The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOITRNALS.

TIMES.—It is very much to be regretted that the
American Government, having successfully brought
to conclusion the great war in which it has been
engaged, and having decided on a policy with re-
gard to the South full of magnanimity and concilia-
tion, and calculated, if anything can, to heal the
wounds left behind it by the late fearful struggle,
should not have buried the hatchet altogether. On
her west the Great Republic is still engaged in a
fearful conflict with the Indians, and on the east
her Minister is directed to stir up fresh elements of
strife, and revive controversies which it can serve
no good purpose to renew. Opinion has been
divided in this country on the merits of the Ameri-
can quarrel ; but we are all unanimous in wishing
every success to the new order of things, and in de-
siring to see the United States, since they are to
form a single Confederacy, linked together in the
bonds of sincere friendship and goodwill among
each other, and living on the best of terms with the
remainder of the world. Had this country been ac-
tuated by a hundredth part of the animosity of which
American papers continually accuse her, she would
have taken a very different course from that which
she has adopted. Instead of the consistent and
dignified refusal of Parliament to discuss the Ame-
rican question, we should have had inflammatory
debates, calculated to encourage one or, perhaps,
both sides to a continuance of the conflict ; and it
may well be that a very little of the spirit by which
America pretends to believe that we were animated
would have brought the Civil War to a termination
exactly the contrary of that which has occurred.
The South, at any rate, are bitterly disappointed
in us ; they expected that our prejudices and our
necessities would have induced us to come for-
ward to save them from the utter destruction of
their existing system of industry. It is hard that
when we have so entirely offended one party we
should be so very far from pleasing the other.
This, however, is the case, and we have only to
examine what claim of justice America can throw
over the correspondence on which she has en-
tered. The effect of that correspondence may be
stated in very few words. Mr. Adams demands on
the part of the United States indemnity for the in-
juries sustained by their commerce by the ravages
of the Shenandoah, Alabama, and other Confede-

rate vessels fitted out in British harbours, and offers
to refer the question to arbitration. Lord Russell
refuses the claim, declines to refer the matter to
arbitration, but offers to submit to a Commission
any matter upon which the two Governments are
agreed. The effect of this correspondence is, there-
fore, a distinct and final refusal on the part of the
British Government to enter into the question of
any compensation for these losses ; a declaration
that they are not the fit subject for arbitration ;
and an offer, which is of very little importance or
significance, to refer to arbitration any matters of a
similar kind upon which the two Governments may
hereafter be agreed. It is difficult to say so of any
thing in so complicated and wide a subject as inter-
national law, but we believe that such a claim as
Mr. Adams has made, supported on such grounds
as he puts forward, was never before preferred by
one civilised Government to another. After all the
attention we have been able to give the subject we
find it next to impossible to discover what is the
precise fault that the American Government has to
find with us. First, it seems to be that we have
become neutrals when we had no right to be neutrals
at all ; and, secondly, that having become neutrals
we did not adhere to the duties of neutrality. The
only ground on which the first claim can be sup-
ported would be the assertion that there has been
no war at all in America during the last four years,
that no belligerent rights have ever existed, and
consequently that we had no right by the law of
nations to place ourselves in a position of impar-
tiality between the two contending parties. If there
was a war there were neutrals, and neutrals cannot
exist without a recognition of the belligerent rights
of the two contending parties. The Minister of
the United States feels this difficulty, and shrinks
from an assertion so monstrously absurd as that no
war has ever existed ; he only says that we were
in too great a hurry to recognise these belligerent
rights which, we must, it would seem, have recog-
nised sooner or later ; and on this ground he bases,
in the first place, his claim for compensation. He
affords, however, no answer to the statement that
the North itself was beforehand with us in this
matter, and by declaring the blockade proclaimed
that very state of war which we only followed her in
recognising. We think it results from his own
letters that at some time or other during this gigan-
tic struggle England had the right to clothe herself
with the character of a neutral. Mr. Adams does
not dispute that she acted in good faith, and we
maintain it would be utterly unheard-of and un-
exampled if we should be called upon to account for
exercising a right we undoubtedly possessed in good
faith and without any evil intention, at a moment
displeasing to one of the parties whom it affected.
That a nation became a neutral at the wrong time,
and by so doing prejudicially affected the interest of
one of the combatants, is a charge so entirely novel
and unprecedented that we cannot help feeling sur-
prised that the American Minister should have been
instructed to bring it forward. The next charge
really seems to amount to this—that after we had
avowed ourselves in the capacity of neutrals we en-
deavoured to sustain the character, and to maintain
a position entirely impartial between both parties.
Mr. Adams's charge against us seems to be, not that
we violated our neutrality, but that we observed it
only too faithfully. In this instance, as in the other,
he fully and repeatedly admits our good faith ; he
does not accuse our Government of making its
avowed neutrality a cloak to conceal a real hostility ;
but his charge is that, our municipal law being in a
very imperfect state on the subject, we acted only
so far as that law permitted us, and did not attempt
during the war to amend it or make it more
perfect ; that is to say, that, having' undertaken
to be neutral between North and South, we did
not attempt during the war to reform that law in
a sense advantageous to the North and disadvan-
tageous to the South. As well might the South
accuse us that, having no law which prevented us
from selling arms to the North, and finding that
liberty to the North very injurious to the South, we
did not in the course of the war enact such a law in
order to prevent the armies of the North from being
armed with weapons supplied by English manufac-
turers. The truth is, had we altered this law during
the war we should have been notoriously and
flagrantly guilty of that very breach of neutrality
of which we are accused. We regret that English
shipbuilders should for their own gain have em-
barked in a trade which has given our enemies on
the other side of the Atlantic even the opportunity
of raising an outcry against us ; but we cannot
admit that breaches of neutrality by individual
subjects of the Queen entail liability on the Queen's
Government, unless they have taken place with its
permission or by its connivance. We regret ex-
ceedingly that the Government of America has
thought fit to bring forward these claims, but we
think there cannot be for a moment a doubt as to
the answer they should receive. To yield to such
demands would be to saddle neutrals in all future
wars with new and undefined liabilities, against
which no prudence and no good intentions can gua-
rantee them. If such demands as these are to be
the ordinary results of the conclusion of a war
between two powerful States, it will probably be
thought better by those against whom they are sure
to be made rather to take sides at once, and ally
themselves to one party or the other, than to place
themselves in a situation so humiliating as that which
a neutral would henceforth fill. We cannot, of
course, tell in what spirit the Government of the
United States are disposed to receive the final and
deliberate refusal of the British Government to en-
tertain in any shape the claims they put forward.
We can only say, on our part, that we are quite
sure our Government may depend upon the support
of the nation in maintaining the position it has
taken up. If the American Government is deter.
mined to seek a quarrel with us, as well this demand
as any other. We cannot have one on which our
right is clearer and our position more unquestion-
able. If it is not, we shall have saved ourselves, by
the firm stand we are now making, from a great
degradation, and vindicated for the benefit of all
mankind that neutral position so seldom occupied by
Great Britain in the wars of the past, and so often,
we trust, to be hers in the wars of the future.
POST.—We have become now so habituated to
unfavourable intelligence from New Zealand that it
is perhaps with a sense of relief that some will dis-
cover that this month's budget brings no worse tid-
ings than that there has been a quarrel between the
Governor and the Commander-in-Chief, terminat-
ing in the resignation of the latter, and that some
two or three English officers and about a dozen
privates have lost their lives in the most recent ope-
rations undertaken against the insurgents. Of
course we all know very well, notwithstanding the
assurance given to the contrary a few months since,
that the war in New Zealand is not over, and we
must therefore reconcile ourselves as best we may
to the lists of killed and wounded which now inva-
riably accompany our despatches from that colony.
And even for serious differences of opinion between
high officials, the experience of what passes in the
mother country, at the best of times, must naturally
prepare us. But there is in the history of the cir-
cumstances which led to the resignation of General
Cameron not only much to occasion surprise, but
also to induce very curious reflections on the nature
and the object of the war in which we are now en-
gaged against the insurgent Maoris. That the go-
vernor of a colony should differ in opinion from the
commander of the forces there stationed, in respect
to the tactics to be employed in reducing a savage
race to submission, ur in regard to the scale on

which hostilities should be carried on, would be
natural enough, but every one would expect that at
least, in respect to the policy of the war, no possible
diversity of opinion could exist. But, singularly
enough, it is precisely upon this point that Sir
George Grey and Sir Duncan Cameron have come
to loggerheads ; and if a few isolated scraps of cor-
respondence furnish an accurate index of the opinion
entertained by the General in command, it must be
confessed that his views on the subject of the re-
cent outbreak, and the circumstances which occa-
sioned it, differ widely from those advanced by the
representatives of the New Zealand Government.
The insurrections in New Zealand have, as the
public are aware, invariably been occasioned by dis-
putes between the colonists and the natives in
respect to the possession of land ; and the general
idea entertained, or at least fostered in this country,
is that the natives pertinaciously refuse to part with
their lands, although the colonists offer them in ex-
, change, either in money, flocks, or merchandise, a
fair equivalent. Occasionally, however, events have
occurred which induced persons to question the
soundness of this notion, and members of the Home
Government reluctantly admitted that the transfer
of land from the aborigines to the settlers was not
effected so equitably as was supposed, and that it
not unfrequently happened that the owners of the
soil found themselves stripped of their inheritance,
without, however, receiving the purchase money.
The mode of proceeding, as shown in some instances
to have been adopted, was this :—The Colonial Go-
vernment, acting for the colonists, purchased, or
affected to purchase, a tract of territory from per-
sons pretending to be the owners, and, having done
so, proceeded to take possession. The rightful
owners thereupon resisted the appropriation of their
land, the adjoining tribes apprehensive of being the
next victims, espoused their cause, and therefore an
insurrection began. The next step of course was
for the Colonial Government to demand the em-
ployment of the Imperial troops, in order to crush
the rebellion and protect the settlers, and when the
troops had been employed, and the unfortunate
savages compelled to capitulate, the final step of all
was to confiscate the property of the rebel tribes.
Such, at all events, was the substance of charges
advanced more than once against the Colonial Go-
vernment, and endorsed by persons resident in New
Zealand, who had certainly no motives for mis-
represeniing the policy of the authorities. Now,
it appears that in the month of January last,
when General Cameron was on the point of
opening the Wanganui campaign, he wrote a pri-
vate letter to the Governor, in which he stated
that, from inquiries personally made, he had
satisfied himself that the purchase of the block of
land and subsequent dispossession of the owners,
which had given rise to the revolt which he was
then engaged in quelling, were conducted after the
fashion which we have just noticed ; and after re-
ferring to the transaction as an " iniquitous job,"
and stating that the opposition offered by the natives
was not to be wondered at, expressed an opinion
that the home government should be made ac-
quainted with the " true nature of the business."
In another of his letters he wrote—" What is it to
Mr. Mantel', or any other colonial Minister, how
many British officers and soldiers we lose in any
operation they recommend, so long as the policy
they advocate is carried out." These letters were
submitted by Sir G. Grey to his Ministers, who
thereupon advised the Governor to call upon the
General to state the grounds on which he had ar-
rived at his conclusions. Sir Duncan Cameron de-
clined doing so, but intimated his intention of com-
municating on the subject with the home Govern-
ment. On the 25th of April Mr. Cardwell wrote a
despatch to Sir G. Grey, with the general substance
of which we are not made acquainted, but in which
he called the attention of the Governor to the dis-
crepancies which existed in the accounts severally
forwarded by him and by the general in command
to the Foreign-office ; but at the time of the receipt
of this despatch in New Zealand General Cameron
seems to have resigned. Now, into the merits of
this dispute we are not in a position to enter ; but,
without expressing an opinion whether General
Cameron exceeded his duty in calling in question
the policy of the colonial Government, it certainly
does seem that the discrepancies to which Mr. Card-
well called attention ought to be cleared up. It may
be that a general officer ought to be nothing else
than a machine, and that it was entirely beyond his
province to hazard opinions on the merits of the
quarrel in which he was ordered to employ his
troops. But, after all, it is not every man who
can reduce himself to the condition of a mere auto-
maton ; and we doubt very much if in a war such
as that waged in New Zealand, in which a Colonial
Legislature decides on the use to be made of Im-
perial troops, it is desirable that the officer in com-
mand should be one. General Cameron distinctly
and unequivocally charges the colonial Government
with wantonly sacrificing British troops for their
own selfish ends, and with driving the natives into
revolt for the mere sake of crushing them and con-
fiscating their property. The ill-feeling which sub-
sists between General Cameron and Sir G. Grey is
apparent on the face of the correspondence which
has passed between them, but the cause of the final
rupture is not a personal one. The colonial Govern-
ment profess now to be able to dispense with the
assistance of the Imperial troops, and if they will
henceforth suppress Maori revolts with their own
militia, we shall have no reasons for prying toe
closely into the nature of their dealings with the
natives. But as our troops have not yet left the
colony, and as it is too much to hope that their co-
operation will not be again required, we certainly
have a right to know whether the serious charges
advanced by Sir Duncan Cameron arc or are not
without foundation.