The Sun.
London, England, 1865-06-07 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TlMES.—Nothing in the marvellous history of the
American War is more marvellous than its inci-
dental operation on the cotton trade of this country.
As President Johnson said in America, so we may
say in England, that if any person had attempted
four years ago to predict events as they have actually
occurred, his prophecies would have been regarded
as the utterance of a madman. To begin with, this
cotton question really counted for much among the
manifold causes in which the war itself originated.
Except for cotton it is more than probable that
secession at the sword's point would never have been
proclaimed. The Confederate leaders believed, and
not without a certain degree of reason, that in con-
trolling the supply of cotton they controlled the
policy of Western Europe, and that they could put
such a pressure upon us as would produce an inter-
vention favourable to their views. This was the first
delusion dispelled. We refused to interfere, and
boldly faced the alternative of a cotton famine, but
although we did so it was with the deepest alarm
and misgiving. We fully anticipated such a shock
to the trade of the nation and such a terrible con-
vulsion of our whole social system as had never
before been experienced,—in fact, the prospect
before us appeared almost equivalent to impending
ruin. This was the next error that vanished. To
our unbounded astonishment we found that cotton
was no King at all ; that the great cotton industry
itself could be lost without being missed in the
enormous aggregate of the national business ; that
our revenue would still be ample and our resources
abundant ; and that we should have a surplus of
profit disposable for the relief of local suffering.
What was even more surprising was that this very
local suffering proved unexpectedly light and en-
durable. Impoverishment there certainly was, but
there was neither destitution nor disease, and the
cotton operatives actually discovered that their
loss of work was not without its compensations
and advantages. The mortality of the manu-
facturing districts positively decreased and the public
health improved as the cotton famine advanced,
and we are now told—strangest news' of all—that
many of these workmen have no wish to resume the
occupation from which they were suddenly debarred.
It is said they actually prefer the outdoor labour to
which they have become accustomed, and set its
superior healthiness against its lighter wage. If such
a spirit should commonly prevail, and if the old
cotton hands should voluntarily return to the agri-
cultural labour from which it was thought that a
more intellectual and remunerative employment
had permanently raised them, it would be one of
the strangest results of the whole struggle. How-
ever, we need anticipate no such phenomenon.
Sooner or later, and in some way or other, our
manufacturers, who have been less at fault than
any other class in their speculations on the future,
will regain, we have no doubt, their old trade. It
may appear in an altered form and under new con-
ditions, but it will be there, and' there the Lanca-
shire millowners always expected it to be. In the
very darkest hour of the famine they enlarged their
mills and built new ones, dissuaded the emigration
of the unemployed hands, and waited with charac-
teristic confidence for the return of commercial.
prosperity. They must be right, for the general
conditions out of which the trade arose must pro-
bably recur, and with them the general result. The
basis of the whole reasoning is this—that cotton
makes the best clothing for the chief part of the
human race, and that cotton goods can be manu-
factured more cheaply in Lancashire than anywhere
else. Given the material, and the Lancashire mill-
owners will find all the rest—capital, energy, skill,
and organisation. It was only for want of mate-
rial that their trade was paralysed, and the mate-
rial will certainly be forthcoming some day or other.
The world's trade is too good to be lost. The
profit is not all ours. Some must grow while
others spin ; and the growers may make as good
a thing of it as the spinners. Only it concerns
them both" that the material should be cheap
as well as excellent. It must never be for-
gotten that we owed our marvellous command
of the world's markets to the low prices at which
we sold our wares. Cotton clothing satisfies the
wants of millions by its convenience and its suit-
ableness, but unless we can undersell all native
manufacturers it will be manufactured on the spot.
To set Lancashire on its legs again we want not
only good cotton, but good cotton cheap. How are
we to get this article supplied once more, and sup-
plied, too, so steadily that the trade may not be dis-
turbed
by any violent or unaccountable fluctuations
of prices ? That question is somewhat of an enigma
still. Cotton is coming in, and the anticipation of
unknown supplies from America enhances, artifi-
cially, the cheapness of the material. But the pro-
spects of industry in the-cotton States are as obscure
as ever. The industrial condition of those coun-
tries must be determinedby their political condition,
and what they may be no observer of American
affairs would be very willing to predict. Still, there
will be the strong temptation of gain on all parties.
To restore so lucrative an industry will be every-
body's interest. Already we see that in the specu-
lations of American financiers cotton is sure to find
a place. Then there are other countries which have
been so enriched and fertilised by our purchases
during the last four years that they ought now to
have an organised industry of their own. Neither
Turkey nor Egypt could well afford to lose its cotton
plantations, though they might well afford to ship
cotton for Liverpool at a less price than they have
recently received. But somehow or other the ma-
terial will come, and all the more surely for the end
of •the American war. But then there is the ques-
tion of laboura question just now coming into
prominence. We trust this will soon right itself. If
the old hands stand out, new hands will come in,
and machinery will supersede manual labour more
and more, probably year after year. At the same
time the cotton operatives in this hour of their ad-
vantage might fairly be asked to remember the days
of their adversity and the active sympathy which
they then experienced. Of course they are entitled
to the benefit of their position. The cotton famine,
by causing an emigration of skilled operatives
and an interruption in the supply of appren-
tices, has reduced the amount of labour in the
market, and rendered it proportionately more valu-
able. In fact, the state of things which seems now
to have arrived was actually anticipated a year or
two ago by a distinguished public man as that in
which the good sense of the operatives would be
most severely tried. They had shown themselves
possessed of fortitude, patience, and endurance under
difficulties—would they show as much intelligence
and equal wisdom when the time came for going to
work again ? Would they be moderate in their de-
mands when the turn of trade gave them an advan-
tage ? These are questions which they must answer
for themselves. We can only remind them that if
the great fabric of the cotton trade is once more to
be raised it must be by the concert of all parties.
That trade depends entirely upon cheapness, and
cheapness cannot be secured while any. element in-
volved in production is unreasonably dear. Sooner
or later things will settle themselves, but whether
they do so smoothly or otherwise must be decided in
a great measure by the sagacity of the operatives at
this new crisis of affairs.

HERALD.—For some time past we have been an-
xious to learn what part Lord Russell would take up
on behalf of this country in view of the actual crisis
of affairs in North America. Our doubts are at last
cleared up, and our fears are verified. At the com-
mencement of the war belligerent rights were con-
ceded to the South by England and other neutral
Powers, on the intelligible ground that acts of war,
levied against them by the North, necessarily im-
plied the possession of such rights. The declaration
of blockade was a recognition of the South as a bel-
ligerent; the regular exchange of prisoners was a
further recognition. The allowance of belligerent
rights by neutrals, however much it may have
been called in question by unreasoning partisans,
was a simple and inevitable consequence of this
attitude of the North. Supposing that the
struggle is not over, but is to be continued in the
vast regions to the west of the Mississippi, we
have to inquire whether the relations between the
combatants have so far altered that the laws of
civilised warfare are no longer to be observed
between them, or whether the logic of events does
not force upon us now, as heretofore, the concession
of right which by international law may be claimed
from neutrals by both parties in the struggle. In
his letter dated June 2, published last night, ad-
dressed to the Lords of the Admiralty, the Lords of
the Treasury, and his colleagues, the other Secre-
taries of States, Lord Russell has openly declared
himself on this question of the further concession of
belligerent rights to the South. The declaration is
at least premature. In the present position of affairs
it is most illogical and most unstatesmanlike. It is
probably intended as a sop to Northern politicians,
but it will only encourage them to press with more
energy their demands for compensation for the losses
caused by the Alabama and other vessels.
i It com-
mits this country to an attitude which, n a legal
point of view, is untenable. " Her Majesty's Go-
vernment are of opinion that neutral nations cannot
but consider the civil war in America as at an end.
Her Majesty's Government recognise that peace has
been restored within the whole territory of which
the United States of North America, before the com-
mencement of the civil war, were in undisturbed
possession." This resolution is acted upon by the
formal refusal of belligerent rights to Southern
vessels at sea. There was once an astronomer who,
having discovered that the earth went round the
sun, instead of the sun round the earth, had the ex-
trgordinary temerity to publish the fact to the world.
There was certain ecclesiastics so strongly convinced
of the contrary that they forced this astronomer, at
the peril of torture and death, to affirm with them


that the earth did not move but stood still. Galileo
recanted, but muttered, "It moves, notwith-
standing." Lord Russell tells us that the war
in America is at an end. We may hold our
tongues with the respect due to so high an autho-
rity. We cannot help whispering, "Eppur si muove."
Our Foreign Secretary, if he will condescend to
glance at the map of America, will find that
the great river Mississippi, in its course from the
neighbourhood of Lake Superior to the Gulf of
Mexico, separates one-third from two-thirds of the
area of the late United States. The two-thirds are
to the west, the one-third is to the east of that
river. If in the eastern third the war is at an end
for the present, in the western two-thirds it is just
now only beginning. With the exception of a belt
of land on the Pacific, known as California, the whole
of this vast region is open to the Confederate armies,
which, under Kirby Smith, Magruder, and Stirling
Price, have declared their resolution of still doing
battle for the South. A vast portion of this terri-
tory is a desert, and but thinly inhabited. But Lord
Russell may have heard—if he has not heard, we beg
leave to acquaint him with the fact—that between
the Mississippi and the Rio Grande, on the Mexican
frontier, there is a vast and fertile region, known as
the State of Texas, with a territory of 280,000
square miles; the State of Louisiana, with 46,000
square miles ; and Arkansas, with 52,000 square
miles. Adding to it the Indian territory of 71,000
square miles, sparsely peopled, and which dovetails
in with the rest, this region covers a surface of
450,000 square miles, making one-fourth of the
whole area of the Union, and nearly equal in extent
to the Eastern States. Texas by itself is as large as
the Austrian Empire, and three times as large as the
six States of New England put together. Without
counting negroes these trans-Mississippi States had
by the last census a population of 1,200,000. This
population has been immensely increased by an im-
migration of planters from the Gulf States during
the war. On the information of a traveller lately
returned from Texas we learn that Kirby Smith,
Magruder, Price, and Btickner, are determined
to carry on the war in this trans-riverine region.
General Smith has 150,000 men on his muster rolls,
and issues rations daily for 85,000 effectives. The
fertility of the country is well known ; its re-
sources are inexhaustible. There are no rivers in
Texas deep enough to float a gunboat, and the ne-
cessary organisation of waggon-trains would pre-
sent an insuperable difficulty to the advance of an
army into the interior. Except Brownsville, at the
mouth of the Rio Grande, the whole of Texas is now
in the hands of the Confederates. In Louisiana,
beyond the Mississippi, the Southern army is
strongly posted on the Red River, from Alexandria
to Shreveport. In Arkansas the Federals have no
footing but at Little Rock. The State of Missouri
lies open to the defenders of the West, and at any
moment they may scour through it and ravage it
with impunity. In these States of the West the
Confederates have a strong poinkl'appui, from which,
if successful in their resistance, they may carry the
war again into the Eastern States. The armies of the
North have been for the most part disbanded, and it
is at least doubtful whether Sheridan, in his mission
to the West, can be spared a sufficient number of
men to give him any chance of prevailing against a
resolute antagonist in such a country. The war is
certainly not over, if we are rightly informed that
the chiefs to the west of the Great River are re-
solved to continue it. So long as it goes on it milst
be waged in accordance with the usages of civilise('
nations,and the Southern will be lawful belligerents.
in spite of Mr. Andrew Johnson and his friend Lord
Russell. Texas has seaports, which are not yet in
possession of the enemy. Besides Galveston, she has
Quintana Matagorda, Espiritu, Santo, Aransas,
Corpus Christi, and Point Isabel. Having ports she
has a right to a navy, and to cruisers on the ocean.
It is equally absurd for Lord Russell to refuse belli-
gerent rights to these cruisers, and for Mr. Johnson
to declare that vessels attempting to enter these ports
shall be treated as pirates. So long as the South
belligerent, so long as war is levied upon her, and
she possesses seaports, her navy has ipse facto bed"
gerent rights. As for Mr. Johnson, either he bloc
ades these ports, or he does not blockade them. If
he blockades them neutral vessels attempting to enter
will be liable to forfeiture if seized, and nothingmor°'
If he does not blockade them, they are to be re-
garded as ports of the United States, and foreign
vessels are at liberty to enter them without molesta-
tion or hindrance. Lord Russell, who declares the
war at an end when it is vgry manifest that nothing
of the sort is the case ; and Mr. Johnson, who Con-
siders all the ports of the Southern sea coast to be
ports of the United States, but announces that all
vessel trading with them before the Ist of July is to
be treated as a pirate, have.both placed themselves
in an absurd position, and edified the world with an
exhibition of statecraft: which might be very nai"
chievous were it not so utterly contemptible.