The Sun.
London, England, 1865-09-27 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—When the people of the Northern States
elected Mr. Lincoln for the second time they were
moved by a happy impulse to choose as the second
magistrate of the country Andrew Johnson, of
Tennessee. The office of Vice-President is in itself
of little importance, and though on two former
occasions a Vice-President has succeeded to the
government of the Republic through the death of
his superior, we may presume that the expectation
of Mr. Johnson's accession to the higher office was
hardly present to the mind of any one of those two
millions of electors. Those who chose him wished
to pay a compliment to the most energetic and
zealous among the few Southern men who had re-
mained faithful to the Federal cause, and it may
have seemed to them that by electing a Tennesseean
they declared emphatically the non-severance of a
seceded State from the Union. But the great crime
of April last has given supreme power to the poli-
tician who otherwise would have filled for the next
four years the dignified but powerless office of
President of the Senate. All parties were startled
at this sudden change of men, and there were pro-
bably few but the most extreme who looked on it
without alarm. Mr. Johnson must now receive
the credit of having disarmed groundless fears and
disappointed extravagant hopes. We cannot tell
what thoughts have passed through his shrewd and
energetic mind during these five months of unex-
pected rule, how much he may owe to the sobering
responsibilities of his high office, how much to the
counsels of two or three able men who have been
schooled to government amid the difficulties and
calamities of the war, how much to his own.
Southern extraction, and to the fellow-feeling
which he avows for the seceders in everything but
their Secession. But, whatever the motives which
influence his policy, the Americans have found in
Mr. Johnson an able and successful magistrate.
Mr. Lincoln is said to have meditated in the last
days of his life a large amnesty and the restoration
of the South to its due place in the Union. When
he fell it was not unnaturally thought in America
that a sterner rule was to be instituted, and the zea-
lots of the Republican party hastened to accept Mr.
Johnson as their leader, with the hope, perhaps,
that they might use him as their tool. These expec-
tations have, however, vanished. Within a month
after the President's accession to office his leaning
towards a moderate policy began to appear, and
though it was received with marked disappointment
by a strong party of his own supporters, the effect
of it on the conquered South was so favourable and
tranquillising that he has persevered in it, and it
may be expected to characterise his whole term of
office. There is no one on this side the Atlantic who
will fail to rejoice at the prospects which this policy
opens to the newly cemented Union. The Ameri-
cans, with the suppleness of a young people, are
adapting themselves to their altered conditions.
The Southerner who has fought so fiercely for dis-
union no sooner finds it impossible than he rises
from the ground where the superior might of his
enemy has prostrated him, bandages up his wounds,
cakes off his tattered uniform, burns his Confede-
rate colours, and walks to the polling-booth to put
in his ballot as he would have done before secession.
The only true philosophy is to look upon the past as
something with which we have no more to do, and
to treat the present moment as the first of a new
existence. The Southerners appear to be anxious to
draw a pen through the history of the last five years,
and to take up the Union where they left it. This
is not entirely possible, since during this time a great
revolution—the emancipation of the negroes—has
broken the framework of society. But this the
Southerners accept with a readiness remarkable even
in Americans, and ask almost with unanimity that
the Union shall be restored on its old footing. They
profess loyalty to it, and declare, doubtless with sin-
cerity, that they have no treasonable afterthought
in demanding a restitution of their civil rights.
Whether these rights should be restored ; how
far the Southern States should be permitted self-
government ; what should be the interference of the
Federal Government in the relations between white
and black ; whether some organic law on negro
suffrage should be passed and enforced over the
who le Union ; when the military force which now
mai▪
ntains order should be withdrawn—are ques-
tions on which men widely differ at the North,
and they will be for some time to come the chief
subjects of party strife. But we think Mr. John-
son, in his liberal treatment of the South in all
these matters, shows political wisdom and a true
appreciation of the differences which have divided
the two sections of the Republic. The principles
whi▪
ch he enounced in his speech to the Southern
delegation at Washington the other day are con-
sistent both with his former acts and his present
Polley. They are simply that the Union must be
maintained at all hazards, by any means, and
against any men or party, -but that, the Union

once secured, the rights and political independ-
ence of the States are the best guarantees of na-
tional prosperity. Slavery is gone, and the re-
bellion is over. This being the case, the restora-
tion of all the States to their former relations
with each other and with the Federal Government
is desirable. " While I dreaded and feared dis-
integration of the States," says the President,
" I am equally opposed to consolidation or con-
centration of power here, under whatever guise or
name they bear ; and if the issue is forced upon
us I shall endeavour to pursue the same efforts to
dissuade from this doctrine running to extremes,
but I say let the same rules be applied. Let the
Constitution be our guide. Let the preservation
of that and the Union of States be our principal
aim." This theory undoubtedly tends to give the
South an earlier and larger possession of political
power than is thought safe even by moderate
men of the Republican party. But we think that
the confidence of the President, and the bold
liberality of his policy, are not likely to be in
vain. The secession of the Southern States was
the natural termination of a condition of things
which had its origin in the foundation of the Re-
public. The jealousy between North and South,
which deepened at last into hatred on the part
of the latter, had several causes, the chief being
the existence of slavery in one region and the at-
tacks upon it in another, and, furthermore, the
anger with which the Southern States found their
proportionate importance yearly diminished by the
stream of emigration which continually flowed into
the more temperate regions of the North. The first
of these causes exists no longer ; and as to the
second the South must every year become more
powerless to give effect to any chagrin it may cause.
The chief grounds of quarrel are removed, and those
that remain are henceforth innocuous. The worst
evil the Federal Government can fear is that the
Southerners, in their political intercourse with the
North, may become factious and
.perverse. This,
indeed, is not unlikely; but it is an inconvenience
which can well be borne, and which is sure to de-
crease with time. All the better instincts of the
people will be against carrying on a war of words or
of votes when the war of weapons has failed, and
they will surely find their interest in submitting
cheerfully to the destiny which has linked them for
ever to the Northern States. After all, it is no
grievous doom to form part of the American Union,
even though State patriotism may be vexed by the
insignificant part which Virginia and South Caro-
lina must play in comparison with the time when
they were leading republics in the Union. Presi-
dent Johnson probably sees that both necessity and
interest bid the conquered States to be loyal, and
for this reason restores to each of them its in-
stitutions, and to its citizens their liberties and
property.
HERALD.—The Annual Wreck Register is one of
the saddest and most suggestive of official docu-
ments. Many an ower true tale of death and doom,
of dreadful danger and fearful fate, is told in the
few dry and formal sentences by which the com-
pilers of the Register record the loss of gallant ship
and well-built barque in the stormy seas that wash
our island home. By increased precautions and
vigilant supervision we have been able, in many cases,
to reduce the risks of those engaged in dangerous
occupations on shore. Our coal and iron miners
work amid fewer perils than those which every
moment threatened their grandfathers. Labour
limitation acts have kept alive myriads of factory
workers who, under the system of laissez-faire poli-
tical economists, would long ago have been in their
graves. We have done away with climbing boys, and
mitigated the old enormities of bleaching-grounds.
But it is not in our power thus to stay the havoc
which ocean every year makes of our merchant
navy. The waves will pay no more respect to an
Act of Parliament than they did to the command of
royal Canute, that they should not wet his feet.
Our ships go down in ever increasing numbers and
in every conceivable variety of circumstances. They
strike onsunken rocks when skies are clear and winds
are fair, and they drive helplessly to destruction
when the raging tempest makes skill and courage of
no avail. They " tail on" to dreaded quicksands,
and come to grief on fatal bars which impede access
to many of our rivers. They go down unnoticed
and unknown," when heaven is all tranquillity," and
they fratricidally cut each other to the water's edge,
when they meet in sudden and violent collision.
The wrecks and other maritime disasters during the
past year amounted to 1,741, of which 351 were oc-
casioned by collisions' while in 467 cases the
casualty was followed by a total loss, and in the
others by differing degrees of damage. To this mor-
tality ships of every class furnish their contingent.
The proportion of English to foreign ships on the
Wreck Register is 1,434 to 246, so that, in memory
of the latest shipping returns, our seas are propor-
tionately far more fatal to home than to foreign
built vessels. Among foreign going ships, however,
, the disproportion, though still considerable, is not so
great, seeing that 454 British ships were injured as
against 179 foreigners. But our own coasters are
the ocean's peculiar prey. Upon them does Neptune
levy his heaviest and most distressing tribute. Run-
ning at all times of the year, manned by a race pe-
culiarly stout and hardy, to whom every mile of their
voyage is familiar, they yet furnish the wreck re-
corders with something over five-eighths of their
occupation. It is only putting the same thing some-
what differently to say that nearly half the accidents
of the year occur to ships of the collier class, and
that the immense majority of the injured vessels were
of less than 300 tons burden. Eight hundred and
forty-four colliers came to grief within the twelve
months, their unseaworthy and ill-found condition
being too often the procuring causes of their danger.
And, as showing that the increased willingness of our
coasting sailors to put to sea in small craft is not
without its drawbacks, we read that 323 of the 1741
injured vessels were under 50 tons burden; 432
more were under 100 tons ; while 658 range from
100 to 300 tons ; so that, in 1413 out of 1741 in-
stances of damage, the vessel sustaining it was not
above 300 tons burden. Judging from the statistics
one would imagine that with ships, as with men,
there were peculiar dangers incidental to youth.
With good luck and good management a well-built
ship will last a hundred years or more. But more
than half the casualties reported in the last six years
have happened to vessels under 14 years old. Within
that time, out of 8,220 disasters at' sea, 757 have
occurred o vessels that have only been built three
years, 2,252 more to vessels whose ages varied from
3to 14 years. In the range between 14 and 50
years was included a fleet of 3,894 injured ships of
all classes. Thenceforward they go on in a rapidly
dwindling ratio, till those between 90 and 100 years
may be counted on the fingers of one hand, and only
three centenarians remain to bring up the rear. A
perusal of the report in question suggests some very
obvious, but very painful, queries. Much of our
loss of shipping can in no sense be represented as
an unforeseen calamity. Every one knows before-
hand that we shall lose a large number of our coast-
ing fleet, and that the major portion of our loss will
occur upon our eastern coast. And, making every
allowance for defective seamanship and for that
carelessness which is part of a sailor's nature, there
remains an immense residuum of cases in which the
calamities chronicled in the Wreck Register and
laid down on the Wreck Chart are not preventible
by individual effort. Our readers will remember
periods :at which our columns have for days and
days been occupied with condensed notices of
moving incidents, which might easily have been ex-
panded into many volumes. After all the labours of
our meteorologists the occurrence of stormy weather
remains involved in great uncertainty, the effect of
which is but too plainly shown in sundry pages of
every year's Board of Trade report. At regular
intervals we have a succession of:gales, which alarm-
ingly swell the number of shipping casualities. In
1861, from this cause alone, 460 were reported ; in
1862 the number rose to 540 ; in 1863 it rose
again to 930 ; and though the devastation was
happily much less in 1864 the compilers of the Re-
gister attribute no fewer than 400 casualties to the
gales of January, February, March, October, and
November. In the face of these figures we feel
constrained to ask whether all this enormous waste
can be called inevitable. Have we done all that
was to be expected of us as a maritime nation, with
an exposed and dangerous coast, to preserve those
who thus venture their life and property ? We are
afraid we must answer in the negative. A perusal
of the Register, a glance at the Chart, shows how
many a good ship might have been saved, how many
a valuable life might have been preserved, had there
been some place of refuge between the Tyne and
the Humber to which a vessel in distress might run
for safety. But though the subject has been fre-
quently pressed upon the attention of Government
nothing has yet been done. At Bridlington, Whitby,
and Filey, but especially at the last named place,
nature has done much towards forming an anchor-
age in which any number of ships might ride in
safety during the roughest weather. We need only
to construct a breakwater of adequate size and
strength at the mouth of the bay, and we should
have done a work which would last for all time. In
many places such a work wouldboenpdoefrssiirotmiavbeylee,ar t
buto
at some spot on the east coast it is a
neces-
sity. Yet we are content to
go
ot
least as obvious
year neglecting a duty which .
as the erection of lighthouses or the maintenance of
a fleet of lifeboats. The representations of those
who tell that harbours of refuge would be certainly
costly, and probably useless, are best answered by a
reference to another portion of the report which
now lies before us. While the number of maritime
casualties shows a steady increase the deaths result-
ing from them show a most remarkable diminution.
From 4,000 to 5,000 lives are annually placed in peril
by shipwreck upon or near our coasts, and of these till
about one-fifth, were
recently from 800 to 1,000,