The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OP THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—Amid the discontent and suspicion of the
Germans Prussia moves unswervingly in the path
which its dominant politician has marked out for it.
Denmark is now the only neighbouring State which
is not looking with anxiety at the schemes that
each succeeding month developes. With his armies
crushed and his kingdom dismembered, the Danish
Sovereign can stand aside and look calmly on the
disputes of the spoilers over their booty, knowing
that the worst has come upon him, and that the
most inveterate of his enemies are now suffering in
their turn. The patience of Bavaria and her fellows
among the minor States has long been exhausted.
They have shown the bitterness of their anger and
its impotence by their late proceedings in the Diet,
and would perhaps be readyto give back the Duchies
on conditions to the Danish King, if it were pos-
sible, rather than see them fall to the share of an
ambitious and self-aggrandising ally. The ill humour
of Austria is equally notorious, though the prudence
of that Power and a sort of carelessness as to
changes in North Germany may restrain the Em-
peror from interfering except by cautions and re-
monstrances. As for the Schleswig-Holsteiners
themselves, they must be a slow-witted people if
they are now ignorant of what their fate is to be.
Foreign nations who have judged more correctly
of .the game through seeing it from a distance have
never doubted, and now conviction must be forced
on the most sanguine believer in the supremacy of
the Diet, the indefeasible claims of the Augusten-
burg blood, or the sacred rights of a German people.
Directly or indirectly, the territory which has been
wrested from the Danish Monarch will be trans-
ferred to Prussia, and the work of annexation is now
so far complete that plans based upon it may be
actually published to the world and submitted to
the decision of the Prussian Legislature. The great
advantages of the harbour of Kiel are well known.
It is large, commodious, unfrozen in winter, excel-
lently situated to guard the passes into the Baltic,
and to give the mastery in those waters to the
Power that possesses it. It has consequently long
been the object of cupidity to naval or would-be
naval Powers. The hope of possessing or controlling
it was said to have animated the late Russian Czar
at one time, and to have made him unwilling to re-
linquish any family rights he might have to the con-
terminous Duchies. Its merits were so well proved
by the British fleet in the Russian War that ever
since the Germans have been more anxious than
ever to obtain possession of the one harbour which
would enable them to become with speed and cer-
tainty a naval Power. The long cherished scheme
is now to be carried out, but not by the Fatherland
as a whole. The noble dream of so many patriots
is not to be realised. A magnificent fleet, obeying
the behests of a majority of the Frankfort Diet, with
Prussian, Austrian, even Bavarian and Saxon ad-
mirals and captains, all taking their due rank under
the Federal commission, is, it appears not to be the
form in which the fleet of the future will be realised.
Prussia told the world six years ago that she had
rights and duties as one of the great Powers as well
as one of the members of the German Confedera-
tion, and it is in her capacity as a great Power that
she will now construct a fleet. It is to be a fleet of
her own. Prussian votes are to authorise it, Prus-
sian money is to furnish it, Prussian sailors, to-
gether with those which Schleswig-Holstein may
eventually add to the Monarchy, are to man it. It
may take charge of German interests, but this will
be merely of grace, and not of duty. To defend
the trade of Germany and its coasts and harbours
in the North Sea and the Baltic will be one of the
chief occupations of the fleet, but this is only
because it becomes Prussia to be the leader and
champion of the whole nation ; it is not because the
nation will have any right to question or to command
at Berlin. In short, the King and Government, not
content with increasing the military force of Prussia
beyond the limits of the usual peace establishment,
are intent on creating a navy which will allow the
kingdom to rank with any but the first-rate naval
Powers of the world. To a secondary rank the Go-
vernment modestly limits its aspirations, but even in
the paragraphs which disclaim thenotion of attempt-
ing the dominion of the seas there is enough to show
that a more than respectable rank is hoped for, and
that it is expected that a Prussian fleet may play a
distinguished part in any future war. These matters
are so exclusively of German interest that we can
scarcely suppose. the Prussian Navy Bill will excite
much attention in any other part of Europe. The
question whether Kiel Bay is to be Prussian or Fe-
deral, or merely Ducal, concerns now no one but the
people who have won it in such an unequal encoun-
ter. All foreigners, we presume, will be glade to see
either Prussia or the Bund make use of this fine
harbour for the purpose of protecting its trade or
maintaining its own safety or honour. But when we
look to the objects proposed and compare them with
the estimated cost, we think there are signs that
Prussia, too, is entering into that race of extrava-
gance which is likely to burden for so long the chief
continental nations. Forts, arsenals, batteries,heavy
guns, iron-clad frigates, cast-steel ordnance, are the
toys on which the sober and learned Prussian is
about to throw away his not too numerous thalers,
just as his neighbours have been wasting their sub-
stance. We Englishmen ought certainly not to
preach on the subject; but then, after all, we can
afford to have a great navy, and really require it.
Put Prussia in this matter is only following the
reckless example which other less essentially mari-
time nations have set. France has spent millions ;
Austrian frigates roam about the smooth Mediter
ranean with no other result than to weaken the

State they are presumed to defend ; of Italian
finance the less that is said the better • and even the
Sultan of Turkey thinks it necessary to construct a
squadron of ironclads to defend his dominions against
some imaginary enemy. The Prussian disbursements
during the next few years will rank with almost any
of these if the Navy Bill pass and its provisions be
carried out. The sum to be expended on Kiel Bay
will amount to 6,150,000 thalers, for the place will
be fortified so as to be capable of defence both by
sea and land, and the construction of the works will
last for five or six years. There will be 8,285,000
thalers for the harbour and fortification of the Bay
of Jande, 4,180,000 for building two ironclad fri-
gates, and 1,000,000 for ordnance—in a 11,19,615,000
thalers. But this would be but the beginning ; for
the new Prussian navy would eventually consist of
10 ironclad frigates of 3,800 tons each, 10 ironclad
ships of 1,230 tons each, besides corvettes and de-
spatch boats, the total cost of ships being 34,593,500
thalers. Such sums Prussia may indeed be able to
find, but they are vast in proportion to her slender
finances, which are already strained by the increase
of the army and the expenses of the late war. , No
enemy of the Berlin Government could wish it worse
than that it should burden itself with the full carry-
ing out of such a scheme. If its design be to gain
influence in Germany by realising what has been so
long the desire of the nation, it may no doubt suc-
ceed, but it will be at a cost very disproportioned to
the real utility of the sentiment produced. But,
whatever may be the ultimate result, it is plain that
Kiel is to be indefinitely occupied, and it may be
fairly presumed that the long disputes of the Con-
federation over the Duchies will be solved by the
simple declaration of the Prussian Government that
it will hold what it has taken.
HERALD.—The people of the Confederate States
of America may be supposed to be far better quali-
fied than any persons at a distance to judge of their
duty in their present emergency and time of sore
trial. It is somewhat premature to be talking of
their submission to the North at a time when no

symptom of their readiness to yield can be dis-

Covered in their military dispositions or their poli-
tical attitude. It is evident that their generals in-
tend to continue the fight, that their Government
has no intention at present of abdicating its func-
tions. The Capital of the Confederacy is now at
Augusta, in Georgia, to which place all the archives
and machinery of state have been removed. The
President and his Ministers are there ; the Confede-
rate Congress will assemble there. The first Con-
gress of the United States was a locomotive body,
chased about from one place to another by the
British armies. There was a time, too, when the
resistance of the colonies seemed almost at an end ;
when state after state having sent in its submission
to the Crown, General Washington hid himself in
the recesses of the Alleghanies with a handful of
men " who had not bowed the knee to Baal." The
cause of the Confederates is not yet so desperate as
this, and will not be, we trust, for a long tiem to
come. Why is it, we may ask, that the majority of
people in England seem suddenly to have made up
their minds as to the hopelessness of further resist-
ance on the part of the South? It cannot be be-
cause Richmond is evacuated. This evacuation has

been long resolved upon, and for some time in pro-
gress, the comparative weakness of the Southern
armies having made it necessary for them to restrict
the area of their operations for the present. The
evacuation of the capital of Virginia was talked of

as a probable event in America and in England as
long as a year ago ; no one at that time v►ould
have regarded it as a symptom of despair, while
there were some who commended it as a highly
politic measure. It cannot be assumed that it is
all over with the South, because Lee, in retreat-
ing, not only kept his enemy at bay, but drove
him back in three desperate battles on the Ap-
pomattox, in which the losses of the Federals
appear to have been as heavy, and were probably
heavier, than his own. Nor is the report of the
battle fought with Sheridan near Burkesville of
such gravity as • to induce us to believe that the
army of Lee is either destroyed or demoralised. It
was accompanied, it is true, with a lamentable loss
in general officers, of some who have done great ser-
vice to the cause, and whom the Confederacy, at
this moment, can ill spare. But it appears that it

was fought with the rear-guard of Lee's army, with
that portion of the troops which was the last to leave.
Richmond, having been entrusted with the duty of
destroying the railroad bridges, the arsenals, and
such military stores as could not be carried
away. These troops, commanded by Ewell, were
the last on the road ; they seem to have been
overtaken, borne down by numbers, and far'
rounded. General Hancock, marching from the,
' north, may have been in time to interpose InnisLeiu
between Lee's army and Lynchburg, but if tuat
i
had been the case we should probably have heard
of it by the mail which brought us the news °f.
the battle of Burkesville. If Lee is is still in the
field and in safety, as we suppose him to be'
the speculations as to the break-up of the Code"?'
racy fall at once to the ground. It is a mist4e. to
talk of Johnstone's army as the only remaintoo
Confederate force in the field. There is a large
army under Kirby Smith across the 11Essissipro
There is the army of Magruder in Texas. There
is the army which is defending Mobile, apparelltell
with success, as the Monitor fleet has been disabled'
and General Canby repulsed in his attack on the
forts. There are numberless other bands scattered
over the country. We trust that the Confederates
will still be able to carry on the fight according tjet
the recognised principles of regular warfare.
is argued that if Sherman was permitted t°
march unopposed across the Central States before
Richmond was evacuated, the interior must be
utterly defenceless now that the city has fallen.
This argument is unsound and inconsequential c°2
the face of it. The reason why the generals of the
South were compelled to abandon the defence of f‘
vast portion of the interior was, that they Were
obliged to keep the bulk of their army together for
the protection of 4 a frontier post. That necesslti
existing no longer, the forces of the ConfederacyaV
now disposable for the defence of the interior.
affairs come to such a pass as that a regularW
should be no longer possible, then an irregular
.811_,1
fitful system of resistance, that which is stigmatised
as a guerilla or partisan warfare, the lasfresouree
a patriotic people in extremity, and one which has
been known in history to tire-out the oppressor, and
forging hope with the engine of despair, evolve orde.r
out of anarchy, after a long season of, darkness, le
still left to the Southern populations, if they are de'
termined to be free. It isfor them to resolve whether
or not they will persevere in a course which willie,re
tail so many sacrifices and so much suffering. " f
do not question their right to adopt any method 0..
resistance to which they may be driven by the l,le
placable obstinacy of their opponents. And now tf,
North, we are told, is satisfied with its achievemT;
and disposed to be conciliatory and forgiving.
ready to let bygones be bygones, and welcome back
its erring brethren with open arms. The South'
wearied of the long strife, and will be eager to eso er,
from the lingering death which it has been dyinit:
It will be ready to enter again into the Union i°'
equal terms. We shall be glad, as any one can
to welcome the end of this disastrous strife, vita
has convulsed both worlds. But we cannot conceive
that under any circumstances the restoration of :1'„
Union is possible. Supposing the Southern rests,',
ante to be put down, and what was left of the SO;
to acquiesce languidly in the Union, one of t's,
courses would have to be adopted by the Norther,
Government. One plan would be to retain its gar
P
risons in the South, and to continue to gove,'u
one-half of the Union by military instead of eillo
law. We need not insist on the fact tilia
such a system of reunion would prove
intolerable and most grievous burden on
0,
Southern people, such as would goad them to ,c°,46
stant resistance, passive if not active, and to efforts
to revolt at every convenient opportunity. T° ge
North it would imply the maintenance of an innem-
army, which in a short time would precipitate 4:
bankruptcy which has long been impending. 'the
alternative would be to restore in their entirety'
tic'
previously existing constitutions of the States, ftg,
give the Southerners the same privileges andireeao
government as their Northern neighbours. Nv e
told somewhat confidently that the North is readyui
to do this. The result of the proceeding N't°,
probably be that the people of the Southern Stav:,
left once more to their own uncontrolled impll'of
would. seize on the first convenient opportunity le
seceding again. We have no faith in the aale'„p..
feeling with which the Northern people is fle
posed to be inspired just now ; we are sure these c.
South has small love for the North. The two
aid
tions, divorced by their four years of bitterness 1,
strife, can never be one again as long as the Nr°'
lasts—

" For never can true reconcilement grow, n
When wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep•