The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-02 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, TUESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 2, 1861

CONSERVATIVE LAND SOCIETY.

MEETIMI THIS DAY.

At the tenth annual and forty-first quarterly general
meeting of the members of the above society, held at Exeter
Hall, the following report was read and agreed to
The four auditors, Messrs. Astbury and Winstanley, ap-
pointed by the board, and the Hey. W. G. Goodchild, vicar
of Tilbury, and Mr. Harding (public accountant), elected
by the shareholders in October last, having verified the
vouchers and books on the 6th and 6th of November, and
signed the balance sheet, ft is now the pleasing duty of the
executive committee to submit the satisfactory statement of
accounts and their tenth annual report to the members of
the Conservative Land Society. The receipts for each
quarter, the totals for the year, and the grand totals since
1852, are shown in the subjoined tabular return :
__.

0. Papillon, Esq., M.P., in the chair, at which C. E. New-
comen, Esq., and H. Pownall, Esq., attended as a deputa-
tion from the executive committee. The two estates at
Newark-on-Trent were allotted at the Town Hall, after
a public meeting at which the mayor presided, and Vis-
count Ingestre, YIP., Hon. and Rev. W. C. Talbot, and
Col. Knox, M.P., attended as a deputation for the Board.
The new roads fed sewerage have been completed, and
building operations have already commenced on both estates,
Beaconville being for first.class villas, and Northgate
adapted for the working classes. Both properties are so
advantageously situated as to secure a steady development,
should Newark cmtinue to progress as satisfactorily as it
has done of late years. The increase of tenants and the ad-
vanced rents on tie Brighton estate, with sales of some of
the freehold houses and plots during the year, proves that
the property is piogressing. It has had to contend with
adverse opinions expressed as to its value, emanating,
strange to state, from officials in the employ of the munici-
pality. These opinions were based evidently on political
partisanship, and not from the purely commercial point of
view, and from the actual facts connected with the develop-
ment of the estate. It is to be regretted that the great
social advantages presented by the sale of freehold land, so
difficult now to obtain in Brighton, should be overlooked,
and the adverie feelings created by electoral animosity,
be suffered to predominate. It is certainly not in a Revising
Barrister's Court at Brighton that the real value of the
Roundhill Park estate is to besought, when it isfound that
land costing £l5O is pronounced not to be worth 40s. per
annum, and a plot adjoining a house producing a rental of
£4O per year, is also declared to be not of the value of 40s.
per annum. The works on the Park estate, Weymouth, are
completed, and bligding operations are in active progress.
The Executive CoinMittee have the pleasure to report, that
the Tottenham„ and
_Hampstead Junction Railway Bills
having passedikagthe last—session, the Kentish Town
estate will be much enhanced in value, as the proposed line
will traverse the estate, and a station will be erected in Junc-
tion-road. There is still a considerable portion of the land
for sale in plots, from which the society will doubtless ex-
perience considerable benefit, owing to the new channels of
communication which will be afforded by the railway, in
opening and extending this suburban district. The returns
of houses built, and of buildings in progress on the various
estates, are very satisfactory for the past year. On the Maid-
stone property, the drainage of which has been connected with
the improved town sewerage, no less than 35 houses are com-
pleted, in addition to the church and school, besides eight
in progress. On the Leeds estate, 29 houses are finished,
and 17 in course of erection. On the Alford estate, 35
houses now exist. On the Taunton estate, 14 houses are
in occupation, and five building. Oa the Old Ford estate,
there are 97 houses, and on the Roman-road 54, besides 11
building. On the Hackney estate, the building movement
has been recently very remarkable, 46 houses being com-
plated, and 16 in progress. On the Battersea property
there is equal activity, 51 houses finished, and two in pro-
gress. Impetus has been given to the Reading estate, by
the erection of a first-class villa on the high road frontage,
besides an important improvement to the back portion of
this estate; and the erection of a church on a site reserved
by the society will, in all probability, be secured in the en-
suing year, St. Margaret's estate has assumed a very pro-
mising appearance since the erection of some first-class
villas. The Winchester estate, with its new church and
handsome houses, may be seen to great advantage from the
railroad. As regards the development of the suburban
estates generally, there can be no reasonable doubts, for the
extension of the railroad system in and near the metropolis
is yearly more marked, and the tendency of all classes to re-
side at convenient distances from their occupation is greatly
on the increase. Building is also in progress on the Oxford,
Weybridge, and Ealing estates. There is every induce-
ment for the allottees, either by combination amongst them-
selves or by individual operation, to build on the plots they
may hold on the various estates, and great facility is afforded
by the society's system of insuring this object. The exe-
cutive committee can safely congratulate the shareholders
on the acquisition of the Woodhouse estate, Wanstead.
This valuable freehold property, late in the occupation of
Money Wigram, Esq., consists of a comfortable and com-
modious residence, and about 30 acres of land. The house
is well built, of good elevation, and is well adapted either
for a large family, or for a public institution. It is so
placed that it can be sold with as small a quantity as three
acres of garden and well-timbered pleasure grounds, with
excellent stabling, domestic offices, farm yard. It is the
intention of the committee to reserve the house, and a cer-
tain quantity of the grounds, for private offer, and to allot
the remainder of the land for building purposes, for which
the estate is particularly well adapted, being only a very
short distance from Stratford, on the Leytonstone-road,
and net far from the Low Leyton and Forest Gate stations,
The estate has a frontage to Wanstead Flats, and is close to
Epping Forest, Woodford, and other popular localities.
1. Lib L prove
acceptable to those who desire to have the advantage of a
country residence within a short distance from the centre
of London. A portion of the estate will be one of the ear-
liest allotments in the year 1863. The registration returns
this year are very satisfactory ; indeed, with the extraordi-
nary exception of Brighton, referred to elsewhere in this
report, there has been less of vexatious opposition than on
former occasions, adversaries having ascertained that it
was not quite consistent on their part, as advocates for the
extension of the franchise, to oppose the exertions of the
Conservative Land Society in the same direction on the
basis of property, by creating qualifications on the most
ancient of our electoral privileges—that of the 40s. free-
holders. In concluding their report, the executive com-
mittee feel called upon to express to the shareholders their
high sense of the great service rendered to the Conserva-
tive Land Society, by the large attendance of members at
the adjourned annual meeting last year; and the acknow-
ledgments of the board must now be tendered for the reso-
lutions which were almost unanimously passed on that oc-
casion. So long as the board enjoys the kind support it
has met with, its operative energy and anxious desire to
promote the prosperity of the Conservative Land Society
will remain unimpaired.

goes on :

THE SPEECH 01 MORDINI IN THE
MALIAN PARLIAMENT.

Of all the speeches delivered in the debate with
which the present meeting of the Italian Parlia-
ment has opened, the one of Antonio Mordini, the
member for Palermo, is by far the most important,
and has been the most effective. We shall enable
our readers to form the best idea of the facts of the
case, and of the present state of feeling in Italy, by
presenting them with the substance of this speech.
The historical facts recalled are important; white
the tone which marks the language, and the anxious
demand for the stability and sanctity of the law,
are hopeful signs for the future of Italy. The fre-
quent reference made to English example gives the
speech a special interest for Englishmen.
After a modest reference to his personal position,
Mordini says :
" Buoncompagni told you that Aspromonte was
a cause of mourning for the nation. I fully agree
in this; and I add, that if the day of Aspromonte
was a cause of mourning for the nation, it was a day
of triumph for the foreigner.
" That foreigner looks to-day more fixedly upon
us than commonly ; and I think I am not wrong in
believing that he would like to see, to-day, in this
Hall of Italian Legislation and of National Liberty,
the fatal day of Aspromonte continued by violent
disputes.
" Gentlemen, the fears and hopes of Italy are
concentrated here; and towards this place the at.
tention of the world is turned. I ant-certain that,
at a time when in Europe the tendency of govern-
ments is shown to attack the spirit of representative
institutions, and to destroy the independence of par-
liaments, a radiant example will go out from Italy,
which will give heart to the friends of political
liberty, and will give to our country the place
which, in the constitutional life of nations, de-
servedly belongs to her.
"Some of our opponents think they can forge
arms against us, by citing the example of England,
the classical land of respect for the constituted

powers. And the fact is true; and of all the titles
of honour which deservedly belong to the people of
the United Kingdom, this is certainly not, the least
beautiful, not the least great. But I do not hear,
joined to that citation, a satisfactory explanation of
the fact. When I search for this, with her history
in my hand, I find that the respect for the authori-
ties in England has been generated, and is main-

tained, by the conviction of the people that the con-
stituted authorities are the principal enemies to any
kind of arbitrary measures.
" England shows you, gentlemen, most remark-
able instances of kings, of ministers, of high func.

ionaries, and of lower agents, accused and sen

tenced for arbitrary measures, for illegality, for
want of constitutionality. It can be said that, in
England, each political and individual right has, in
turn, received a penal sanction. Hence it is, that
the English citizen from his early youth knows
that the authorities respect him, that they will not
subject him to arbitrary measures; and, if they
attempt this, that they will be punished imme-
diately and in an exemplary way. Therefore he
lives in safety. And therefore he respects the au-
thorities, because he knows that he is himself re-
spected by them."

Mordini then contrasts the state of things and of
feeling with the state of things and of feeling that
exists in many states of continental Europe. He

"As long as Italy shall not be governed by the

law, do not hope to see representative institutions
firmly established. As long as all the citizens, from
the highest to the lowest, from the most renowned
to the most obscure, have not the certainty of en-
joying, without disturbance, their individual rights,
of exercising all their political rights, the position
of our state will remain precarious. It is necessary
that the new generation should be brought up in
Luc love ui, atm respect tor, the authorities. it is
necessary that, with the fall of those who had the
misfortune of being educated under the rule of des-
potism, the remembrance of arbitrary measures
should fall and be lost.

"The Chamber has a most noble duty, the duty
of controlling the different powers of the state, and
the duty of repressing them when they overstep
their constitutional limits.

"The Sub-Alpine (Piedmontese) Chamber has
given many examples of wisdom and independence,
and there is one which deserves to be remembered
in the first session of the Chamber of the Italian
Kingdom.
" An Italian of the old provinces, after having
been an exile for liberty and because of his own
struggles for liberty, and after having raised and
held high the name of Italy in distant countries
beyond the seas, had, in 1848, with a heroism rather
unique than rare, led the enthusiastic youth against
the enemies of the country, to struggles unequal
indeed but crowned by glory. Rome fallen, and
the Roman republic destroyed by French bayonets,
that Italian, coming unhurt out of the walls of the
Eternal City, attempted to rouse the populations of
the Central Appenines against the Austrians. Dis-
astrous marches, unheard of privations, hard battles,
compelled him to disband his diminished ranks.
Then, with desperate resolution, he entrusted him-
self and a few followers on the Romagnole coasts of
the Adriatic to frail boats, asking from the sea the
good fortune denied to him by the land. He sailed
towards the city of the lagunes, Venice, which still
resisted the Austrians with the gallantry of old, in
spite of cholera, famine, and fire. Threatened by
hostile ships, and driven to the land, he found him-
self alone in the marshes of Ravenna. Here he re-
ceived the last breath of his faithful wife, the vic-
tim of excessive fatigue. He buried her honoured
remains, and taking the staff of the pilgrim arrived
in Liguria, the land of liberty. It is superfluous,
gentlemen, to tell you the name of that man. It is
Giuseppe Garibaldi, born at Nice, that most faith-
ful town of the kingdom of Sardinia. Returned to
his country, he was arrested by order of the minis-
try at Turin, that same ministry which, two months
later, arrested and imprisoned the honourable Sir-
tori, and expelled the patriot Dr. Pietro Maestri,
our honourable colleague Guerrieri, and myself.
" General Garibaldi was transported to Genoa,
where General Alphonso Lamarmora administered
public affairs as Commisi_oner Extraordinary. Oa
the 10th of Sept., 1849, there was an elaborate and
animated discussion in the Sub-Alpine Chambers,
upon a petition from the Delegate Council of
Chiavari, which protested, in energetic terms,
against the violation of the article 26 of the Consti-
tution to the injury of Giuseppe Garibaldi. The
ministry of that day fearlessly maintained that
Giuseppe Garibaldi, a Sardinian subject, having
fought for Italian liberty at Rome, which was fo-
reign ground, without the permission of his own
government, had been arrested rightly and deserv-
edly, and that he would be rightly and deservedly
expelled from the ancient provinces.
" Against this doctrine, there rose and eloquently
spoke distinguished deputies. By fulness of argu-
ment, by power of language, my friend the honour-
able Brofferio commanded attention as usual; and
the honourable Lanza, and the honourable Rattazzi,

•
and Depretis. And the honourable Tecchio, the

noble representative of so ardently desired Venice,
our worthy President, had the honour of closing
that memorable discussion with an order of the day,
which faithfully expressed the liberal feelings of
the Sub-Alpine Chamber ; an order of the day which
was adopted by a great majority, and which, with

your permission, I shall read :
" The Chamber, declaring that the arrest of
Gen. Garibaldi, and the threat of his expulsion from
Piedmont, are violations of the rights consecrated
by the Constitution, and of the national feeling, and
of Italian glory, passes to the order of the day.'
" An assembly which thus speaks, and thus votes,
gentlemen, is secure that its memory will remain
imperishable in the history of the nation.
Let us now return to our days, to 1862.
Three members of the Parliament are ar-

PRICE..... -...4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

rested, towards the end of August, at Naples ;
where the General Lamarmora, in the quality of
Commissioner Extraordinary, administers public
affairs, as he did at Genoa in 1849, They are
arrested and retained for forty days in the Castel
Nuevo, up till the time when the amnesty was pro-
claimed, as to which my honourable friends Fabrizzi,
Calvin° and myself, declare that it does not concern
us in any way." '
Mordini goes fully intnthe facts attending and
following the arrest'; ib)e contradictory pretexts
set up, to excuse it, by Lamarmora and by Rat-
tazzi ; and the non arrival at its destination of
either of the protests sent, by the arrested mem-
bers, to the President and to the Vice-President
of the Chamber. Carefully, 'and calmly he points
out that neither by the letter nor, the spirit of the
civil law can the arrest be justified; and that no
interpretation that can be put upon the. language
of the written and binding statutes of the Constitu-
tion can cover the transaction from illegality at
every stage. He then continues as follows :
" General Lamarmora, versed in the art of _wan
but little familiar with the science of Jaw, has com-
mitted an act unknown in the annals of free nations;
and if we try tot.seek precedents, we must go back
to coups creed, He acted wrongly, whether he
ordered the arrest or obeyed ministerial orders ;
just as the Ministers acted wrongly, whether they
ordered or only approved the urea of the three
deputies.
"Gentlemen, with such precedent#, liberty will
not be established in Italy, and- constitutional. life
will remain a dream. And if such a system of
arbitrary measures and illegality is to be sanctioned,
who can tell that what has happened to us yester-

day may not happen to morroWto yon. Once be

gun, arbitrary measures, more or less disguised, will
reign in Italy, and our country will become the prey
to passions and civil struggles.
" Having demonstrated that there was no act
done by us which could justify cur arrest, I now
intend to show that it cannot be justified by the
state of siege.
" I ask, first, can the law and public liberties be
suspended ? Who has the right to suspend them ?
What does the state of siege mean ? It sets up the
rule of force, silencing all civil authorities, confound-
ing all the powers in the State, suspending all
liberty. Whatever power in the State would issue
such a decree must openly violate the constitution.
I think it will not be superfluous to throw a rapid
glance on the examples given in this respect by
two great nations, France and England.
"In the constitutional times of France the right
of declaring the state of siege belonged solely to the
legislative power. The executive had it during the
prorogation, but with the obligation at once to con-
voke parliament. In 1832, two royal orders put a
portion of La Vendee under the state of siege ; a
third order extended it to Paris. According to these
orders, the military tribunals were invested with
the right of trying civilians. Some of those con-
demned by the military courts appealed to the Court
of Cessation of Paris, maintaining the incompati-
bility of the state of siege with the French Charter
of 1830, which, like our constitution, requires that
no citizen shall be withdrawn from his natural
judges. The Court of Cessation pronounced a very

clear decision, by which it annulled the sentences
appealed against. That decision had such moral
effect on the public, and it so much alarmed the
ministry, that Paris was immediately released from
the state of siege_
In England, the Petition of Rights of 1628, in

the ninth section, contains the following words:—
' This commission for martial law, and all others of
like nature, are wholly and directly contrary to the

,aws and statutes of this realm.'

"Throughout the debates on that Petition of
Rights, and on the amendment to it proposed by
the House of Lords, for saving the rovaLprprnan.
Live, toe wnoie question was,—` Can the Being, by
proclamation or decree, supersede the law of the
land, and set up martial law ? ' And the emphatic
answer was,—' The King cannot'
"It is a fact well worthy of attention, and which
deserves that Italian statesmen should devote to it
their most careful thoughts, that, during the whole
time of the civil wars that began several years after-
wards in England, martial law was never pro-
claimed; but, notwithstanding the actual presence
of contending armies, the ordinary courts of law
went on, as usual, respected by both parties. It is
in this manner liberty is understood in England;
and mark, that in those times and those places
people fought fiercely.
"According to English constitutional institu-

tions it is utterly and absolutely repugnant to every
principle that martial law shall be proclaimed in
any part of the kingdom without the express sanc-
tion of Parliament ; and nothing can be more un-
constitutional than the pretence that the ordinary
course of the law can be thereby superseded.
" The very first declaration of the Bill of Rights
of 1689, in denunciation of King James the Second,
stigmatises his endeavour to subvert the laws and

liberties of the kingdom by assuming a power of
suspending the laws and dispensing with their
observance. Statutes of the present reign might be
cited in this matter; but what I have now said
seems sufficient. We, gentlemen, must imitate this
example of England, if we wish to live and die in
freedom ; for, as that most celebrated of English
lawyers, Lord Coke, said, in the discussion about
the Petition of Rights, ' the greatest inheritance a
man hath is the liberty of his person."

Mordini proceeds to show that there is nothing
in the constitutional law of Italy that can justify
the proclamation of the state of siege without the
consent of Parliament He then goes on :
" Gentlemen, you see that the want of all legis-
lative and judicial sanction for the state of siege,
and the absence of all precedents, ought to have
kept the Ministers from such a measure. They
_ _

should have remembered that the constitution is
inviolable; that even Parliament has only those
rights which are attributed to it by the constitution.
They ought to have remembered that, according to
the second article of the constitution, the executive

may issue decrees and regulations for the execution
of the laws ; but it cannot suspend the laws.
" But when the public weal is threatened, when
there is a danger for the very existence of the State,
this gives, according to some, the excuse of a ne-

cessity for the state of siege.
"But I deny, most emphatically, such a necessity.
It is nothing else but polittcal empiricism. The
executive is more thee sufficiently provided with
legal means for facing any extraordinary state of
things in Italy, without violating the constitution,
and recurring to those exceptional measures which,
sooner or later, lead to unavoidable ruin.
" Machiavelli, who knew something of the affairs
of state, said • Measures taken in an extraordinary
way, and not in the regular course of the law, - (In
harm to the commonwealth.' And again :
It is
always wroug to govern by exceptional laws,
if they should succeed for the time, since tbhefecgo evenmeoe
ample itself does harm, and when people
accustomed to break the law, under pretence
ends, the pretext gets a colour when it is wantedotdO
break them for bad ends.'

44 And since Nicole Machiavelli, there has been
another statesman, so much lamented in these last
times; a statesman who was in the Ministry when
the town and province of Sassari were put under
the state of siege. But when the kingdom of Sar-
dinia was transformed into the kingdom of Italy,
he rejected the idea of proclaiming the state of siege.
He rejected it on his death-bed. To the monarchy
which he had served so faithfully, Cavour left, as a
legacy, the advice never to proclaim the state of
siege.

" I do not deny that the state of siege may, for a
while,establish calmness in the streets and market-
places of a town, but in the hearts of the people it
kindles the fire of hatred.
After some application of what has been thus

IN V 31, c_t T 1 A v),
`argued to the facts before the eitepkb, t •
thus closes his very able speech
" Gentlemen; you who have iol:l4'cifak Jr,
vinces among your electors, yottal„. *.
flood of discontent with the presetif:Min
rising daily bi;her and higher. Whatlillallasays-
of Lombardy, that rich, populous, patriotic, heroic
province, where the Ministry could not find one ;
single friend P What of Tvecany, that most noble
and refined province, which has .become the key-
.3
stone of Italy, and which now cannot retrain from
openly expressing her indignation and griefs What
of the Southern provinces, where arbitrary mea-
sures and endless illegalities have destroyed indivi-
dual liberty—where Bourbonites of the worst kind
are listened to, coaxed, rewarded, and employed by
the Ministry, whilst, on the other hand, people are
arrested and shot without a shadow of legal pro-
ceedings P Is it in such a way that Italy is to be
made one ? It seems as if an evil genius had spread
its wings over those unhappy Im...winces.
" Gentlemen, the disapprobation of the Cabinet
is universal throughout Italy. The Ministry has
altogether lost its authority. The country is die-
heartened. Anarchy is spreading. The nation has
lost hope. Let us speak of things as they are; and
I appeal to aridly colleagues who have been in the
provinces.
" I have perhaps to hastily said that the nation
has lost all hope. One hope remains—the trust in
Parliament. But the nation eXpeets from Parlia-
ment a great deed—to redeem its atitbority. She
expects that Parliament will be the aseertor ofjus-
ticei the fulfiller of law. It is from Parliament
that 'thicountry waits anxiously - for the word of 1
life or death."
The speech was listened to,throughout with the
meet marked Attention, and warm applause greeted
the speaker from all parts of the Chamber when he
sat down. •

AMERICAN FINANCE.`
AFIVIO,O* • 42etstiLi
If the experience of the past id n-oc,teaeb. US UMW Witt
can be serried on by a nation despite an embi:rrassed condi-
tion of its finances, the world might look for a b'peedy ter-
mination of the strife in America. We last week gkrre the
latest financial statements of both North and South. A re-
markable family likeness is displayed in their financial sys-
tems, which may be described as one of borrowing much
and taxing little. We do not know what the taxes to be laid
will produce; we can only see what taxation has hitherto
produced. The Federal :accounts are made up to June,
1862. The receipts from taxation are composed of four
items :

Customs £9,811,279
Direct Tax
Sale of# Public Lands 30,441
Incidental 186,358

Total £10,387,144
Raised by loans of various kinds 105,938,492

£116,325,636
Consequently, in round numbers, the revenue from taxa.
tion did not amount to one-tenth of the sums received from
loans for the year ending June 30, 1862, and after all this
enormous borrowing the balance remaining in hand was but
£2,608,709.
The Confederate accounts are made up to Aug. 1, 1862.
Their receipts from taxation were—
Customs £287,479
War tax
Miscellaneous

£2,790,415
Raised by loans of various descriptions 57,720,623

Total Z 0,511,038
Thus, their receipts from taxation were not 1-20th of those
derived from loans, and instead of a balance in hand there
was an excess of expenditure over receipts of £8,943,553•
So far, then, as the accounts show, the Confederate finances
were in a more desperate state than those of the Federals,
although the expenditure of the latter is nearly double that
of the former, the one being stated at £114,168,340, and the
other at £69,454,591.
As friends of peace, we would fain hope we may discern

in this state of the finances of both contending parties a pro-
spect of a termination of the war from the impossibility of
continuing it. The system pursued is really that of dis-
counting taxation for many years to come. Now, this may
be done for one year—and, very possibly, for two ; but
then a collapse would become imminent. In a country so
rich in material resources as America, we can easily ima-
gine the producers, whether of corn, clothing, iron, lead,
leather, or other commodities, being willing to exchange
them, to a very large extent, for Government loans or bank
notes. We can also imagine banks and the moneyed inte-
rest doing the same with their surplus or unemployed funds,
but the process cannot go on for ever, inasmuch as these
very intrests wiil thsmsplvsK tAai u money oraer
to reproduce, and this accounts in part for the large pre-
mium which exists on gold.

The fact that the Federals and Confederates have been
able to raise in one year no less an aggregate sum than
£173,622,931, shows in a striking manner how rich America
had become in material resources, and how great an effort
both North and South have made to crush each other in a
single campaign; but it is becoming doubtful whether an
equal effort can be repeated. -Indeed, it is perfectly clear
that it cannot be repeated without additional taxation; and
it must be borne in mind that additional taxation in itself
lessens the power of lending. Yet the present amount of
taxation is not more than enough to cover the high rate of
interest which both Federals and Confederates have to pay
for the loans already raised.
It is reasonable to believe therefore that the reaction of
public feeling in America, clearly indicated by the elec-
tions, has been brought about by the conviction that if the
war is to be continued on its present scale, permanent taxa,
tion to an amount that would seriously affect all incomes
must be levied. War is always popular at first. With all
our bitter experience and all our sufferings from it, we know
how eager the multitude ever is to rush into it, without
counting the cost. It is the same in Europe as in America ;
but when the bill has to be paid, we know also how strong
the reaction is, and how fervently peace is sighed for. Is
this reaction now commencing in America ? is a very im-
portant question. Although the proposition of the French
Emperor seems to be yet premature, and it is satisfactory
to know that England declined to join in it, America,
both North and South, will seriously discuss it, and will,
perhaps, from financial exhaustion soon become more-in-
clined to listen to pacific counsels. There is at least some
room to hope that when they hear the almost universal
opinion of Europe, and learn that there is no desire or ap-
pearance of coercion, the advocates of compromise may
find themselves better able to gain a hearing.