The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-06 00:00:00

The grand news from America by the Australa-
sian, is the Presidential proclamation of negro
emancipation. That is the light at least in which
it is regarded by the American press generally, and
also by the press, so far as we have noticed it,
of this country. None can. rejoice more heartily
than we do in all contained in the proclamation,
and in all the circumstances relating to its being
issued and promulgated, which promise well for
emancipation. Yet, as amongst the oldest and
steadiest friends to the immediate and unconditional
abolition of negro slavery in America, we cannot be
so jubilant over this document as some of our con-
temporaries ; indeed we fear that there is too much
ground for the hope of the powerful pro-slavery
organ of this country, that it will produce but little
effect. _

Firstly and chiefly, it is too late. Had it al)•
peared at the beginning of the war, had every
seceding State been warned that unless it re-
turned to its allegiance :within a very limited
period, since it seceded for slavery, slavery should
secede from them, it might have changed the
character of the whole war. If the negroes had
, had authentic evidence that the Washington Go-
vernment was glad to embrace the opportunity
furnished by rebellion for getting rid of personal
bondage from the great republic, the slaves would
then have given the men who have formed the
Confederate armies occupation enough. The poor
blacks would then have believed in the sincerity
of the North, they would have understood that
the PRESIDENT used the first legal opportunity he
had to declare them free; no lying fables of their
masters could have imposed upon them extravagant
stories of how the North would treat them, if the
few of their number, who can read, could have
told them the plain terms of a Presidential Eman-
cipation proclamation. The South must have
quailed. The North must have been masters
of the position almost without a battle. It would
have been a far more effectual response to the attack
on Fort Sumter than calling forth the volunteers
who figured at Bull's Run. We now fear it is too
late. It is not " putting the cart before the horse,"
for the cart has been first suffered to stick first, and
now the PRESIDENT, to get it out, puts the horse
behind it.
However, letting this pass, the proclamation it-
self is tainted with an unworthy expediency. '
Surely enough, in all conscience, has been done by
the rebels against the Federal Union to warrant the
Federal Government, from its own point of view,
to treat them as rebels. It has done so in the mat-
ter of war and bloodshed without scruple, and to
the utmost of its power; it has set aside the con-
stitution by making war on these sovereign States,
and by its suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act
without scruple; but it palters, and delays, and
procrastinates in dealing with the cause of the war.
We hear of no ninety days' grace in
respect to
invasion, blockade, and captures of cities ;
but when slavery, to secure the extension
of which into the territories is the sole cause
of secession, is concerned, directly Mr. LINCOLN I
and the North seem paralysed. They dare not act
—" What
will Kentucky say ? " " Can they not
be brought back,
slavery and all, into the Union ?"
si Yet sixty days"--e yat
of the Cabinet. To the last
the lan-
guagewant
of boldness, a " staving off,,
the question, which
argues a reluctance and a feebleness the South will
well know how to use. Had JEFFERSON DAVIS -
had Mr. LINCOLN'S work to do, atcliqr. LINCOLN'S
views of the evil of slavery, we cannot doubt that
long ere now every slave would have been a feee•
man, and a firra and irrevocable friend of the north.
He would have known how to do it.
Then there is that taint of former proclamations
and measures on the subject—making the retention
' of slaves a premium for loyalty. If slave States
will but come in by the let of January they are to
be rewarded by retaining their slaves. EmanCi-

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THE SUN.
LONDON, MONDAY, OCT. 6, 1862.