The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.-At least two very clever and telling
speeches were made on Monday night, and if they
never went beyond the shores of this island we
should not regret that they had been made. But
we do regret that Mr. Forster and Mr. Bright
should address themselves, in effect, not so much to
the British House of Commons, or to their fellow-
subjects, as to that part of the population of the
United States which Mr. Bright tells us is continu-
ally augmented from Irish and European discontent.
We cannot conceive what patriotic purpose is to be
answered by laboured arguments aiming to prove
that the British Government, independent British
statesmen, and the British Press have shown
throughout this American war a systematic and
mischievous; partiality to' the Confederate cause,
have wilfully mistaken the Federal words and deeds,
and have even contributed to lengthen the war and
multiply its horrors. As to the British public they
are too well informed to take blindfold from these
avowed Federal partisans their version of long and
complicated histories, their summing up of difficult
questions, their judgment upon controversies and
characters, and their suspicions, or rather their
sentences, for these are Judges who no sooner sus-
pect than they proceed to denounce, to convict, and
to condemn. Mr. Bright begins his story four years
ago. Had he begun earlier, he would have had to
observe that we lamented the rebellion as much as
he could, and that we stigmatized very severely the
Mode in which it had been commenced. He prefers,
however, to date from May 44, 1861; when, as he
says, the former Minister at our Court had declined
to undertake anything of importance, and the new
Minister got out of bed for the first time in London,
and on coming down to breakfast read in the
papers, to his surprise and confusion, a Proclama-
tion of neutrality, acknowledging the belligerent
rights of the South. The effect, he says, was to
afford great comfort to Richmond, and to grieve
all Americans who wished to be at peace with
us. 'We will take the liberty of adding some
particulars which we conceive to be necessary to
the appreciation of this outline. At the date in
question, the war was raging with a breadth and
intensity which already foreshadowed its terrible
course. Of course Sumter had fallen, Mr. Lincoln
had called for 140,000 soldiers and 18,000 sailors,
besides more ships and more material. Both sides
had issued tenders for loans to the amount of a hun-
dred or two millions of dollars. The blockade had
begun at all the Southern ports, and the Federal
papers announced that not a Confederate keel would
be left afloat. The British public were expressing
its astonishment at the gigantic efforts already made
by both sides. Various plans of invasions by sea
and land were discussed in the American papers,
marvellously anticipating what has been actually
done. It was already believed that the Federals
were purchasing not only material, but ships, in this
country. Already there had been negotiation and
public discussion on most of the questions that have
arisen during the war ; and we had immediately to

say what course we meant to take as to the British
ships, British subjects, or British goods captured or
maltreated by either side in the attempt to enter
American ports. At this juncture, not a day too
soon for the complexities arising, and at a time when
the Confederates were demanding their recognition
as an independent State, and when the Federals had
already perforce acknowledged their belligerent
rights, we did neither more nor less than the Fede-
rals had done themselves. The Proclamation was
an invariable formality. It so happens that the only
thing remarkable in this instance wts the emphatic
denunciation of the public crime of supplying the
belligerents with ships and munitions of war. But
the whole proceeding was a matter of course, and a
necessity which could not be delayed a day. Then,
what has Mr. Bright to say against it ? We ought,
it seems, to have waited for the arrival of the new
Minister, to have asked his opinion as to the course
proper for us to take, and discussed the matter freely
with him. Is it possible that Mr. Bright has at-
tempted to realise such a proceeding ? If Lord Rus-
sell had but put the question, " Mr. Adams, what do
you do with the rebels you make prisoners ?" the
answer must have precluded further discussion—
that is, if any answer had been given. Mr. Adams,
however, it is quite possible, might have replied
that he would write to his Government for informa-
tion on that point, and the correspondence, once
begun, might have been kept up in that candid,
peaceful, and reasonable style which Mr. Bright so
much admires to this day. So, again, in the affair
of the Trent. We ought, it seems, to have done no-
thing whatever but talk to Mr. Adams and write to
Washington. But Mr. Bright admits, on his own
showing, that the act was not authorised by the
United States Government, and that they, were
fully aware that they were bound to give up the
Confederate Envoys. Why, then, did that Govern-
ment, which in the meantime had approved the act
of Commodere Wilkes, fail to do at once what they
ought to do ? Why did they wait till they heard the
indignation excited in this country, and the practi-
cal steps taken to give weight to our demands ?
They must have waited a long time with the illegal
capture in their hands, if they could at last allege
our indignation as a reason for waiting still longer,
and resisting justice more obstinately. Had the mat-
ter been left to the issue of an argument on inter-
national law carried on across the Atlantic, and had
fever, or some such accident as that which befell the
Florida, overtaken the unhappy envoys as they
pined in gaol, Mr. Bright himself :must have felt a
touch of that repenting which he ascribes to the
British Legislature upon the present turn of Ameri-
can affairs. We have left ourselves but little room
for our own case withthese gentlemen. Mr. Forster,
we are sorry to tell so amiable a gentleman, has
committed a double inaccuracy. He charges us with
asserting positively that, on the restoration of peace,
Federals and Confederates will join to invade Canada,
and with wishing that the war may last. We neither
made the assertion nor expressed the wish. We should
doubt if there be one single person in this island who
does wish the war to last a day longer than can be
helped. Before Mr. Forster rises again in Parlia-
ment for the purpose of describing to the American
public the opinions and sentiments of his own
fellow-subjects: as to this war—before he contri-
butes more fuel to those angry feelings which he
admits to exist there, and which he proclaims to be
dangerous, let him qualify himself for the odious task
by a lesson or two in the exactness of speech. We
do not assert, and never have asserted, that the two
belligerents will unite to invade Canada. We only
state as truly as we can the apparent intention, and
just inference, in the numerous documents, speeches,
and articles in the files of American papers before us.
Mr. Bright says, indeed, that the population of New
York is nothing, and the newspapers of largest cir-
culation there are nothing. We wish we could think
so, but we cannot. There is a continual threat ; we
cannot shut our eyes and stop our ears to such a
threat, nor can we ignore it in these columns. Mr.
Bright tells us that the English Press was mistaken
on American affairs, and is trying to back out of its
mistakes. We admit that we have been mistaken
about American affairs, but it has been in a sense
exactly the contrary to that which he imputes to us.
We certainly have greatly under-estimated the re-
sources the courage, and the tenacity of the South.
When the war began .we did not expect the South
would be able to offer so determined a resistance to
its opponents ; we thought that the immense forces
which the North was able to bring into the field
must necessarily break through the weaker line of
their opponents. We could not appreciate—and we
are not ashamed of having been deceived—the long
series of bloody battles which have compelled such a
succession of Northern Generals and armies to yield
to the prowess of a weak and despised enemy. We
thought that the Southern line would have been
speedily broken through ; that the principal cities of
the Confederacy would probably fall into the hands
of the invaders, and that Northern armies would
have been able to traverse almost at will the terri-
tories which supply the materials of rebellion. These
things are now beginning to come to pass, only they
have come to pass much later and in a much less de-
gree than we had anticipated; but then we thought,
and still think, that the real dangers and difficulties of
the contest will begin. These territories are too vast to
be occupied, and the elements of rebellion they conia'm
are too rife to be left to themselves. They may be
penetrated in every direction, but we do not see how
they are to be held or subdued. It remains to be
seen whether we are wrong in these anticipations.
When we are shown to be so, it will be time to taunt
us with our mistakes, and, considering the confi-
dent assurances of immediate victory which have
been uttered by the so-called friends of the North
ever since the beginning of a war which has already
lasted four years, we do not see who is to cast the
first stone at us. At any rate, we are not yet con-
vinced of our error, and need something more than
Mr. Bright's oracular assertion to prove it.

POST.—The bill which has been introduCed into
Parliament by the Home Secretary for the regula-
tion of convict discipline has not made its appearance
a moment too early. That some systematised at-
tempts must be made to deal with the subject the
public was convinced long ago, and is only anxious
that whatever steps are taken in the matter should
be such as it will not be necessary to retrace. To
retrace all the details of the various codes of regula-
tions now in force would be alike useless and weari-
some. The grand fact is patent that prison discip-
line should be uniform and regular if it is to answer
its two great ends of punishment and of reformation,
and that in England at present it is neither the one
nor the other. We are probably speaking within tfie
mark when we assert that in no three prisons are the
rules laid down for the guidance of the governor
identically the same, and that, even then, consider-
able latitude in their interpretation is allowed them-
selves by the visiting justices. The diet, the labour,
the hours, the punishments for infraction of rules
and for insubordination, are all varied. • There are
many gaols the constituted authorities of which will
only order corporal punishment under circumstances
which amount to the practical discontinuance of
that wholesome punishment altogether. There are
some few in which the last is too readily applied. It
is natural that the criminal classes, always keenly
alive to any stratagem for avoiding the terrors of
the law, should speedily discover the anomaly, and
use their discovery, as they must unquestionably
do, to secure for themselves comparative impunity
from the consequences of their lawless pursuits.
There is another consideration also which has to
be taken into account, and that is the steady in-
crease which we must expect to take place in the
number of those. with whom we shall have hence-
forth to deal. We have long ceased to hang our
dangerous classes in batches. We are about to dis-
continue the practice of " shooting our rubbish "
elsewhere. In other words, unless we make up our
minds to face all the horrors of a purely penal set-
tlement, we must be prepared to provide for the re-
ception of a far larger number of the worst ruffians
than'we have hitherto been called upon to accom-
modate, and to know also that the great proportion
of them will have, at the expiration of their several
sentences, to be absorbed in the rest of the com-
munity. There is, accordingly, a double incentive to
see that we make a prison life, in the first place, 'as
repulsive an idea as we possibly can to the criminal
classes outside its walls ; and in the second place,
as far as is practicable, of a reformatory character
for those who are once inside them. That this can
never be done without adequate accommodation, as
well as adequate supervision, ought to be obvious to
the merest tyro in the art of felon-taming. Such a
gaol, for instance, as Coldbath-fields Prison, reflects,
in spite of all the exertions of an able, active, and
intelligent head, indelible disgrace upon the county
of Middlesex, in which it acts, in many respects, as a
simple nursery of crime. What possible effectual
superintendence can be given to between two and
three hundred scoundrels, grouped in one large dor-
mitory, by a couple of officers, compelled to breathe
the fetid air of such a chamber for eight hours at a
time, seated on high stools, constructed so as to
counteract, as far as possible, the irrepressible ten-
dency to sleep under such circumstances ? How is
communication to be cut off, or contaminating in-
fluences to be avoided, if one labour-yard is to re-
ceive its hundreds, one dining-room its fifties, one
workshop its scores, at a time ? The simple truth
is, that order, discipline, and classification, such as
ought to exist in our prisons, are impossible under
such conditions ; and that the failure of the system
rests, not upon those hard-worked officials who do
their best under the drawbacks with which they are
surrounded, but upon those who permit such cir-
cumstances to remain unchanged. We are quite sure
that, in the case of the Middlesex County Prison,
the executive themselves are not altogether free
from blame, and that prisoners are not unfrequently
to be found there who ought to have been transferred
at an earlier period to a Government establishment.

But we have taken only what is perhaps the
strongest instance of an anomaly which is unhap-
pily prevalent, that we may show what consequences
may result from the want of such provisions as the
new bill proposes to enact. In round numbers, We
must reckon to have to deal in the county pris.c.e
of England with an average of something nit?
twenty thousand offenders, and ought, perhaps, lu
order to be prepared for emergencies, to be able to
house about five thousand more, if required. Eal
of these prisoners ought to have a separate place ();
confinement, if a trison is to be really a place 0'
punishment for the present, and of but
refor
mation for the future. Not only so, but those whe,
are sentenced to be kept to hard labour she'll"
know at once what their sentence means, and, ee
experience proves, should be made aware that they,
will have to undergo, as a rule, a very different!
kind of penalty under this head from that WitU
which too many of them have hitherto been familiar'
Both of these points are dealt with satisfactorilii
enough in the bill of the Home Secretary ; and' t
it passes in its present shape through Parliameli.;
little will have been left to be wished for in
respect. There will probably be more difficulty With
regard to diet. The recommendations which weir`,,
e'
circulated upon this head about a year ago bytu
Home-office, excellent as the suggestions were thee-,
retically, are understood not to have been receive
with favour. They threw an enormous, and able
an overwhelming amount of responsibility upon ".
shoulders of the prison surgeon, whose certificate was
necessary for the due classification of the prisones.
They materially complicated the internal arrangel
ments, and would have rendered indispensable a co:,
siderable increase in the staff of each prison ; anus
they were therefore generallyunacceptable to vario,
'boards of visiting justices. There is according ,1;
little chance of the general adoption of the scale "J
the courts of quarter session, as the Home Seere:
tary seems to wish and hope. We think, therefor',
that this portion of the bill will probably require
modification, and that some simpler and less cclio3;
plicated machinery must be substituted for that
which has been recommended by the pieta
authorities who were empowered to report upon h is
system. This is, however, the only blot Now net
likely to be hit in a scheme which, even if it does _t
recommend itself in all its bearings to the judginei,u
of every individual prison reformer, ought to
hailed by him as a step made in advance towarbuie
the establishment of uniformity of system. Va-luaded
as local self-government is, it is always atten,
Dg
with the drawback of diversity of opinions resin
in diversity of action. This was comparatively 1.111,1
limportant while we had an easy method of gettingtr;
of our criminals, but becomes a very serious Inn 3
when such facilities no longer exist. It is iliflced
case in which individual fancies must be sacr
for a common good, and that good can only be.,,°st
tamed by the mutual concessions which musttirlll
the bottom of all comprehensive measures. It
erio
be something if a question which so nearly conech
the welfare of all can be settled in a session Welts
promises to be singularly bare of political res
properly so called.