The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-06 00:00:00

had been suggested by the Confederate Government,
and were intended to benefit the State quite as much
as the neutral speculators. " In order to prevent the
monopoly by the Northern States of the accumu-
lated staples now held by our people, no measure
seems less objectionable nor more appropriate than
to encourage the merchants of neutral nations to
purchase in advance these products, and to leave
them here in depot till the ports are opened." We
do not mean to say that this ruse was not perfectly
legitimate, or that the legal character of the owner-
ship would be affected by it ; but we can well under-
stand why the adviser of her Majesty's Govern-
ment should have hesitated to give it their direct
sanction. Nor must it be forgotten that the gua-
rantee demanded was prospective. Lord Russell
was requested to engage beforehand to give all such
property effectual protection if it should fall into
Federal hands. Now, the laws of war with respect
to private property found in the territory of an
enemy are by no means so " unquestionable " as
Mr. Benjamin seems to think. Dr. Phillimore's
proposition, that neutrals have a right to trade
with belligerents, which he quotes as conclusive, does
not touch the difficulty at all, and we can well con-
ceive cases in which an invading army would be fully
justified in converting the goods of a neutral land-
owner or householder to its own use. This may or
may not be one of them; but at all events the in-
tervention of our Government should be reserved
for the redress of actual injuries, and not bespoken
in advance for hypothetical contingencies. The
pressure to which this country is now subjected
on every side to depart from the path it
has laid down is no more than every wise man
must have foreseen. This is just what is meant
when we speak of the danger of being dragged
into a war. No nation ever was or ever could
be dragged into a war in the sense in which an
Irishman may be dragged—that is, bodily—into
a faction fight. What happens is that a multitude
of passions and interests, veiling themselves under
specious names, invariably possess the popular mind
and ally themselves with the instinct of pugnacity
which no civilization has yet extirpated, obscuring
and keeping out of sight the colossal evils which
war ever brings upon the victors no less than upon
the vanquished. It is at such times that Governments
are often wiser than peoples, and when we can look
back calmly on the part played by England dur-
ing the American war we shall see that experience
and statesmanship are worth something, after all, in
foreign policy. Had feelings alone, however natural
and honourable, governed our conduct as a nation, we
should long before this have been goaded by the in-
sulting tone of Northern demagogues and journalists
into some deviation from impartiality. Let us con-
tinue to practise the same forbearance and self-re-
straint when we are taunted by the South with undue
subservience. Taunts are no more like arguments
than threats, and arguments of the gravest and
most solid kind are the only considerations which
can properly be addressed to a great nation in mat-
ters of such moment. Lord Russell's speech at
Blairgowrie defined in clear and dignified terms the
proper attitude of Great Britain towards the two
American belligerents. We have hitherto had good
reasons for remaining neutral to the extent of ab-
staining from recognition. When those reasons fail
—and we are neither bound nor disposed to specify
beforehand upon what conditions that failure de-
pends—it will be time to change our ground. If
this time should ever come, we shall at least have
the satisfaction of feeling that we have acted upon
our own judgment, as we must needs act upon our
own responsibility.
HERALD.—The last report of the Chief Engineer
to the Metropolitan Board of Works proves that
our cloaca maxima, if not actually approaching com-
pletion, is at least giving satisfactory signs of pro-
gress. Those only who knew by experience the diffi-
culties and delays which have to be encountered and
overcome in a work upon such a scale can rightly
estimate the labour and incessant vigilance which
is required to keep dilatory contractors up to the
mark, and to prevent idle or dishonest contractors
from playing tricks with the public money. - Still
more so is such the case when operations, as in the
present instance, have to be conducted upon a scale
which precludes their being entrusted toa single
firm, and when half a dozen different establishments
have accordingly contracted for as many different
portions of the great scheme. Much delay has
also been the result of the uncertainty which pre-
vailed for so long a time as to the course which
Parliament would ultimately adopt with respect to
the Thames embankment. Until this was finally
determined, it was impossible to deeide defini-
tively upon the course to be taken by the Low-
Level Sewer on the north bank of the Thames,
which drains, in all probability, the largest area
assigned to any single artery, and the completion
of which, under any other circumstances, would
probably have been attended with a greater amount
of inconvenience, and consequent expense, than that
which has been occasioned by any other portion of
the work. Wo are now, however, as it would appear,
in a fair way to witness the accomplishment of this
magnum opus. The plans for the embankment from
Waterloo-bridge to the east end of the Temple -gar-
dens have been at length passed by the committee
and approved of by the board. The portion of it be-
tween Westminster and Waterloo bridges has been
already let by public tender to Mr. Ridley, and will
be proceeded with as soon as the necessary bonds
have been prepared and executed. Within two years
at farthest we are promised that the whole shall be
in working order, and that roadway above and
sewer beneath shall both be applicable to their
respective purposes. Meanwhile, a substantial ad-
vance has been made with all those portions of the
undertaking which affect the land alone. Messrs.
Brassey and Co. have actually completed about ten
miles and a half of the Middle Level Sewer and of
its numerous feeders. From Old Ford, up to
Clerkenwell Sessions House, the line is now com-
plete, with the exception of a few trifling breaks
caused by local obstructions, and the fixings of the
wrought iron aqueduet by which the Metropolitan
Railway will be crossed at
.Victoria-street. The Fleet
Sower is in course of diversion from its ancient
channel, and the difficulties presented by the nature
of the ground, and of the tenements by which it is
covered, are rapidly. being surmounted. Of the
Western Sewer, which is in the hands of Messrs.
Maxon, more than two miles have been actually
finished. The Northern Outfall Sewer, five miles
and a quarter in length, is actually a fait accompli.
Some portions of the earthwork of the embank-
ment still remain to be finished, the bridges are at
present without their parapets, and the apron has
still to be fixed in the bed of the river ; but the
sewage of the High and Middle Level Sewers has
now been permanently turned into a portion of it,
and is discharged through the tumbling bay direct
into the Thames at Barking Creek. The temporary
measures adopted during the summer for the diver-
sion of the sewage from the river Lea have thus been
superseded by its conveyance through the proper
channels ; and it is satisfactory to learn that the
change has been effected without the slightest
symptom of leakage having manifested itself,
either from the ironwork or the brickwork. One
compartment of the great reservoir at the exit
of the Northern Outfall Sewer is already finished,
and another is in a forward state. The founda-
tions of the remainder have been commenced,
and all will be in readiness long before the time that
their services are likely to be actively called into
requisition. At the pumping station, also, all the
works are fast progressing. In fact, from one end
to the other, upon the northern side of the Thames,
there are the signs of a healthy activity which pro •
miss well for the future. The Southern Low Level
Sewer is less advanced. A mile and a quarter of the
main channel has been constructed by Mr. Webster,
and three miles of the portion entrusted to Messrs.
Aird and Co. have been completed in Bermondsey.
Between Great Guildford-street and the B lackfriars-
road progress is also making. But the low level
at which the whole of the work has to be carried
on is adverse to expedition, and upon the whole
less relative advance has been made upon the
south than upon the north bank of the Thames.
Into the cost of the whole operation we do not now
propose to enter. Work has already been certified
as actually performed to a value exceeding that of
a million and a quarter, and it is needless to say
that under this item cannot be classed at present a
single yard of the Thames Embankment. The i
drainage of London and its environs is n every
sense of the word the most stupendous operation of
the kind which has ever been attempted by science,
whether we look to the amount of superficial area
which has to be drained, the costly character of the
necessary works, or the numerical ratio of the popu-
lation which will be affected by them. When com-
pleted, they will be the greatest improvement
which England has witnessed during the present
century, the drainage of the Lincolnshire Fens and
of the Bedford Level not excepted. Our noble river
will at least have reached the first stage of its trans-
formation from a state in which it is a public
pest and eyesore to that of being the ornament of
the city through which it flows. If there is any
faith to be placed in sanatory science, the health of
London will be vastly improved by the change. In-
deed, the first result of it is that one of the most
magnificent of the stately edifices which it is hoped
will now again line the banks of the Thames is to
be the new hospital at Stangate, located here at
the express recommendation of the medical mem-
bers of the board. In convenience and appearance
there will be no comparison possible between the
regime which is and that which is to be. Whether
fish will, as we are told, be again caught " between
the bridges," or apprentices have to revive the
clause in their indentures which prohibited their
being surfeited with salmon, is a problem which
remains to be solved. But we see no reason why
these, and even stranger things than these, should
not come to pees. Hitherto we have occupied our-

selves pertinaciously in fouling, abusing, and ren-
dering useless one of the most priceless of the gifts
of a bounteous Providence. W hen we have once
fairly turned over a new leaf there are hardly any
bounds that can be set to the development and
utilisation of which it may be rendered capable.

TRAWL AND LINE FISHING.

On Saturday the inquiry into the state of the British
Fisheries was opened at Hull before Mr. Caird, M.P., and
Professor Huxley. Several trawl fishermen were examined,
all of whom stated that the fish were in no way diminished
in size or yield, and it was also their opinion that trawling
was a beneficial system in every case. Without it, it would
be impossible to supply the large demand which had sprung
up since railways had taken it to the inland towns. The
trawl also tended to increase the number of the fish, for it
ploughed up the sandy bottom, and in this way exposed in-
numerable slugs and worms, on which the fish fed. On
almost all the grounds frequented by the trawl fishermen
the supply had considerably increased during the past 20
years. Mr. William Isaac Markcrow, one of the largest
smack-owners at Hull, stated that 20 years ago there was
only one fishing-smack sailing out of Hull, and at the pre-
sent moment no fewer than 300 trawlers belonged to the
port. Trawlers had visited the ground off Flamborough
for the last 30 years, and they were still catching immense
numbers of fish. The total capital invested in trawl fishing-
smacks at Hull would be about £300,000. The number of
trawlers in the port had considerably increased during the
past 3 years, and not less than £300,000 had been invested
during that time in that class of vessel. Notwithstanding
much more fish was now caught and brought to market, the
price had considerably increased. Haddocks, a class of fish
which used to sell for about 2s. 6d. a basket,were now worth
10s. or 15s. As a proof that trawl fish was not scoured
and bruised, as represented by the enemies of trawling,
the witness stated that the Hull fish was preferred to that
from any other port, and it was sent from the Hull market
in very large quantities to London, Bath, Cheltenham,
Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, and even to Edin-
burgh and Glasgow. The weight of the fish landed at Hull
would be fully 12,000 tons. The average price was £l5
per ton, making the total annual value of the fish landed
at the port £lBO,OOO. The witness stated that he had
never seen spawn brought up in the trawl, neither did
he believe that the spawn was deposited on the grounds fre-
quented by the trawlers, but on the rocky shores of Norway
and in other parts of the northern seas. All the witnesses
who were called gave similar evidence. The commission sat
on Thursday at Filey, and on Friday at Flamborough. At
the former place Benjamin Simpson, an oid man, deposed
as to the falling off in the yield of the fish, and stated that
since trawlers had visited their coasts the line fishermen
had been almost unable to make a living. About £lO,OOO
had been spent in line-fishing boats at Filey during the last
20 years, and this money was the earnings of the fishermen.
Several other fishermen gave similar evidence, and said that
they would like to have the trawlers all condemned. The
evidence at Flamborough was precisely similar, both as re-
garded the difficulties of the fishermen, and the increase in
the number and size of the boats. At Hull the inquiry
lasted nearly six hours, and at each of the places above
named about three hours.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

IV-

GLOUCESTER—Ocx. 3.
There was a fair show of English wheat to-day, and
the currencies of the last week slightly declined. Foreign
wheat was again dull, and in some instances is per qr
dine. Barley sold very slowly at a reduction of Is per qr.
Beans and oats were without change.