The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

THE " SATURDAY REVIEW" ON THE DYING OUT
OF MINISTERIAL JAUNTINESS.—Sir Robert Peel did
not care a straw for the mass of his colleagues, but
he was staunch in his admiration and loyalty towards
Lord Palmerston. This, however, is a quality
which Lord Russell is commonly supposed to set an
extremely small value upon. The poet's injunction,
" To thine own self be true," has contained the
whole of his simple faith, and it does not appear to
have gone unrewarded. If Sir Robert Peel had
acted rather less disinterestedly on this not very
exalted principle, he too might perhaps have been
on the winning side in the new arrangements. Had
he but served himself with half the zeal with which'
he served or imitated Lord Palmerston, he would
not have been left naked to his enemies. Most
characteristic of all his services was his onslaught
upon the contumacious elector at Tamworth some
two years ago. This was a vastly successful asser-
tion of the great principle so fashionable at the
time, that, in politics, nerve and muscle are more
important than soundness of views or liberty of
private judgment. The fallen elector may be taken
as the unconscious representative of earnest convic-
tions, and laborious searchings after what is best,
and of the gravity of politics. All these disap-
peared before the muscular impetuosity of the
Irish Secretary. But the thrashed elector is
avenged. Muscular politics are in their decline,
and, in the nascent revival of political earnest-
ness, how arc the jaunty fallen ! Jovial Privy
Councillors are not to chaff Chartist butchers, nor
administer lickings to recusant voters. Perhaps
Lord Russell will even interfere to prevent Sir
George Grey's continued patronage of his muscular
friends, the garotters ; and, if the new Government
is really going to consult the bodily sa%ty of the
lieges, it will do well either to remove Mr. Milner
Gibson, or else to urge him to give up aiding and
abetting the railway companies in their misdeeds.
After all, a Privy Councillor who occasionally re-
freshes himself by knocking clown an elector, is pre-
ferable to one who lets other people sacrifice holo-
causts with comparative impunity. We cannot but
think that the retirement of Sir Robert Peel will
act in some measure as a warning to Mr. Gibson.
lie, too, has on many, occasions betrayed a fatal
leaning towards the jaunty style, and jatintiness is
for the future to be a mortal sin in British politics:-
We are all going to turn over a new leaf. Lord
Russell deems it unworthy of a member of his illus-
trious family to crack a joke or to assume an. air of
gracious gaiety. Mr. Gladstone is so sore perplexed
with those " humble faculties" and " feeble efforts"
of which he is never tired of speaking, and alto-
gether life presents itself to him in so dread-
fully serious an aspect, that he cannot have
any inclination ever to take things a little
easily. Under these circumstances it would
be very unbecoming in obscurer mortals to
introduce anything like levity into discussions which
concern, however remotely, the interest of the com-
monwealth. Every member of Parliament must
always be conscientiously recognising the responsi-
bilities of his august position. From a vast question
of peace and war which affects the whole empire,
down to a nomination:to a competitive examination
for a berth in the Irish constabulary or a tide waiter-
ship, every public act is to be performed in a prayer-
ful and conscientious spirit. A privy councillor who
should use his fist will deserve impeachment at
least. A pun or a jest of any kind will be an out-
rage upon the public sensibility, a mark of disre-
spect .to the grand prinCiples which are going to
govern the universe. Anybody who is so basely
indifferent to the truth as to think that each of two
courses has about as much to recommend it as the
other, will be held a wicked and reprobate Gallic).
Considering this revolution in the orthodox official
tone, Sir Robert Peel is wise to leave Ireland
to her fate and to retire from office. The grand old
doctrine that " it will be all the same in a hundred
years" has, so we are assured by our instructors,
ceased to be a rule of our national administra-
tion. As Sir Robert Peel's tenure of office could
only be justified, and his administration of it
could only be explained, on this comprehensive
principle, it is natural that as soon as the principle
is abandoned, or said to be abandoned, the
Minister for whom it in a manner ac-
counted should be sacrificed also. Still the humane
will feel some commiseration for the scapegoat of
jauntiness, thus sent forth into the wilderness of
unofficial life. Sir Robert Peel was always believed
to take an interest in his work, and even a Conser-
vative opponent has voluntarily come forward to
protest that lie always answered letters by return
, of post. Bus industry and a kind of will-o'-the-wisp
enthusiasm are not enough in themselves. They
are very good in their way, but in a man without
diScretion they are as a pearl in a swine's snout.
And not even office could make Sir Robert Peel dis-
creet. Probably, when we are finally handed over
to iti too earnest Government, a sort of political
Serious Family, we may occasionally look back to
the days when statesmanship was none the worse
for being a little free-and-easy on the outside. Still
second-hand jauntiness, based on that of a great
master of the art, is not a very good thing, as Sir
Robert Peel's official career showed. The best that
can be said of it is that it is better .than the solemn
priggishness and overdone humility which may take
Its place.
THE " EXAMINER" ON THE NEGRO RIOTS IN
JAMAlCA.—Philanthropy will never make black
white, or change one race into another. The reader,
however, may prefer having the facts stated in an-
other form, and in more detail, and this we do from
the colonial blue-books. In 1850 the value of the
sugar exported from Jamaica was £585,096, of Bar-
badoes £596,551, and of the Mauritius £892,840.
In 1861 the value . of the Jamaica sugars was
£595,084, or in twelve years' time it had increased
by a good deal less than 2 per cent. The
sugar exports of Barbadoes in 1861 were of the
value of £751,170, or had increased by better than
25 per cent. The sugar export of the Mauritius in
1861 was of the value of £1,771,867, or had in-
creased by better than 98 per cent. But this is not
all. The returns for the two West India colonies
come down only to 1861, while those of the Mauri-
tius come down to 1863, when the value of the
sugar exported was £2,494,526, or above four-fold
the value of the produce of Jamaica, which is seven
times its size. The distress of Jamaica is partially
ascribed to two years of extraordinary drought. But
Jamaica is a well-watered land, and if it has been
injured by unusual droughts, that is a calamity
from which other countries have suffered, and this
even iu a far higher degree, as, for example, 'Aus-
tralia ;' yet those countries make no bemoaning
poverty-stricken cry on this account, but go on

flourishing in spite of such ephemeral calamities.
The misfortunes of Jamaica, according to Dr.
Underhill, are coeval with the American Civil War,
the very event which has benefited other countries
similarly circumstanced. During that war the
price of cotton increased at least threefold, and, in
consequence, millions of English capital were
poured into India, Egypt, and Brazil ; but money
would not go to Jamaica, because in that island
there was no effective labour to till an exuberant
and plentiful soil. Dr. Underhill, in his bill of
indictment against the authorities of Jamaica,
insists that the taxes are onerous, but his own
facts do not prove this. The only example he gives
does not prove this. It is a tax on the cottons with
which the negroes are clothed. This, he says, is 38
per cent. on the value. If it were so, that would
be a great deal too high, but not a starvation tax,
for the people of the Southern States of the Ame
rican Union paid their brethren of the North one of
12 per cent. higher, and did not on that account
go naked, as Dr. Underhill says that negroes of
Jamaica often do. But his statement is a blunder.
The tax is, just as it used to be, 121 per cent., but
the cotton famine produced by the American Civil
War so raised the price of goods that the ad valorem
duty became, like the price, as 38 to 121 upon the
former cost of the article. As to Dr. Underhill's
empirical notions of governmental help by precept
and example, we must take leave to tell him that
they are obsolete. The worthy doctor does not, in
fact, understand the first rudiments of the science
in which he hazards to give advice. The truth is,
that the Baptist and other over-zealous friends of
the negro
,are mortified and disappointed at the
utter failure of their predictions. They are hoping
against hope for better results than have yet come,
in the elevation of the negro race, after 32 years of
emancipation. The negroes of our West Indies,
free for a generation, and the negroes of Hayti, not
only free, but their own masters for two genera-
tions, are still, in despite of generous hopes and
vaticinations to the contrary, barbarians of Africa
who have but changed their sky.

THE " ANGLO-AMERICAN TIDIES" ON IMPORTED
BEEF.—We are now paying in England an average of about
tenpenco per pound for beef, and proportionately high for
other varieties of flesh-food; while in some parts of the
world cattle are slain for their skins, and enormous
quantities of good meat are thrown away for want of pur-
chasers at any price. Yet, the triumphs of commerce are
among the greatest glories of this century; and the greatest
of commercial triumphs has been in articles of food.
Thousands would literally perish with hunger were the
present natural flow of food from agricultural Ame-
rica to manufacturing England, suddenly to cease. It
is perfectly evident that the greatest perfection of
commerce must consist in such an interchange of com-
modities as will produce the nearest approach to
universal equilibrium of cost, especially in those articles
which aro necessary for the people. In this direction im-
mense progress has been made with bread —immense pro-
gress with the less bulky articles of clothing ; but prices
would seem to show little progress in the article of meat,
which, though altogether beyond the reach of some of our
people, is still to be reckoned among the necessaries of life.
The reason why commerce in flesh-food partakes little
of the general progress is to be found in its perishable
character, and the special appliances which are therefore
necessary for its transportation to great distances in a state
of perfect preservation. The difficulties thence arising
deter careful merchants from embarking in the trade ; but
it is worthy of consideration whether those difficulties are
not really less than they seem. If this should prove to
be the case, men of capital and enterprise, who would
thoroughly master the subject, and embark boldly in the
business of bringing us flesh-food from South America
and other places in the best forms under which it is
capable of transportation, would certainly reap abundant
profits, besides conferring a great benefit upon the
country. In anticipation of practical endeavours
of this description we venture a few suggestions.
The vessels engaged in such commerce should be
steamers, especially adapted for the purpose. This will
certainly add to the cost of transportation, but it will also
insure a rapid transit, which, with such perishable articles,
is a very important matter. If transportation by steam
should cost £9 per ton that would be less than ono penny
per pound of meat, and the South American beef would
not cost the importer more than threepence per pound,
delivered iu Liverpool. Considering the quick transit,
and consequently quick returns, fourpenco per pound
'would yield a heavy profit to the merchant. Another
penny would be a good profit to the retailer, and the
public would still get an excellent article at fivepence per
pound. We say the public would get an excellent article,
because it is to be presumed that merchants who under-
stand their business would not attempt to bring us bad
salt, seasoned with meat, after the fashion of the Charqui,
which is offered to the public at fourpenco per pound. The
meat is really good, and if it were well packed in good salt,
and quickly transported in a suitable vessel, there would
be little need of over seasoning. Charcoal packing for the
deck, and metallic pipes in the hold, communicating with
the water, would keep the cargo very much cooler than
the atmosphere of the tropics. A tithe of the steam-power
of the vessel applied to a suitable freezing apparatus, would.
make the had a vast refrigerator safe, in which meat
could be kept fresh for a couple of mouths if necessary.
Other ways of keeping the meat could be used with ad-
vantage. The dried or hung beef of the United States is
very palatable, and not over seasoned. It costs little for
curing, and would stand a reasonable voyage. Beef slightly
salted, boiled, steamed, or roasted, and then put down in
its own rendered fat, will keep well. In nitrogen gas meat
will keep.- perfectly fresh • for an. indefinite period. Sugar
will preserve it perfectly, and will not make it unpala-
table. There aro still other modes of preserving, which
would doubtless prove economical when applied on a large
scale; but we have already mentioned enough to show that,
with skilled packers and steam transportation, a trade in
flesh-food could be done with America which would be
very profitable to the merchants, and highly advantageous
to the people.

Movements of Cotton in America•

'The United States Consul at Liverpool has
written the following letter regarding cotton in America:—
"United States CQnsulate, Tower-buildings, South,
Water-street, Liverpool, Nov. 21, 1865.

"Dear Sir,—Your letter asking me to favor you with
such information as I obtained while in the States as to
the quantity of cotton there, and the prospects for the
future, has been received.

" Knowing the importance of correct information upon
this subject at the present moment to the manufacturing
interest of this country, in reply I enclose you a copy of a
letter from the Secretary of the Treasury at 'Washington
received by me just before sailing. Dy it you will perceive
that the quantity in the South at the time of the capture of
Savannah by: General Sherman in December last was about
one million bales, and that the new crop of the present year
will probably not exceed three hundred thousand bales.
While in America I made most anxious inquiries from all
the sources at my command, and which fully convinced
me that since the capure of Savannah there has been de-
stroyed, used in home consumption, and exported, an ave-
rage of about 13,000 bales per week ; this will leave some-
thing over seven hundred thousand bales in the States, in-
cluding the new crop. -

" The weekly consumption in the States at the time I
left was about ten thousand bales. It.is expected that this
home consumption during the coining winter and spring
will be greatly increased owing to the demand for cotton
goods, and the large profits realised, and will require not
less than twenty thousand bales per week ; the capacity of
the mills, if run in full time and with a full complement of
hands, being sufficient to consume even more than the
quantity mentioned.
" In consequence of the great destitution in the South,
all the cotton is being hurried to market as fast as possible,
and hence the recent largo receipts at the ports.—Very re-
spectfully yours, &c., Taos. IL DUDLEY.

" Treasury Department, Oct. 27th, 1865,

"Dear Sir,—Your favor of the 24th inst. is received.
From the best information I can obtain, I estimate that
the amount of old cotton in tho Southern States, that was
in a condition to be sent to market at the time of the cap-
ture .of Savannah, did not exceed one million bales
(1,000,600). This year's crop will probably not exceed
three hundred thousand bales (300,000).—I am, yours very
truly, "H. M'Cuixocit.
"Thomas H. Dudley, Esq."

The movements of cotton at New York, during the
week ending Nov 7, wore as follows: Receipts, 26,076
bales ; sales and resales, 16,500 bales; exports, 9,010 bales.
Middlings closed heavily, at 56c. to 561 c. per lb.
Late Texas papers state that the accounts from the
cotton regions of Texas continue unfavorable. To say
nothing of the abatement of labor, the rains and the worm
have wrought such injury as- renders it certain that no
more than half a crop will be gathered from the ground
planted. Many estimate the amount at much less.
It is said that 25,000 bales of cotton will be produced in
Illinois this year.
The New York Tribune, in an article on cotton, says :
"The crop of 1860 was about five million bales of 400
pounds each, worth to the growers, had no civil war in-
tervened, $5O per bale, or two hundred and fifty millions
of dollars. Now the two millions on hand last May, the
one million grown this year, and the two millions which
may be grown next year, have sold, or will sell, at the
nearest railroad station or steamboat landing for an average
of not loss than 321 cents (gold standard) per pound, or
$l3O per bale—that is, for an aggregate of 650,000,000
of dollars. In other words, the planters will receive
in the average as much for a crop of two millions of bales
as they did for one of five millions. Cotton-planting in
America is 'to-day the best business on earth—far better
than gold-mining in any State or territory. Good planta-
tions in abundance can now be bought for $lO (greenback)
per acre—say $lO,OOO for one of a thousand acres, whereof
half is ready for the plough."
The following is a statement of the movements of cotton
for the week en-ding 21st October, at the Southern ports,

and 31st October, at New York; also, the total receipts of
all ports since Ist September compared with the last four
years preceding the war :
RECEIPTS. EXPORTS FOR PAST WEEK.
Past Since To. Gt. To Other
Week. Sept 1. Britain. France F. P-
-1865-66 50,000 365,000 36,000... 1,000...1,000
1860-61 102,000 543,000 45,000...11,000...4,000
1859-60 140,000 645,000 31,000...10,000...7,000
1858-59.......110,000 500,000 •23,000...20,000...2,00
1857-58

EXPORTS SINCE IST SEPTEMBER.

To Great

Other

s Britain. Franco Foreign
Ports. Total. Stock.
1865-66 136,000 7,000... 2,000...145,000...332,0
1860-61 121,000 35,000...19,000...175,000...446,000
1859-60 179,000 50,000...20,000...249,000...450,00
1858-59 103,000 54,000...12,000...169,000...308,000
1857-58