The Sun.
London, England, 1865-07-03 00:00:00

THE " SPECTATOR" ON PRIVILEGE IN AMERICA.

—Democracy in America, it is becoming evident,
has to. pass through one more trial. It has come
victorious out of a war which would have crushed
any European monarchy except the British, arid has
overcome a rebellion before which even Great Bri-
tain might possibly have succumbed. It has secured
by four years of desperate effort, during which it has
had to discover the men who can organize force as
well as to develope the force itself, the control of a
continent and the emancipation of a race, and now
it has to accomplish a feat greater even than these.
Our American friends will listen with annoyed in-
credulity when we describe the task yet remaining
to be performed, but it is none the less one which
will test their trusted system, far more than the
struggle which they have won. That was a question
of force, and even Tories like Sir Archibald Alison
have long since conceded that democracy when it
possesses force at all, possesses it in a nearly
irresistible degree. Nothing can withstand millions
of freemen, when all arc willing to sacrifice all
rather than the Republic should suffer a decline.
But democracy has now to develope a quality inde-
finitely higher than force, a quality which demo-
cracies are apt to despise, which the American de-
mocracies avowedly does despise—the delicate and
subtle statesmanship which can carry through a
social revolution without destroying the bonds by
which society exists. The Federal Government,
victorious in war and not unsuccessful in diplomacy,
able to place a million of men in the field, and to
keep 600 armed vessels engaged in a blockade--
shat, the strangest fact of the war, has almost escaped
attention—has now, when resistance has apparently
ceased, to change 11 oligarchical States into 11
democratic and free republics, and every mail
which arrives displays more clearly the difficulty
of the task. In eleven States, all faithful or submis-
sive to the Union, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas, there is
a silent struggle going on, nominally as to the
position of the negro, really as to the question,
old as civilisation, whether the basis of society is to
be equality or privilege. Equality of legal rights is
the strength of the North, yet it is unwilling to
establish it in the South by force; privilege is the
passion of the South, and though defeated in the
great struggle for its final recognition as the key-
stone of society, it cannot bear to surrender the
long-enjoyed possession. Privilege, therefore, in
some shape the South"—by which we in this in-
stance mean all recently slaveholding States—is
determined to retain. In Virginia the masters,
with the fine instinct of capital for its imme-
diate interests, have combined to fix the rate
of wages for coloured men at five dollars a
month, just one-third the hiring price of slaves,
and about one-fourth the rate which the coloured
men, if free to work or be idle, would be willing to
accept. In Tennessee, which' has regained its re-
stricted independence, the Legislature has deprived
the blacks of the special right of freemen, that of
bearing witnesses,and has imposed a special penalty
on rape if committed by the inferior colour. In
Louisiana the white is privileged to do nothing ;
while the black, even if he prefers to starve, must
work under somebody's orders. In North Carolina
the free schools are restricted to whites; in Arkansas
and some other States the free locomotion of blacks
and in all political power is confined
is
property,binoftotrodden;
or education, or even ancient birth,
but to men whose skins are devoid of a shade of the
detested colour. Many of these rules are
in themselves, as temporary rules, defensible,
and probably all deserve less opprobrium
than freemen will be disposed to believe.
It is absolutely essential to construct a system under
which two races differing widely in civilisation, in
physical power, in those tendencies which spring of
race, and those desires which arise from cultivation,
shall live together, if not in amity, at least in mutual
respect. How is the necessity to be met ? Let the
Government, says the American Radical, and the
Anglo-Indian,
enforce for a series of years equal and
somewhat stern justice, and the end will be attained,
as it is in Ireland between Catholics and Protestants,
in Russia between serfs and nobles, in India between
I natives and settlers.
13.

RAILWAY INTELLIGENCE.

MIDLAND GREAT WESTERN.

An adjourned special meeting of this company
was held on Thursday in Dublin, Mr. J. Ennis,
M.P., in the chair, 4or the purpose of authorizing
the directors to raise £300,000.
The CHAIRMAN stated that there had been an ad-
journment until some definite communication was
had with the Treasury or Chancellor of the Exche-
quer on the subject of a loan to the company. He
concluded by moving a formal resolution cancelling
£175,000 shares in the capital stock of the company,
created under the powers of previous Acts, and au-
thorizing that, in lieu thereof, and also in lieu of
£126,000 of the remaining unissued shares, the com-
pany raise £300,000 by the creation and issue of
shares or stock at par, with a preference.not exceed-
ing £5 per cent. per annum.
Mr. STIRLING seconded the motion,
Captain GOFF moved an amendment to the effect
that £200,000 be raised now, and the remaining
£lOO,OOO after the approval of the September
meeting.
Lord CASTLEMAINE seconded the amendment.

After along discussion it was ultimately resolved that
the company should raise a sum of £200,000 by the
creation and issue of preference shares, bearing in-

The traffic receipts on this company's line for the
Month of May last amounted, for passengers, mails,
&c., to $135,454, and for freight to $324,988—
total, $460,442, against $214,679 in May, 1864,
showing an increase of $245,763. The total receipts
in the first five months of thepresentyear amounted
to $588,026 for passengers, &c, and to $1,477,689
for g00d5—t0ta1,52,065,715, against $1,075,018 for
the corresponding period of last year, showing an
increase of $990,697, or 92 per cent.