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

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMEs.—A recovery of 2 or 3 per cent. in the
quotations of the Confederate Loan, and a revival of
the rumours respecting the recognition of the South
by France, are the natural consequences of the
last news from America. A defeat in Tennessee, a ,
check in Texas, a pause, to say the least, in the
siege of Charleston, and the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Aet in the North, are more than
enough to disturb the money-market on both sides
of the Atlantic. Such fluctuations do not always
represent the sober calculations of far-sighted men,
but the efforts of speculators to make a profit by the
hopes and fears of more nervous capitalists. The
next mail may possibly bring intelligence of a Fe-
deral victory, and then the " movement" will be
reversed. In the meantime, however, there is one
circumstance favourable to the Confederate cause
which does not depend for its importance on these
oscillations in the fortunes of war. The position of
France in Mexico, and the conditional acceptance of
the Crown by the Archduke Maximilian, amount to
something more than a diversion in favour of the
South, inasmuch as they are a forcible and practi-
cal protest against the idea of one dominant Repub-
lic on the North American Continent. If an inde-
pendent Monarchy be established in Mexico, the
motive for subjugating the Confederate States is
sensibly weakened, and who can say but that the
principle of a balance of power may be borrowed
from Europe, and introduced into the New World !
At all events, the growing antagonism between the
interests of the Federal States and those of France,
coincident with fresh successes of the Southern
armies, will afford a fair opportunity of testing
the charitable estimate of our policy that seems
to be accepted by the war party in America.
According to the organs of this party, the
blindest self-interest governs alternately with the
basest cowardice the conduct of the British
Government. When they thought they could bully
the United States with impunity they made no
secret of their Southern proclivities; when they
heard that Vicksburg had fallen, that Lee had rea
treated, and that Charleston was threatened, they
laid an embargo on the steam rams at Birkenhead,
and gave Mr. Mason the cold shoulder. It remains
to be seen, therefore, whether the tidings which
sent up gold to 42 prem. at New York will produce
a corresponding effect on the language of Earl Rus-
sell and the public opinion of England ; whether
Lord Wharneliffe and his friends will be allowed to
have their own way, and Mr. Mason invited to
come back; and, if nothing of this kind happens,
what new unworthy motive will be attributed to
us by our American critics. It is, perhaps, unknown
to these gentlemen, but it is a fact, that our country-
men resident in the Southern States are just now
loud in their indignation against the English Go-
vernment for truckling as they allege, to the Cabinet
of Washington. Their grievance is that their pro-
perty is not respected by the invading Federals, but
seized or destroyed with as little scruple as though
it belonged to Confederate owners, and that Lord
Russell has omitted to exact, or even to demand,
any reparation for it. The hardship of their position
has been brought home to them still more painful!),
by the result of an application made by certain
British capitalists on their own behalf to the State
Department at Richmond. What they requested
was that the Confederate Government should un-
dertake to guarantee cotton purchased by British
subjects, and stored in the interior of the country,
against the risk of destruction by
.order of the
Confederate commanders to prevent its falling into
the hands of the enemy. Mr. Benjamin answered,
in effect, that he could not consent to involve his
Government in any such responsibility, unless he
received the corresponding assurance that restitu-
tion would be rigorously enforced from the Federal
Government by that of Great Britain if the
cotton should be destroyed or confiscated by the
Northern Generals. Moreover, he astutely ex-
plained that it would not be enough for the
captors to reimburse to the neutral proprietors
the value of the cotton at the time and place of
seizure, inasmuch as that value might be no more
than a fifth of its worth in the United States, so
that they might profit to the extent of 400 per cent.
by the act of spoliation. Unless, therefore, the
enemy could be effectually bound over to lease such
stores of cotton untouched, he could not pledge the
Confederacy to idemnify their owners against its
destruction by Southern hands for military reasons.
We cannot be surprised that this reply—coupled
with the fact that no interference on their behalf
had been promised by ;the British Government,
though a representation was made so long ago as
August, 1862—should have excited a good deal, of
irritation among English merchants in the South.
Before, however, we condemn Lord Russell for not
making a peremptory demand that would probably
have been resisted, it is right that we should advert
to one or two material points which the. parties in-
terested may not have sufficiently considered. In
the first place, it is clear from a letter of Mr. Ben-
jemin to Mr.lklason that the operations contemplated

had been suggested by the Confederate Government,
and wereintended 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 mea9ure
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. his 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
I 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 to a 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 decide 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. We 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 lot 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 aqueduct by which the Metropolitan
Railway will be crossed at Victoria-street. The Fleet
Sewer 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.
Moxon, 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,
i I and s 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
mise 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 a the portion entrusted to Messrs.
Aird and Co. have been completed in Bermondsey.
Between Great Guildford-street and the Blackfriars-
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.
i The
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 tie 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 fil'e no reason why
these, and even stranger things than these, should
not come to pass. Hitherto we have occupied our-