The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-01 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The wide-spread Colonial Empire of
England affords ample room for the contemplation
of every species of climate, every variety of prospe-
rity or adversity, and of political well or ill doing.
To-day we invite our readers to accompany us, not
to the ice-bound lakes of Canada, nor to the blood-
stained forests and mountains of Jamaica, but to a
happier land, where colonisation displays itself
under its brightest colours and most alluring aspects.
Extending from the frontier of New South Wales
to the northern extremity of the Continent at Cape
York, with a coast line of 1,500 miles, the colony
of Queensland might be supposed to possess a very
great variety of soil and climate. That, however,
is not the case, since its southern extremity lies little
below the Tropic of Capricorn, and its great length
from north to south does not much interfere with
the uniformity of temperature which p rvades the
Torrid Zone. It might have been supposed that
this region was too hot for any industry which
could be carried on by Europeans ; and those who
have been in the habit of defending or palliating
negro slavery on the ground that the climate of the
Southern States of the American Union is too hot
for European labour will be surprised to hear that
a colony the southern boundary of which is as near
the equator as the Southern promontory of Florida
is in course of being occupied most successfully by
an industry carried on almost entirely by the labour
of the natives of this island and their descendants.
In the earlier timesof Australian colonisation it was
supposed that the pastoral pursuits of the colonies
which lie within the Temperate Zone could no longer
be prosecuted with success in latitudes lying within
the tropics, except in the case of some table-land
raised a great height above the sea. This opinion
continued to prevail until, all the southern country
having been taken up, pastoral enterprise must
have ceased to extend itself, unless the warmer re-
gions of the north were invaded. To this happy
necessity are due the rise and progress of the
Colony of Queensland, which has not only come
into existence under circumstances unforeseen and
exceptional, but may fairly claim to be at this
moment the model colony among all our settlements.
Originally a convict station, and afterwards a re-
mote dependency of New South Wales, Queensland
was erected into a separate colony in 1859, was
endowed with responsible Government, and fairly
launched on its career. The statements of the in-
crease and progress of this new settlement, as ex-
tracted from the address of Sir George Bowen,
the Governor, on proroguing his Parliament on
the 14th of last September, are really surprising,
accustomed as we are to the rapid development of
new societies. Since December, 1859, the European
population of Queensland has increased from 25,000
to nearly 90,000,—that is, it has increased nearly
fourfold,—while the revenue and the trade, includ-
ing imports and exports, havebeen more than trebled.
Cotton, sugar, and tobacco have been added to the
list of staple products ; a line of new ports has
been opened along the- eastern seaboard from Kep-
pel Bay to Cape York, a distance of 1,000 miles.
While pastoral occupation has spread over a distant
area at least four times the size of the United King-
dom, it has extended at least 700 miles to the west
and a thousand miles to the north of Brisbane, the
capital of the colony. The cattle stations now reach
to the Gulph of Carpentaria, and there is yet no
check in the course of onward progress. Singular
and striking as these statements are, they by no
means exhaust the catalogue of the exploits of which
Queensland has to boast. Although possessed of re-
sponsible Government, the colony has presented a
remarkable instance of concord and stability. While
an Australian Administration conveys to the mind
the idea of a perpetual crisis, Queensland has as
yet known no change of Ministry. The colony
obtained responsibleGovnrnment in the same year
as the Palmerston Administration acceded to
office, and its Ministry has been equally durable;
thus seeming to show that there is no inherent reason
in the nature of things why a Colonial Government
should be that perpetual see-saw, that wearisome
vicissitude, that never ending exchange between
" ins" and " outs" which we are accustomed to con-
sider it. Another circumstance, which an English
taxpayer will perhaps consider equally gratifying,
is, that this fine colony has been brought into its
present state of order, prosperity, and good govern-
ment without the expenditure of a single shilling by
the mother country. Compare it with New Zealand,
a country with a much better geographical situation
and a climate much more suited to European con-
stitutions. In the Britain of the South, as New
Zealand is called, we have maintained for a period
nearly as long as the Peninsula War an army of
ten thousand British soldiers to assist an increasing
population of 150,000 British settlers to defend
themselves against 30,000 Maories, of whom not
more than 2,000 probably were ever in arms against
us, and we are not yet by any means at the end of
our troubles. The phenomenon which we are re-
cording is so striking that it is worth while to men-
tion the causes to which, in addition to the goodness
of the Government and the energy of the settlers,
this great success is attributable. Notwithstanding
the production of sugar, cotton, and tobacco, the in-
dustry of Queensland is mainly pastoral, and the
European labourer, who would be unequal to the
toils of tropical agriculture, is well able to watch
sheep or ride after cattle. In a new country of
boundless extent the profits of pasture are large and
the capital required is small. Then the colony has
not been peopled mainly from Europe, but from the
older settlements of New South Wales and Victoria.
It has undergone the trial of responsible govern-
ment, but the electoral franchise in Queensland is
higher than in Victoria or New South Wales, and it
is not impossible that the great stability and success
of its Government are due to the fact that some of
its inhabitants are, as Mr. Forster would say, " de-
prived of the rights of citizenship." How he who
threatens us with a general emigration of our work-
ing classes to the colonies if they are not forthwith
admitted to the franchise will explain this we can-
not tell. But we believe it will be found that a
large number of persons have emigrated from New
South Wales and Victoria, where suffrage is universal,
to Queensland, where it still rests on a property
qualification, and that there are persons mean enough
to prefer‘the institutions of the latter to those of the
former.

HERALD.—The difference between Spain and
Chili is not yet settled. It is now four days since
we were gratified by the announcement, which was
made with an air of authority by an influential print
which claimed to have the best information, that the
Court of Madrid had been prevailed upon by the
representations of the British government to desist
from further hostile proceedings in South American
waters. The Times now retracts this statement, and
it is needless that it should do so. The indignant
utterances of the official press at Madrid, which pro-
claimed that Spain was the best and only judge of
what her honour demanded, and that mere commer-
cial nations, like England, strangers as they were
to her finer Castilian feeling, should not presume to
dictate to her what course she should pursue, had
prepared us for the attitude assumed by the O'Don-
nell ministry, and for the circular in which the Fo-
reign Minister, Bermudez de Castro, attempts to
justify the high-handed proceedings of Admiral
Pareja. The late change of Ministry in Spain, which
has substituted a man of imperious temper, and
whose policy it has always been to engage in little
wars, which keep the people at work and flatter the
national pride, for a politician of greater experience
and greater knowledge of the world, has been the
efficient cause of this altered position of affairs in
South America. Under Marshal Narvaez, the Spa-
nish minister in Chili, Senor Tavira, had concluded
an amicable arrangement, and accepted the expla-
nations of the government of Santiago. Under
Marshal O'Donnell, Tavira is disavowed and re-
called, his settlement is repudiated, and Admiral
Pareja is sent with a fleet to Valparaiso to demand
fuller apology and reparation at the can-
non's mouth. It was hoped in Europe that
Pareja would be in turn disavowed, as having
exceeded his instructions, that the blockade of the
coast of Chili would be raised, and the differences
between Spain and Chili submitted to arbitration,
as desired by the British and French governments.
Such a concession on the part of Spain would have
been both reasonable and graceful. This quarrel
is such a paltry affair that any opportunity of get-
ting out of it with honour should have been gladly
welcomed by the Government of Queen Isabella.
Those, however, who knew anything of the character
of O'Donnell could hardly have anticipated such a
solution of the question. This statesman, whether
rightly or wrongly, is under the impression that
Spain is still a first rate Power, and able to assert
herself as such in despite of the world. His cam-
paign against the Moors, his part in the intervention
in Mexico, his attempt at regaining San Domingo,
which for a time seemed successful; last, and aot
least, his war with the Republic of Peiu, has con-
vinced the Spanish Minister that scarcely any task
is too great for him; that the Spain of to-day re-
sembles the land of those proud hidalgoes who,
under Charles and Philip, made distant peoples
bow down to them, and the whole world tremble
when their morning drum beat to arms. The puny
Republic beyond the Andes has insulted Spain. So
at least the Spaniard protests and believes, and is
determined accordingly to bring Chili to her knees.
Ten weeks have elapsed since Pareja sailed into Va-
lparaiso. Ere this the beautiful city may have been
bombarded and laid in ashes. All this time the
blockade of Valparaiso, Coquimbo, and Caldera has
been more or less efficiently maintained by the
Spanish fleet, with immense damage, doubtless, to
the interests of English and other European mer-
chants. All this is very hard upon the industrious
people of a country which for nearly 40 years has
been at peace, and during that time has thriven to a

remarkable extent. It bears hardly, too, upon Eng-
land and France, whose commercial relations with
Chili have so vastly developed since her separation
from Spain. But in such a matter it is not becom-
ing in us to consider our own interests merely ; we
must have regard to the rights of the business and
the duties which may devolve upon us with respect
to it. As to the mere question of right between
Spain and Chili, if we judge it by the laboured
apology of the Spanish Minister, there can be no
doubt whatever that Spain is in the wrong, and has
no ground of offence sufficient to warrant her in
making war on Chili. As to our own duty, two
courses are open to us. We may maintain a
strictly neutral attitude, giving plenty of good advice
to both sides, as is the custom of our Government,or
we may interpose by force of arms to protect Chili
against Spain, as appears to be now recommended
by the Times newspaper. The first of these
courses would scarcely satisfy our merchants, but
it is the course to which, in the absence of strong
reason to the contrary, we should always incline.
We certainly do not see our way to an armed in-
tervention. The very fact that we are powerful
enough to make such interposition effectual should
make us hesitate before we use our strength. It
is a great thing, doubtless, to have a giant's
power. It is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
We have ourselves established a precedent against
such intervention. The civil war in the United
States was a far greater calamity than the war
between Spain and Chili. The blockade of the
Southern ports was infinitely more of a hardship to
our merchants and an injury to our trade than
the cessation of the commerce of Valparaiso could
ever become. We did not attempt to intervene
in North America. The very idea of such a thing
was scouted by our statesmen as preposterous.
With what face can the same men speak of in-
tervention in South America ? Moreover, our
conduct to Brazil, dictated by our present
Prime Minister, was every whit as over-
bearing and unreasonable as that of O'Donnell
in Chili. The memories of Rio Janeiro tie
our hands in Valparaiso. We live in glass-
houses and cannot afford to throw stones.
Such grievances as those pompously regarded by
Senor de Castro—that a Peruvian vessel had
been fitted out in Valparaiso before war was
declared between Spain and Peru ; that during
that war the Chilian Government, in the exercise
of its sovereignty, declared coals to be contra-
band of war ; that a Chilian newspaper had insulted
the Spanish Government ; and 'that a mob, or an
individual, had made an outcry in front of the
official residence of the Spanish Minister—are per-
haps the slenderest pretexts on which one Govern-
ment ever declared war against another. To these
imaginary insults Spain has already replied by real
ones. The selection of Pareja—the son of her
bitterest enemy—for the, purpose of humiliating
Chili in her seaport of Valparaiso,: and his sailing
into that port, and preferring his arrogant ultima-
tum on September 18th, a day sacred to Chilians
as the anniversary of their proclamation of inde-
pendence, are injuries at least as grave as that
Chili should have felt some natural sympathy for
Peru, or that a small boy sang a comic song before
the house of Tavira at Santiago. If the honour of
Spain is easily wounded, let us hope that it may be
as easily appeased. If Chili has insulted Spain,
why Pareja has insulted Chili. The lex talionis
has been satisfied, and we trust that, on a calm con-
sideration of the matter, Marshal O'Donnell may
allow himself to be appeased. The Spanish squadron
may retire from Valparaiso with all fitting dignity,
conscious that it has duly discharged its lofty
mission, and the cast-down Dagon of " Castilian
pride " may be solemnly replaced on its pedestal,
amid the congratulations of the world.