The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—The middle-aged Englishman is fainiliar
by experience, and all ofus are familiar by tradition,
with the phenomena which attended the emancipation
of our own slaves in the West India Colonies, the
significance of which 30 years of freedom have done
very little to diminish. The practical results of the
change were by no means encouraging. The nation
washed its hands of a foul stain ; it relieved its con-
science from a heavy load of self-accusation, to
which no answer could be returned ; it tried to
compensate, and succeeded in ruining, the great
West India interest ; and it has dismissed the sub-
ject from its thoughts ever since, as something of
which it is not exactly ashamed, but in which it
feels no great reason to triumph. We reaped as
we had sown. It is curious that one of the most
practical evils which a state of slavery leaves behind
it is a faulty association of ideas. We have taught
the slave to connect labour for another so insepa-
rably with compulsion and degradation, that his
mind refuses to entertain the idea that labour for
another on terms freely agreed upon can be an hon-
ourable and legitimate occupation for a free man.
According to our experience, once relieved from
compulsion, the idea that takes possession of the
negro is, not the necessity of labouring for his sub-
sistence, but the happiness of living without labour
altogether. He views himself, not as one destined
to live by his own exertions under modified condi-
tions, but rather as put in the place of his master,
whom he looked up to and admired as one whose
privilege it was to live without any labour at all.
This invincible disposition to idleness, this determi-
nation to do anything rather than the one thing
which the negro ought to do, has been the ruin
of most of our West India islands. Wherever
there was waste land to be had the negro pre-
ferred to squat in idleness, and live upon the
coarsest vegetables, rather than work for wages.
This is the history of St. Domingo, of Jamaica,
and of Trinidad. How are the same causes operating
at this moment in the Southern States of the Union ?
It will not escape observation that the change from
freedom to slavery which has just been effected in
the United States is in almost every respect more
unfavourable to the negro than the change which
took place in the West India colonies. When the
negroes betook themselves to the waste land and
refused to work for their former masters there was
a class of persons in existence who could afford to
pay them wages. The masters were at that time a
wealthy class, they had just received among them
20 millions of compensation, so that if the negroes
had been willing to continue their labours as here-
tofore, there were employers ready to engage them
on terms which would have been sufficiently remu-
nerative. This is not the case in the South. The
sudden and violent emancipation of the negro has
been accompanied by the ruin and downfall of the
planter ; he or the most vigorous members of his
family have fallen in battle or been crippled with
wounds, the homestead may have been plundered
and laid waste by some Sherman or Sheridan.
Whether that be so or not, the owner of any consi-
derable number of slaves is, as the possessor of a
property of more than popo, exempted from the
amnesty, and looking forward from day to day to
the announcement of the confiscation of his estate.
The masters are a defeated, prescribed, and dis-
couraged class, having lost confidence in themselves
as well as in the cause for which they have fought so
gallantly and so vainly. The Southern securities in
which they have invested their money are worth-
less ; the very money itself .by which the transac-
tions in life have been carried on is " fairy gold,"
and is as little qualified to perform the office of
money as the dead leaves which aro driven before
the wind of autumn. Had the negroes been willing
to work in the West India Islands, there was a
class willing and able to employ them. Under the
present circumstances of the South such a class can
hardly be said to exist. The change has come so
suddenly upon the American Government that it
is found impossible to devise or execute any efficient
system of policy. Some military commanders de-
sire the planter to pay the negro wages in kind ;
others direct the planter to continue to take care of
and support the old and infirm persons who were
once his slaves. But in how many cases is the
planter provided with the means of paying for the
labour of the young or supporting the feebleness
and helplessness of the aged ? And, if he has saved
from the wreck of his fortune enough for this pur-
pose, who is there to compel him to employ
labour that he does not want or that he has no
means of controlling, or to support those infirm
persons who he is sure to think have lost all
claim upon his support by being raised to the dig-
nity of free men ? The machinery for employing
the negro and supporting him out of the proceeds of
his own labour has been violently and suddenly de-
stroyed, and it is impossible for the State, whatever
goodwill it may have towards the task, to replace it
under the condition of society which we have de-
picted. Failing, then, the Government and the
master, it is obvious that the only hope of the negro
lies with himself—a futile hope indeed. The negroes
of the Southern States, debarred from education
under heavy penalties, isolated in remote planta-
tions, thinly scattered over a vast interior, never
brought in contact with each other, nor taught any-
thing except the details of their daily toil, relieved
from all the responsibilities and cares of life, and
fed by a master whose interest it was to keep them
helpless and ignorant, are far less able to provide
for themselves in an emergency like the present
than were the better instructed, less secluded, and
more gently treated slaves of the West India Islands.
The emergency is infinitely greater, the means of
meeting it are infinitely less. We have said that
our islands suffered just in proportion to their size ;
but what are the largest of the West India Islands
compared with the vast territories which have just
been reconquered to the American Union, and in
which four millions of emancipated slaves seem
absolutely swallowed up ? Add to the temptation of
squatting the temptation of plunder. The slave is
avowedly the favourite of the Federal Government ;
the master is its vanquished and unreconciled enemy.
The temptation to outrage plunder seems under such
circumstances almost irresistible. This is not only an
evil in itself, but an evil to the slave by suggesting to
him an alternative instead of that work which is the
object of his detestation. Helpless, impulsive, igno-
rant, with little payment to expect for regular work,
with ease, new-found liberty, and opportunity to
tempt them to violence and plunder, can we won-
der if the existing industry of the South has very
little to hope from the assistance of the black
freedmen, and if, on the other hand, the great
mass of the slaves seems destined to 19erisli to-
gether with the system which, if it tyrannised
over, brutalised, and degraded them, had, at
any rate, the merit of providing them with food,
lodging, and clothing? At first the negroes were
fed out of the stores captured by the conquerors ;
but these were soon expended ; and now the time
is fast arriving when the slaves must be thrown on
their own resources, with nothing to hope from their
old masters, the planters, and very little more from
their new master, the Government. The matter
may be summed up in a few words. The capital of
the South has in a great measure perished in the
war ; fresh capital has not flowed in to supply its
place ; the only chance of subsistence for the com-
munity is in such capital as may be created by the
labouring population. That population, ignorant,
wilful, uncontrolled, and short-sighted, is evidently
not about to supply by its labour—we do not say
what has been destroyed by war, but—the annual
consumption of a time of peace. What are the
people to live on ? It is easy for a victorious
Government by a few words to strike off the fetters
of the slave, and suddenly dislocate and destroy the
industry of a whole community, but it is not easy for
it to find an- answer to this awful question, which it
has raised for itself, and which every day more and
more importunately demands an answer.
POST.—The suspension .of all communication with
the Great Eastern since Wednesday morning has
not unnaturally excited the liveliest apprehensions
in respect to the fate of the second cable with which
we have attempted to bridge over the Atlantic.
Everything was reported to be going on well, the
weather was fine, the cable was steadily, and to all
appearances securely, passing over the stern of the
great ship, when suddenly and without any known
cause the signals transmitted to Valentia became
indistinct, and then ceased altogether. But two
hours previously the electricians on board the Great
Eastern were enabled to report that 1,200 miles of
cable had been paid out, and 1,050 miles run, or,
in other words, that about two-thirds of the
distance between the Irish coast and that of
Newfoundland had been safely traversed. At 10
o'clock on Wednesday morning the communica-
tion between the ship and Valentia was as abso-
lutely perfect, as if 1,200 yards of wire instead
of as many miles alone separated them, and any
doubts which might have existed in respect to the
operation of the ocean on the cable when lying at
an immense depth were entirely dispelled. But,
nevertheless, without a signal of approaching
danger, without the slightest intimation from those
on board the ship of any apparent peril, the needles
in the room at Valentia responded hesitatingly, if
we may use the expression regarding the galvanic
current, and shortly afterwards refused to respond
at all. The chain is broken, how, and where, no
one in this country can tell, and the fruits of some
years of labour, and of an enormous expenditure of
money may be, and not improbably is, lying use-
less and irrecoverable at the bottom of the Atlantic.
Two accidents had already occurred which inter-
rupted the communication 'between .the ship and
the shore, both of which were unimportant in their
results, and we sincerely hope that the consequences
of the present, as of the two former, may ultimately
be remedied. On the first Occasion, it will be re-

collected that, on the day after the Great Eastern
started on her expedition, the electric current was
suddenly arrested, and apprehensions were enter-
tained lest the splice between the land portion of
the cable and that on board the great ship had
proved defective. The electricians on board, how-
ever, were enabled to ascertain that the defect ex-
isted in a portion of the cable which had been paid
out, and some eleven miles having been recovered
from the comparatively shallow water in which the
cable lay, it was discovered that a piece of wire
had been forced into the core, and had thus de-
stroyed the insulation of the central wires. Of
the cause of the second accident we know nothing,
but i is conjectured, with every appearance of
probability, that a defect in the cable having been
noticed, it was forthwith cut, the faulty piece ex-
tracted, and the ends then spliced. On that occa-
sion the communication with Valentia was in-
stantaneously interrupted, and, after an interval
of time such as would have been required for
splicing the cable, was re-established. In the
present instance, however, the fact of the signals
becoming unintelligible previous to the communica-
tion being completely severed would seem to indicate
that the cause of the defect was comparatively
gradual in its operation, and that by some means,
which we are at present unable to explain, the in-
sulation of the cable has at some point been de-
stroyed. It is also to be observed that wherever
that defect exists those on board the Great Eastern
have been unable to repair it, although at the time
we write some 36 hours have elapsed since its exis-
tence was first discovered, and this fact affords
ground for one of two conjectures, both of which
are dispiriting in the extreme. Either the defect has
shown itself in some portion of the cable within a
short distance of the ship, and, if so, it is extremely
ominous that those on board have not succeeded in
recovering it and repairing it, as was done on the
occasion of the first accident ; or the defect has
arisen from some unknown cause in a part of the
cable lying at the bottom of the ocean some hun-
dred miles, perhaps, in the wake of the ship, and in
that case the attempt to recover the cable from the
depths at which it now lies would be absolutely hope-
less. Unless communication should again fortu-
nately be re-established with the Great Eastern, we
must await her return for such tidings as can be
given of a disaster which in that event will have
proved fatal to the greatest of human enterprises.
When the last signals were received from her she was
in the deepest part of the Atlantic, and the general
opinion, in the absence of any data furnished by ex-
perience, seems to be that it would be physically
impossible to recover any of the cable paid out
without snapping it. Though unquestionably
powerful relatively to its size, it never could, and
indeed never was intended to, bear such a strain as
that to which it would be submitted in any attempt
made to recover it from a depth of upwards of two
miles. Near the Irish coast it was no difficult
matter to pick up the cable already laid, but in
the middle of the Atlantic a similar task would be
impracticable. When, however, the defect in the
cable was discovered on Wednesday morning, those
on board the Great Eastern had no alternative be-
tween cutting the cable and returning to Ireland,
or endeavouring, if possible, to recover the defec-
tive portion and remove it. As a matter of course
they adopted the latter, and all that we can say is,
that after the lapse of 36 hours they have not suc-
ceeded. It may be that they are slowly and cau-
tiously recovering the cable fathom by fathom, and
that they have not yet reached the point where
electric continuity has ceased ; or it may be that
the attempt has failed, and that, yielding to the ter-
rible strain to to which it has been subjected, the
wire rope has broken, and the great enterprise in
whose success the two hemispheres were interested
has failed. We shall, however, continue to hope
that such is not the case, and shall anxiously look for
the cheering telegram from Valentia to the effect
that communication has been once more re-esta-
blished with the Great Eastern. If, however, we
shall await that telegram in vain, and see the great
ship return with the sad confession that the success
which has been so well deserved has not been at-
tained, we shall find some consolation in the re-
flection that failure does not extinguish enterprise,
and shall still look forward with confidence to no
distant time when the obstacles which have hitherto
proved fatal will be overcome.