The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-09 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDO

being " off" with his " old love," the hop-growers,
he takes very good care indeed to be "on" with the
" new"—viz., the Brewing Interest. Minor flaws
there may be in tie Budget—one or two of an insig-
nificant kind we ourselves commented upon the very
day after the Chancellor of the Exchequer had
made his financial statement in Committee of Ways
and Means—but these are altogether of a very
subordinate, and almost, one might say, trivial cha-
racter. They may be readily enough eliminated
from the Budget without in any way narrowing its
symmetry. On the contrary, their elision would
naturally tend, we cannot but think, to improve the
whole aspect of a fiscal and financial policy
otherwise so peculiarly adapted to the
occasion and its peculiar and distinctive
circumstances. Foremost among these minor flaws
is the vexatious license of 12s. 6d. proposed by Mr.
GLADSTONE for private brewing in houses under
£2O annual rent. And after that has been cleared
from the Budget the supplementary license of three
days at a time for publican' at fairs—a proposition
by the way going just in direct opposition to the
Temperance Movement, and tallying not in the
least with that remarkable little subsidiary move-
ment the Teetotallers have so much at heart, to wit
the more recent movement which has led to the
erection of so many Drinking Fountains. Expunge
the license for private brewing, and the supplemen-
tary publican's license for fairs from the Budget
under the consideration of the House of Commons,
and you would make it almost as perfect in detail
as it is already beyond a doubt satisfactory as a
whole.

Mr. BRIGHT may well feel flattered by the com-
mendation of the New York Chamber of Commerce,
and that he should return the compliment is natural
enough. He would have done well, however, in an
answer to their resolution, which is certain to be
.pnblished in every Northern paper, to have expressed
himself with a little more discrimination. More-
ever, he professes to speak in the name of the great
majority of his countrymen, whom, " he believes, he
does not mistake or misrepresent when he speaks
on the side of their Government and people." We
must think, however, that nine out of ten English-
men who would, on the whole, take the side of the
North against the South, would have spoken muoh
more distinctly on what Mr. BRIGHT merely in-

sinuates vaguely.
It may be true, but with a very serious deduction,
that the country of the New York Chamber of Com-
merce, is one of which it may be said that " in no
other, have men been so free and so prosperous;''
but Mr. BRIGHT'S fellow-religionists in America
would add—" Save and except four millions of
Americans, differing from us indeed in colour, who
enjoy no kind of freedom whatever, and whose
prosperity consists in the chance of having been
sold to a humane proprietor." How could a lead-
ing member of a sect, certainly not undistin-
guished in the annals of philanthropy, forget so
large a portion of his fellow-men, debarred from
freedom and prosperity, not by inevitable el:cum-
stances, but by their wilful and tyrannical eten-
tion in a bondage the most bitter and unrelenting
in the history of the human race.
Again Mr. BRIGHT adds, that " there is no other
political constitution in existence, in the preserva-
tion of which the human race is so deeply interested,"
as that of the Federal Government of the United
States. We must again think that, unless the obvious
qualification were mentioned, such a remark is not
what Englishmen generally would make, and it is
one which might, indirectly, do harm in America.
As a thoroughly free constitution for white men,
all but inveterate Tories would say as much as Mr.
BRIGHT. Reasonable persons among Conservatives
themselves, admit, that a republic was the only
possible form of Government after the separation
from England, and thorough going Liberals must
all wish to see it proved to the whole world,
that Englishmen could, in the fullest sense,
govern themselves. Of no other race has this
been yet said with truth ; probably because long
habits of subjection to monarchical or aristocratic
rule could not be thrown off in a day. English-
men, however, believe that they possess both the
energy and the self-restraint requisite to national
self-government, and they would all be sorry to see
any conspicuous failure in this respect in America.
But we ought surely never to commend the Ame-
rican Government to Americans themselves, with-
out reminding them that one little clause vitiates
their whole, otherwise noble, constitution—the one
which requires the Free States to send back the
fugitive slave, and which, Mr. LINCOLN himself has
said, finds its legitimate practical expression in
the infamous Fugitive Slave Law. So stringent,
indeed, are the demands of this clause, according to
Mr. LINCOLN, that he urged the repeal of the "Per-
sonal Liberty Acts" of some of the States—acts
which merely prevented kidnapping of free persons
of colour—considering them to be at variance with
the requirements of this fundamental clause of the
American constitution ! Mr.BRIGHT, prominent as
he is among the Liberals of England, ought not to
have overlooked this. The clause is not an inci-
dental thing. it is one which Washington was
unwilling to accept ; one which was earnestly and
long contended for ; and one which resulted in that
law which is the confessed disgrace of the American
statute book.

Mr. BRIGHT does indeed, almost imperceptibly,
indicate that it is the freedom of the Free States
which attracts the interest of his countrymen, and
seems to express the hope that all the States will

ere long be free from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf
of Mexico. Even thus much he hardly makes clear.
Now we would remind Mr. BRIGHT that, outspoken
as he can be against all kinds of class tyranny
at home, his silence on the vile tyranny of skin,
when he speaks to Americans of their institutions,
is likely to do even harm. Silence is taken for
consent. What he does not mention, if we may not
say he approves, he at least does not seriously blame.

For an official man, or even a very cautious speaker;

to be reserved, does no mischief. Mr, BRIGHT is,
however, preeminently in this country the tribune
of the humbler classes. He never conceals his sen-
timents on their rights here; for him therefore to
praise unconditionally a constitution constructed to
protect slavery is almost to give his suffrage to
slavery itself.

One of the most amusing political events of the
hour is the publication of the Prussian Finance
Minister's confidential letter to the Minister for
War. It surprised the public by its sudden ap-
pearance in the VoBsische Zeitun 9. How it came
there no one knew. The conductors of the journal
of course, knew nothing about it ; office desks and
private desks are searched, equally in vain. The
manuscript or any copy of it, save the printed one,
was nowhere to be found. It is asserted on the part
of the Administrution, that it could not have found
its way into the paper except by fraudulent means,
and of course the proper indignation is professed.
When, however, the contents are fairly considered,
few readers will doubt that the fraud was one per-
fectly acceptable to the parties on whom it was
committed. We doubt whether stolen kiss was
ever more willingly forgiven than the stealing of
this letter.

The substance and object of the letter may be
Was to beg the War Mi-
given briefly enough. It