The Sun.
London, England, 1863-06-20 00:00:00

She has done more. She has to a considerable ex-
tent borrowed the institutions peculiar to this coun-
try, and has accepted as a model the British consti-
tutioe. Her Emperor, unlike those of the Eastern
world, is a monarch who rules by responsible Minis-
ters. Her Government is based ov, and regulated
by, principles not practically dissimilar from those
which in Great Britain have beer: ratified by the
experience of centuries. Nor have the efforts or
Brazil to inspire the confidence of Europe and of
this country in particular been unavailing. Foreign
capital has found its way into that country, and in
the money markets of the world the credit of its
Government stands high. Between this country
and Brazil commercial relations of no ordinary
magnitude and importance subsist, and in its chief
city the greatest of its mercantile firms are compoied
of Eng:istimen. With a country thus situated as
regards ourselves, it is indeed a matter for regret
that amicable relations should be suspended, and
that at the Court of neither State there should re-
main any official personage to represent the mani-
fold and important interests of the subjects of the
two Powers. In the despatch communicated to
Earl Russell by the Brazilian Minister at this Court
the grounds assigned for breaking off diplomatic
relations were, not as might have been supposed, the
orders given by her Majesty's Government to the
British admiral on the Bre zilian station to make
reprisals in the event of certain demands not being
complied with, but the manner in which those orders
were carried into effect. Now on this point we can-
&Ally confess that we cannot discover any just cause
for the complaints of the Brazilian Government.
Fair notice was given to the Brazilian authorities
t hat the reprisals would be made, and when they were
made every care was taken to prevent the employ-
ment of unnecessary violence or the loss of human
life. If it be once conceded that her Majesty's
Government were justified in making reprisals, it
is impossible to understand how any objections could
be raised to the manner in which the British admi-
ral performed the painful duty imposed upon him.
The motives assigned in his despatch by Earl Rus-
sell for having recourse to the proceeding which
has given umbrage to the Brazilian Government
were, "To obtain some security for the lives and
properties of her Majesty's subjects who may have
the misfortune to be wrecked on the coast of Brazil,
and to ensure due respect to the persons of her Ma-
jesty's naval officers on Brazilian territory." If
these motives, however, be acknowledged as suffi-
cient to justify recourse to arbitrary measures, the
only tenable ground for complaint by the Brazilian
Government is at once abandoned. It would scarcely
be correct, however, to say that this ground was
abandoned because the immediate cause of the with-
drawal of the Brazilian Ambassador was said to be
the mode in which the orders given to the British
admiral were executed. Against the orders for re-
prisals the Brazilian Government always protested,
and over again denied that her Majesty's Govern-
ment had any just claims for redress. In estimating
the causes, therefore, which have led to the present
rupture between the two countries, one must regard
the unlucky shipwreck of the Prince of Wales, the
scrape into which three naval officers unfortunately
got themselves, the investigation and correspon-
dence to which these circumstances gave rise, the
orders for reprisals, and the execution of those
orders, as forming part of one entire transaction
whose relative bearing on each other, and on the
ultimate result, it is impossible to overlook. It was
thus the matter was viewed not only by the Earl of
Malmesbury, but by Earl Russell, in the debate 'ast
night. The entire dispute from its origin to its
termination was again reopened, and the thrice-told
stories of the wreck of the Prince of Wales and the
arrest and maltreatment of the officers of the Forte
again repeated. Into the merits of the discussion
it is not our intention again to enter. Our Govern-
ment considered themselves justified in making
certain demands from that of Brazil, and, con-
sidering those demands to be legitimate, found
it necessary to enforce them. The Brazilian autho-
rities had no reason to complain of precipitation
upon our part. if the statements made to us by
our representative at the Court of the Emperor of
Brazil were to be relied upon, no other course was
left open to us than that which we adopted. The
Earl of Malmesbury endeivoured to show that
Mr. Christie was unpopular, not only with the Bra-
zilian authorities, but with the other members of
the diplomatic body at Rio; but these assertions
have already been made and have been denied.
Even the sanity of Mr. Consul Verreker, who visited
the scene of the wreck of the Prince of Wales, has
been questioned; but it has been shown that it was
not until some months after the loss of this vessel
that his health broke down. It no doubt seems an
arbitrary act to enforce reprisals, but such a pro-
ceeding is sanctioned by the law of nations. If a
State is aggrieved, it is by such means alone that
it can enforce redress. But these are not the first
grounds of difference which have arisen between
this country and Brazil. The Brazilian Govern-
ment have failed to carry out their engagements
towards us in respect to the emancipated negroes.
Nor is it alone in this that they have broken their
stipulations. They have also evinced a total disre-
gard for the protests which over and over again we
have found it to be our duty to make. If diplo-
matic relations are now suspended between the
two'countries, the blame cannot be laid exclusively
at our door. The Brazilian Government is the best
in South America, but it is not altogether without
blemishes. It has yet to learn that sovereign
States are not free to violate engagements delibe-
rately entered into; and, though independent, may
be called upon to satisfy the claims of other States
us independent as themselves. _ _

HERALD.—It is a wise discretion in the Premier,
in spite of the vilification and abuse out of doors by
certain prejudiced critics, to adhere to the proposed
purchase of the buildings of the Exhibition at South
Kensington, as well as that of the ground on which
they stand. Conceive the dilemma in which the
Government would be placed with the unoccupied
land on its hands, and the appeals, outcries, and
exclamations of the whole coterie which would at
once start up to provide plans, estimates, and
designs for the edifices to be erected thereon by
their favourite architect. All the discussion, pro-
crastination, reversal and mutation of style, and
whilom confusion which we remember in the House
of Commons about the New Foreign Office, would
be nothing to the storm of plot and counterplot
which would arise on the ruins of Captain Fowke's
edifice,:and:the ample amount of ground it occupies.
In the House of Lords on Thursday evening the
Duke of Rutland proposed that the buildings, which
would please his taste in lieu of those already
erected, should be in harmony with the Gothic me-
morial to the Prince Consort which Mr. Scott is to
construct in Hyde-park ; and doubtless Mr. Beres-
ford Hope, who presided over the small but deter-
mined lot of dissentients to the entire purchase of
land or buildings on the previous evening at St.
James's Hall, would furnish us with a high art pro-
posal to amend or totally transform the " mass of
deformity," as he pleasantly termed the edifice at
South Kensington. But the Goverment, backed
by the Commissioners of 1851, have in this instance
resolved upon laying out the public money honestly
and are ensured more than an adequate value in
return; and having a clear idea of what they in-
tend to do with their purchase when completed, are
not likely to be cajoled or terrified out of any part
of a predetermined measure of great public utility
and general good. The best professional advice has
been obtained on the question of the worth of the
materials of 'the structure erected by Messrs. Kelk
and Lucas, and the use to which they can be put;
so the amateur opinions about the precise value of
the bricks, and the timber, and the iron, and the
ruinous expense of altering the domes and the addi-
tional erection of a third dome, the rottenness of
the flooring, the rough beams in the roof, &c., are
all mere idle froth and nonsense, which it would be
waste of time to discuss. We are certainly disposed
to agree with Lord Derby that in the first instance
the House of Commons should have been fully in-
formed on the comparative economy of improving as
compared with building on the South Kensington
property. Tire difference would have been startling
and suggestive even to a partisan so hostile as Mr.
Gregory. The permanent portions of the structure,
as the noble lord urged, are allowed to be unexcep-
tionable; "it would be difficult to find any picture
gallery possessing greater advantages." The picture
gallery may be placed alongside that of the Louvre
itself, and will not suffer in comparison either
with respect to sufficiently lighting and accommo-
dating the 'pictures or the people who come to see
them, and we entirely disagree with the gentlemen
who recommend " small chambers cros.sed by
screens" as fitting repositories for larger portraits in
vogue with the English school and its admirers, or
the general class of pictures likely to occupy these
galleries. The objections raised by Lord Hardwicke
against buying a building erected for temporary
purposes and applying it to a permanent use, only
hold good to certain portions of the building, which
for the present do not require much change or re-
pair. The whole of the brickwork erected will last
as long as any Government edifice which could be
named, and was avowedly designed from the first
day of its being laid down for perpetuity and a
permanent purpose. The value of the materials,
as mere materials, is to be ascertained only from