wanton act of
political suicide. Yet this is precisely what Count
Enlenburg has thought fit to do. He confides to
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 heard 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 ignomieous 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 King and his Government ; and if, as is
rumoured, the Minister of Justice intends to 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 Chamber, or—