The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-06 00:00:00

of Reform and Liberalism in that con- •
stituency at least, has succumbed or been
subordinated to the cause of the Peninsular
and Oriental Company—as opposed in the splendour
of its enterprise to the other great local Company,
of which Capt. MANGLES (the defeated Liberal can-
didate) is Chairman of the Board of Directors, viz.,
the West India Mail Packet Company ! Hence the
triumph won by the supporters of the Conservative '
candidate, the new Lord Mayor ROSE, now M.P.
for Southampton ! The upshot of the electioneering
strife lately raging in the streets of Southampton
is, in its way, however, we cannot but think—so
much of, and so flagrantly, an anti-climax that it
can hardly (now that it can be looked back to in a
calmer mood) fail to startle the Liberal electors of
the borough into a somewhat sobering recognition
of the egregious folly of their late proceedings.
From this result, now visibly before us--
the return, that is to say, of the Lord Mayor ROSE,
the Conservative candidate the constituency
ought, beyond a doubt, to learn a lesson that, if only
taken wisely to heart before the nest election, may
then stand them in good stead, and preclude them,
at any rate, from the other wise exceeding risk of
again being thus irritatingly " sold," and—what is
worst of all—" sold," too, by themselves ! From
the Nettle of this recent Danger into which they have
fallen with their eyes wide open, and with so very
ludicrous an aplomb, let them at least pluck that
flower Safety for the future.

The Chamber of Commerce at Liverpool has re-
belled against its representatives. It has rebelled
by repentance. At the previous meeting it re-
solved to uphold the blockade of commercial ports,
as distinguished from naval and military ports and
arsenals; at its last meeting, on Wednesday, it
went a step further, and proposes, though the dis-
cussion is adjourned, to support also the right to
capture private property at sea. Both these steps
are in reversal of its former decisions and memo-
rials to Government, and the leading gentleman in
support of the- penitential resolutions is Mr. SPENCE,
known to us only by his plausible advocacy of the
South and its institutions, and his depreciation of
everything Northern. The present blockade is one
which of course cannot be broken by us, and Mr.
SPENCE incurs therefore no risk for his Southern
friends by now upholding commercial blockades ;
perhaps also, so far as expression of opinion goes,
he does them service by maintaining the desirable-
ness of such destruction of property as that prac-
tised by the Alabama, and by the Sumpter before
her. That it is perfectly fair while the Federals seize
every vessel with Southern property on board,
cannot be denied ; but Mr. SPENCE and his brother
merchants maintain, in addition, that such captures
are also expedient.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
Tnls DAY.—Morning, lh, Wm.—Afternoon, 2h. 10m.
To-stoußow.-Morning, 2h. 27m.—Afternoon, 211. 45m.

It is to be remembered that though America
retains the right of privateering, the nations of
Europe, being more civilised, have, by the Treaty
of Paris, abandoned the practice. Except, there-
fore, in a war with America, this mode of maritime
depredation must be abandoned. The question,
therefore, now is, shall we abandon also the right
to seize the property of the enemy at sea by means
of our QUEEN'S ships, and induce, which of course
we could easily do, other nations to adopt the same
policy. As every navy is smaller than ours, other
Powers would obviously be but too glad to agree
that all purely trading vessels should enjoy the
same immunity from capture as is enjoyed by a
farm house or a shop, on land. Mr. SPENCE de-
nies the very parellelism itself of the cases. To
most persons, at first sight, they seem to be iden-
tical, with only the difference of the private property
being in one case on the common highroad of all
nations, and in the other on the soil of the belli-
gerent himself. This last would, indeed, sewn
rather to be a reason why it should be more open
to appropriation by an enemy, but Mr. SPENCE
j rules otherwise; we much suspect, because he had
found himself constrained to confess, that to retain
commercial blockades, which he and his friends
had agreed to do, and to forbid capture at sea, of
the property they sought to shut up in port, was a
manifest absurdity.

The borough of Southampton is earning for itself
a peculiar and distinctive reputation. Not an en-
viable reputation by any means. But one of a very
exceptional character. It is precisely the
constituency where a successful hit may be hoped
for, by any adventurous candidate who may care to
"go in and win"—or, at any rate, trust confidently
upon the chance of winning—by what billiard players
call a FluAe. The least likely name among those
submitted to the selection of the electors, so often
turns out, there, to be, after all, the name of the
" returned"—of the new M.P. for Southampton
The constituency, as we all know, is essentially a
Liberal constituency. Among the registered elec-
tors a very considerable majority is notoriously
made up of advanced Reformers, men dead against
Toryism, men but the faintest degree, if at all,
tinctured with the flavour of Conservatism. Yet,
out of this Liberal borough, there has just now
emerged, in the person of the new Lord Mayor of
London—the Right Hon. WILLIAM ROSE—a
thoroughly true blue or high Tory representative.
It is for all the world like that charming little
trick of the laboratory—so often witnessed by the
frequenters cf the Polytechnic Institution—the
turning of a lump of ice out of a red hot crucible
After the sharpest contest that has long been
witnessed, even at Southampton, out of the partu-
rient mountain of the great Liberal constituency
comes forth—a ridiculous ROSE !

Let us, however, hear his arguments. He says,
first, that it would be "inhuman" to destroy pro-
perty on land; the suffering caused to the unarmed
" innocent" population would be great, and have no
tendency to move the Government of the country
to come to terms. This is as fallacious as it is plau-
sible. Oar own statesmen have told us in the re-
cent debates that the fundamental reason why pri-
vate property may be seized at sea is, that every
individual in a nation, its suffering merchants in-
cluded, must be considered as represented by his
Government, and participating in its acts. But if
this be sound reasoning, and on the principles now
acknowledged between nations it really is so, pri-
vate property is as fairly liable to the enemy's
attack on land as it is at sea. The possessors in one
case are as "innocent" as in the ether. The inhu-
manity or cruelty is simply a question of degree,
since loss of property at sea may be the cause of
fearful suffering. Then as to the tendency to move
the Government of a country, Mr. SPENCE must
be quite wrong. In proportion as the distress of
farmers and tradespeople, fleeing from the invad-
ing foe, demanding support, like the operatives
in Lancashire at this time, or known to be suf-
fering in their homes from the presonce and exac-
tions of the enemy—in proportion to the distress
thus caused by an invader would be the desire of
the Government to put an end to it by pease. The
sufferings of a province by land would tell more
than those of merchants from their ventures at
sea.

Again the ball flies into the winning pocket—by
a fluke !

It is idle to talk of the mere contest of political
parties having led to this surprising result at
Southampton. For political parties read—rival
companies 1 Instead of Whig and Tory, or let us
say Liberal and Conservative, having been pitted
against each other, in the two opposing candi-
dates, Lord Mayor ROSE and Captain MANGLES
--it should be said that the MONTAGUES and the
CAPULETS there at daggers drawn in the streets
of our great southern outport, were severally repre-
sented by the Peninsular and Oriental Company on
the one hand, and on the other the West India Mail
Steampacket Company—the latter plying across
the Atlantic, the former across the Mediterranean.
The result is as we have now witnessed. From
nine o'clock in the morning until the close of the
poll at four o'clock in the afternoon, the candidates
may be said to have run almost neck and neck.
If, when the poll was closed eventually, the com-
petitors osme not in by a dead heat, there was but
a very small difference perceptible between them.
Accordingly as the numbers were looked at
through the yellow or jaundiced glasses, or the
glasses delicately tinged with the faintest suspi-
ei°ll of the couleur de rose they looked thus
differently

But next, says Mr. SrExcE, there is the prin-
ciple of self-interest. It is not the interest of a
commander by land to exasperate the inhabitants
of the country by pillage. Self-interest is the
only principle Mr. SPENCE can trust in time
of war, and he rightly thinks the hostility of the
people would be a great inconvenience to a gene-
ral. He would stir up a hornet's nest. The pro-
perty, too, on land, was dispersed, and cumbrous
Ito*,
..
le; ..
.. 1,681 to transport; the property at sea condensed, and
mant
A diffeti,nee,
la 1,638 easy of transport. There is doubtless much truth
der the oir,,,m(tult eIYI of 54 against 43. Un- in this. But the whole might be far more briefly
ances, a difference so insi
nificant as to g- expressed by laying down at once that war
that discernible iewi°lltn,rt to little more than makes it lawful to do anything which we con-
dee. But, in
%retiree,
an ease,
awde.edledum and Tweedle- sidered it to be our interest to do; W - ALLENSTEIN'iI
ceived to have been, in it will be per- sack and slaughter at Magdeburg being quite as
firm)... of
Candidate. Insomuch is ti;is the Conservative justifiable as a seizure of mercantile property on
Lord Mayor Ros 4 may now be fact ensured, that the ocean. Perhaps, indeed, it might not be dif-
as
thelookedl upon confi-
dently by friend and foeficult to show that the less noticed sufferings by
borough of Southampton. The evoenMee.rP. for the famine, and consequent disease, following on the
preserJative of that Liberal Constituency atthive re- cessation of employment through exercise of bel-
t at sack
of iae turned out of the red-hot crucible. e lump ligerent rights at sea, cost as many lives as the
and burning of Magdeburg. Far more
Al together the result of this late stormy
ar
most valuable land
Perished. from those causes in the thirty years'
Southampton amounts to this, that again the Rouse
%portable
self. It is obvious also to remark that the
divided against itself has Allen. The Liberal ma•
property of a country is tran-
own greatest enemy,
enough, and could always be sent to
It
e of operationAs ii .
jority there has been its
has allowed little petty raneours and the merest the be.B
turned
sr conveyances furnished in
sordid rivalries to fritter away its inherent the country itself.
cunt ; and, accordinaegrteoetl:ith
Again, the exasperation of the
strength collectively. It has forgotten the interests people,. and of .
their fellow-cou t
ainst themircon might be
theory now so popuhir
of the United Kingdom for the pettier interests ap-. quite as naturally
pertaining to the borough and out-port of South-
with those who
arnpton. According to the narrowed view of the
liberal Electors of Southampton of late—Britannia's greater the suffering cause b
9 the war, the sooner
i
to t be likely terminate
rule over the waves would almost seem, in it would Soldiers, indeed,
their eyes, to have been restricted toinduced
,like
worthy of the name, could not be ind .
in Italy, to out down uuarmed,
the rip-
Plea of the Southampton Waters l The Cgtilge Autrilm mon, but

CONSERVATIVE B;ATLIRN.

Rose
M glee
itt
1,674
LIIsERAL RETURN.

• - N
, '" •
;2„. ,NiStet,,
• . 1. • f (11

THE SUN.
LONDON, SATURDAY, DEC. 6, 1862.