The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—A country owning upwards of 10 years'
gross income, just emerging from the waves of a re-
volution, and barely provided with a King, and that
King a minor, would net seem at first sight to be in
a very good way. Greece, however, is not only well
satisfied with herself, but is regarded even by inde-
pendEnt observers as a fortunate State, possessed,
not perhaps of much actual wealth but of very con-
siderable capabilities. Two requisites are indispen-
sable in the present day to the success of a nation.—
monarchy and money. After one or two repulses
and a dangerous suspense the Greeks have at length
obtained a King. The recommendationsof the Pro-
tecting Powers, already received with favour by the
Ministry, must be confirmed by the assent of the
nation, but we may reasonably presume that so eli-
gible a candidate as Prince William of Denmark
will meet with few opponents. The Greek mo-
narchy will then be established, but the Greek
treasury will still demand replenishment. It is at
present so empty that the pay even of the public
servants is eight months in arrear. We say no-
thing of the public debt or of the patient bondhol-
ders. Greece is in the position of a man who not
only cannot satisfy his creditors but is unable to
provide for his daily expenses. Yet in spite of all
these things the fiaances of the Greek kingdom are
not supposed to be in any desperate condition. A
little wholesome management will very soon bring
them round. And this is the opinion not of care-
less or indifferent spectators, but of unpaid and un-
easy creditors—men with a real and serious stake
in the question at issue. The truth is, the case lies
in a nutshell, and there is its safety. The figures are
only such as we might see in a railway balance-
sheet. A clever chairman would toss them about
hand over hand and make nothing of them. Say
that Greece owes £10,000,000, with a revenue of
only £7oo,ooo—what of that ? Its creditors are
infinitely complaisant, willing to wait any reason-
able time, and to close with any convenient arrange
went in the interval. The revenue might easily be
doubled, the expenditure readily cut down. The
whole army—not 10,000 strong—might be con-
verted into an engineer corps, employed on public
works, and paid by contractors. There is no reason
why Greece should not have a surplus of a million
before ten years are over. At the present moment
its affairs are not so bad as they seem. If the Go-
vernment owes eight months' pay to its soldiers and
servants, it has over twelve months' income due to it
from taxpayers, and so upon a balance all would be
right. Nothing is wanted but economy and a new
system. This is the view taken even in financial
circles of the resources and capabilities of Greece,
and when we look into particulars the estimate ap
pears not ill-founded. Four-fifths of all the land in
the kingdom of Greece belong to the Government,
and the Government gets, or should get, 15 per
cent. of its produce. It is entitled also to a tithe of
all produce generally, even from fisheries. These
are fruitful sources of income, but the revenue is
farmed, and the farmers of the revenue are always
in arrear. We need hardly add that much of the
land is left totally unproductive, though it might be
turned to excellent use. The waste lands of Greece
are as valuable as the waste lands of India, and ask
only for the same investments. It is curious to
observe the measures now recommended for the
restoration of a country once at the head of the
wor'd's civilisation. A few cheap tramways and a
system of agricultural drainage constitute all that is
deemed necessary for the regeneration of Hellas. It
is a work not very different from that required in
the backwoods of America. There are treasures, or
relics of treasures, in the country, but the roads have
been lost. In these days of opulence, luxury, and
refinement the old marbles of Greece would find a
ready sale, but the quarries, though Close to the coast
are inaccessible. The ancient quarry of the Parian
marble is only a single mile from the shore, and a
tramway of that length would open it to traffic.
By a cheap tramway of some 80 miles across the
northern frontier a voyage of six times that length
would be saved in the general coast navigation.
These are the suggestions offered at the present
crisis in the destinies of Greece. A good Go-
vernment at Athens will soon be followed
by good credit in all the money-markets
of Europe. Capital has no affinities for anything
but security and profit. A Budget framed on prin-
ciples of honesty and economy would soon bring
revenue into the Greek Exchequer; and solvency,
as the Greeks may assure themselves, is the first
step to success in their new political essay.
PosT.—lt is but natural that the political party
in the North which was most dissatisfied with the
result of the last Presidential election, and whose
sympathies have always been in unison with those
of the slaveowners of the South, should be the first
to demand the cessation of the war which that elec-
tion called into existence. The Democrats have
always represented the peace party, although
amongst them were to be found many who coupled
with their aspirations for peace conditions so little
likely to be realised as to render them no more con-
ducive to the re-establishment of harmony than the
fiercest denunciations of the most extreme Repub-
licans. Still the Democrats have always spoken of
peace, whilst their political opponents revelled in
the thought of utterly exterminating their foes. At
the elections which took place at the close of last
year in the several States which still acknowledge
the authority of the original Government, the can-
didates for seats in Congress, according as they
were Democrats or Republicans, respectively repre-
sented a peaceful or a warlike policy, and the pre-
ponderance which was then given by the electors to
the democratic element in the new Congress was
generally accepted as a harbinger of approaching
peace. Some months have since elapsed and will
still elapse before the representatives of the people
will be called upon to discharge their legislative
functions ; but, in the meantime, the results of this
almost simultaneous election of the governors and
other officials of the several States composing the
Federation have had time to manifest themselves.
Congress may not meet until the first week in July ;
but the newly-elected governors Entered office in the
first week in March. The attempt to abolish
slavery in particular States, the arrests made by
order of the Executive of persons charged with
no offences cognisable by law, and their removal
from their own States, the Act of Congress recently
passed authorising the levying of troops by con-
scription, the bill submitting the banking system
in each of the different States to the control of the
Central Government, are all of them violations of
the express compact under which each of its sepa-
rate members joined the Federation. It was, there-
fore, easy for the Democratic Committee to pass
resolutions condemnatory of the unconstitutional
conduct of the Government and Congress, to which
the most ardent Republican would find it impos-
sible to give a satisfactory reply. It is, however,
in connection with the war that the resolutions
passed by the committee will have for the European
reader the greatest interest. If the expressed
opinions of those who attended this meeting could
be considered as coinciding with those of a fair pro-
portion of the Northern population, we would en-
tertain little apprehension of the war being of much
longer continuance. "The Government of Wash-
ington," says the third resolution, " must before
long find itself powerless to continue a conflict which
the awakened judgment of a Christian and civilised
people emphatically condemns, and upon which the
displeasure of Heaven would seem to have fallen."
And, again, " The policy of war having had a fair
trial for two long, miserable, bloody years, and hav-
ing failed to bring us, to all appearance, a single
step nearer to the restoration of the Union, the
people insist that a policy of peace should now be
undertaken and attempted." Emphatic and un-
equivocal as this language is, that in which one of
the concluding resolutions is couched is still more so.
Referring to the general desire for peace, it is re-
solved " That the people of this great metropolis are
for peace, for that peace which made us great, and
prosperous, anti powerful in times past; that four-
fifths of our people have no interest in the blood
money of war contracts; that New Yorkers are
not mere maniacs ready to annihilate White men,
women, and children to liberate negroes ;
that they are not wanton shedders of blood
but believers in the God of peace, and
the Gospel of peace, hoping for peace, praying for
peace, longing for peace, and whenever the polls are
opened they will be found voting for peace." The
resolutions which are passed at American public
meetingse carefulsoseldo m lead to practical results that we
should
h not to attach too much
those which have been passed by the Generwaelight t
Demo-
cratic Committee of New York. Still, however, the
fact is significant, that in the principal city in the
Northern States a meeting should be held and reso-
lutions passed so strongly condemnatory of tbe con-
duct and policy of the Administration. The Demo-
cratic ascendancy has begun to manifest itself, and
it points unequivocally to the re-establishment of
law and order, the restoration of constitutional Go-
vernment, and the return of peace.
HERALD —Tne war of subjugation carried on by
the Federal States of North America is now justi-
fied by the politicians of those states on a principle
which, if not new, has been for some time lost sight
of during the recent commotions. " The Union as
it was, and the Constitution as it is," was the cry
with which the Democratic party endeavoured to
make head against the Republicans in power. Their
opponents have now adopted the half of their pro-
gramme. The Union, they say, must be preserved
at all cost and at all risks. They have organised a

Union League, of which branches have sprung up
like mushroom, in every city and township of the
Northern States. Many of the Democrats have
rallied to the standard, and consented to sink their
differences with the Republicans out of a common
regard for that old theory of the Union, which
events may seem to us to have exploded, but which
is ever present to Vieir excited fancy. The Demo-
crats were willing to obtain this union on terms to
be dictated by the victorious Southerners. They
have been signally disappointed in this hope. The
South will not have the Union on any considera-
tion. In a country rued upon democratic princi-
ples, where the vote of the majority decides upon
all public questions, the acceptance of this union
with a people outnumbering them by more than
two to one, would have been a political suicide.
If the Southerners are beaten they cannot ask more
of them than to re-enter the Union upon the old
terms. So long as they are victorious it is not to be
supposed that they will consent to it. So the proffers
of the Northern Democrats were rejected even with
contumely, and the emissaries sent by them to Rich-
mond dismissed with scant courtesy. The Demo-
cratic party in most of the States will not have peace
and disunion, and as union cannot be obtained with-
out war, it has joined its suffrages eagerly to those
of the Republicans, and desired the prosecution of
a contest which is now being waged in a blood-
thirsty and uncompromising spirit at their express
desire, In resolving on combined action for this old
talisman of the Union, the first war-cry that had
been forgotten for some time past, each party has
had to make a sacrifice of principle. The centralisa-
tion of authority being supposed necessary for the
vigorous prosecution of the war, the Democrats in
New York and elsewhere have consented to allow
the virtual suspension of the rights and liberties
granted by the American Constitution. The powers
granted to the President by the Congress just be-
fore its dissolution, powers which have gifted hint
with almost despotic authority, have been sanc-
tioned without protest by a large majority of the
States of the North. Their consent has not been
unanimous, but if the majority is to prevail those
decrees of Congress must pass without question.
Out of their fanatical regard for the Union these
Democrats have for the present ceased to be consti-
tutionalists. The Republicans, on their part, have
made an important concession, which, if not ex-
pressed, is nevertheless plainly understood by both
parties. We hear no more of the abolition policy.
General Hunter, in South Carolina, is the only one
of the Federal Generals who is persevering to carry
out the policy of negro emancipation. He is so un-
popular in the North that even his reverses are re-
garded with a sort of complacency. Should
he be successful in his endeavours to produce
a general rising of the slaves his success will
renew the rupture between the Democrats
and Republicans; and the latter can so ill afford
to expose themselves to such a risk that it is
probable that a summary stop will soon be put to
General Hunter's indiscretions. To pacify their
late opponents the party in power will not hesitate
to throw the negro overboard, and allow the eman-
cipatio❑ proclamation to become a dead letter. The
fusion of parties has put an end to the premature
hopes of Exeter Hall, and quashed the cruel aspire•
tions of the misguided zealots who would purchase
the freedom of the black even by the slaughter of our
white brethren. There are very few in the North
who care a jot about the African race except as a
tool in the prosecution of a relentless war. With
all our zeal for the emancipation cause, we must
confess that it the success of this cause is to be put
in the balance rgainst the lives and liberties of ten
millions of whites, our sympathies incline most
decidedly to the men of our own colour.