The Sun.
London, England, 1870-04-22 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, FRIDAY EVENING, APRIL 22, 1870.

A UNIVERSAL SOCIALIST STRIKE.

Socialism was never more active in France and other
continental countries than at present, and across the
Channel two societies, which seem likely to give much
trouble, are in full swing. They are the Association
Internationale des Travailleurs, and the Societ6 des
AU-tiers Parisiens. Their titles sufficiently explain their
duties; the first has its head-quarters in London, the
second in Paris. Considering the rapid spread of Socialist
doctrines, a correspondent cf the Paq Gazette, who
has sought an interview with one of the chiefs in Paris and
learned something of the inner life of the system, must be
held to have done good service. The chief he " inter-
viewed " resided in a garret within a stone's throw of the
Paris 'Prefecture. The Republican was siuTounded with
books and manuscripts—volumes on positive philosophy,
Moliere, and other poets. The correspondent's account
of the interview runs thus :—After a few preliminary
observations, I asked him about the strike at Creuzot,
which has just'come to a termination in consequence of the
men being unable to hold out any longer. As M. Schneider
has always been reputed a kind and liberal master, I
inquired if he had not been badly treated by his men.
The answer was that from M. Schneider's own shewing
he was making 10,000,000 f. a year. When I remarked
that this large profit included interest on the capital in-
vested, he replied that capital should bear no interest; and
this is one of the Socialist ideas, deeply rooted, and
against which it would have been useless to argue. Find-
ing that the Republican Socialist exhibited no timidity
and was evidently willing to give information, I asked him
whether the society to which he belonged had insti-
gated the strikes at Fourchambault, Conunentry, &c. He
attributed these strikes to purely local causes, and said
that they received neither material nor moral aid from
the central committee of Paris, but were on the contrary,
disapproved as so much useless skirmishing. This led
me to the main object of my visit, and I thereupon ven-
tured to ask him point blank whether the society to which
he belonged—the International Association—was not
endeavouring to brffig about a general strike.
Without answering my question categorically
he immediately began to expatiate on the effectiveness of
such an attack on society, in a manner which left but
little doubt in my mind that such an extreme measure
was really in serious contemplation by him and his brother
agitators. I pointed out that it seemed to me that the
working men would almost inevitably succumb in such a
struggle, seeing that the capitalists would have the
interest of their money, &c., to live on in case of a
general strike, while the workmen would not be able
to receive such aid as is usual in ordinary strikes from
their brother workmen, .inee
earning any money, and the accumulated capital of the
very recently organised societies in France would not last
a week divided among all their members. "Oh, but their
capitalowould be no use without labour," he answered.
"It would absolutely be no more use to them than a
twenty-franc piece would have been to Robinson Crusoe
in his desert island. We should take care to make the
strike particularly strict and universal in aliptrades having
relation to the food supply—when the butchers would not
kill meat or the bakers bake bread, it would be a question
of who could fast longest."
All this, says the writer, sounds like the wild talk of a
visionary ; yet it came from the mouth of a very intel-
ligent, well-educated man, who, though not himself
a working man, is in daily contact with the working
men of Paris. The conversation went on : But are not
all your societies illegal ?—Perfectly so ; only they are
now so widely spread that no prefect of police would care
to deal with them. In fact, both the Association Inter-
nationale and the Societd des Tailleurs have been prose-
cuted and condemned—the one word includes the other.
Monsieur, here are the reports of the trials, but these
prosecutions caused so much scandal and indignation
among the workmen of Paris, that there is little chance of
any of us being prosecuted again. Whenever we desire to
hold a meeting of more than twenty persons (this is contrary
to law) we just send a notice to the Prefect of Police, who
sends a commissaire to take notes, and it is understood
that so long as we do not pass all bounds of moderation
nothing will be said. I think you said that the head com-
mittee of the Association Internationale sat in London;
that is, of course, for political reasons. I suppose
the English Ogvernment never interferes in the
least with you ?—Oh no ; on the contrary. On one
occasion it has protected two of our members. In
1867, two English delegates to the yearly congress,
were returning from Switzerland through Fiance ;
at the French frontier their boxes were opened, and
all their papers seized. When they arrived in
England application was made to your Ministre des
Affaires Etrangeres, Milord Stanley. He soon settled the
business. He asked only one question, "Are they British
subjects ? " Answered that they were, he at once demanded
the papers back through the British Ambassador in Paris,
and soon received them. Let me tell you, Monsieur, that
the Belgian or Swiss Governments would have asked a
long time before they got them.
The same writer has obtained possession of some of the
rules of the Association Internationale des Travailleurs,
taken from the printed statute handed to me by the secre-
tary. To show how thoroughly democratic the society is,
take the following rule :—" Seeing that it is not dignified
that a society of working men should admit of the monar-
chical and arbitrary principle of electing a president
(though the president should have no power), purely
honorary distinctions being contrary to democratic
ideas, the Congress invites all the sections and working
societies affiliated to the International Society to abolish
the office of president." Another rule says—" All news-
papers containing attacks against the association should
be immediately sent to the General Council of
the respective sections." Looking at the tone
of some of the resolutions which follow, it is
Praable that the sections have made a toler-
able collection of hostile criticism. At page 13
one finds -" The Congress declares that the society
leas the right of abolishing private property in land, and
making the soil common property." Further on the ques-
tion of resistance is dealt with in this manner .—" The
Congress is of opinion that all working men should employ
themselves actively in creating societies of resistance in
the different trades. By degrees, as the societies are
formed, it invites the sections and federal groups or cen-
tral councils to give notice of the same to the societies
of the same profession, so as to lead to the
formation of international unions of trades. These fede-
rations will be charged to collect all the information
which may interest their respective industries ; to agree
upon measures to be adopted in common ; to regulate
strikes, and to labour for their success, while waiting
for wages to be replaced by the federation of
free producers." Afterwards, in accordance th
Article V., the Congress invites the working
men's societies to communicate to the General
Council during the year as detailed a table
of statistics as possible upon the number of workmen
of each branch on the scale of salaries, the cost of pro-
duing goods, what they fetch, what the workmen
have to complain of, and all the information which
can be gathered upon raw material, and the market for
each industry.
It may not be amiss to add a few extracts from a
manifesto put forth by the workmen of Paris at the
time of the first strike at Creuzot, in a document which
shews pretty clearly their tendencies and doctrines :
" All the workmen of Paris (says this proclamation) tend
more and more to form one vast federation of fellow-
labourers organized in a hierarchy, and having at their
head a regular responsible ministry, whose duty it is to
resist the encroachments of capital, and to enter into com-
petition with it. Thoroughly convinced that right is
might, and that might is order, they have more especially
occupied themselves with the creation of order among the
masses, and they may be said to have very nearly attained
their end. They have made use of the right of meeting, in
order to reorganise on a new footing the feudal corpora-
tions or guilds of trades which 1789 abolished, and in so
doing, delivered over the working man, bound hand and
foot, to the tender mercies of the capitalists. . . . The
end sought by these societies is not to force capital to
come to a composition, but to do away with it entirely,
and to replace it by the collective capital of the fede-
ration of working men. . . Working men are
thus laying the foundation of a new social edifice,
created entirely by them and for them So
we shall very shortly see begin between the capital
of working men and that of their employers a strike
of which all preceding ones could give us but a feeble idea
—a pitched battle in fact between the masses, well organ-
ized and disciplined, and the financial oligarchy which
has succeeded the old feudality of the middle ages—a
strife between intelligence and intelligence, capital and
capital, a manly, downright, and loyal struggle, which, is
destined to settle once for all the conditions of modern
democracy.

Mr. Christopher Hodgson has resigned the trea-
mirership and secretaryship of Queen Anne's bounty,
which he has held between forty and fifty years. /11r.
Hodgson, who is eighty-eight years of age, is the author
of " Instructions to Candidates for Holy Orders," and
several other works on Church matters. The appoint-
ment is in the gift of the Crown.

A woman named Grace Gabbott left Blackpool the
other evening at Manchester, When the train arrived at
Poulton she was unable to move. The woman was suffer-
ing from the effects of chloroform. and she died on Tuesday
morning. In the pocket of the deceased were found two
bottles which had contained chloroform, and were labelled
" Chloroform—Poison."

A new hospital is beino. erected at Rotherham, and.
there has been a strike of the labourers who were em-
ployed upon the work. Other men have been engaged ;
and the builders have complained to the police that
every evening, after work has ceased, damage of a more
or less serious nature is done to the walls or the scaf-
folding.

The Toronto correspondent of the Guardian de-
clares " advisedly, that the removal of the troops will
have a most dispiriting effect on our colonial soldiery—
that it will lead them to believe that Bright's views are
triumphant in the Cabinet, and that should England get
into trouble with the States, Canada will be left to take
care of itself—a country with a population of four millions
against one of thirty millions."

LABOUR MOT IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA.-011 the
Ist of March " a riot of the unemployed " took place in
Adelaide. A large proportion of the labour of that
colony has, for some years past, been taken up by th
Government, but owing to the greatly reduced sums
placed at the disposal of the Ministry for Public Works,
the demand for labour tins largely fallen off. The Govern-
ment—hitherto the la'rgest employers of labour—are now
incapacitated from giving employment at all. The crops
being bad, and trade consequently dull, considerable
numbers of labouring men have been thrown out of em-
ployment, and on the above date hundreds of working
men assembled in front of the Government offices demand-
ing "work or bread," their demonstrations being even-
tually carried to such a length that mounted troopers were
engaged to clear the streets at the point of the sword.
Several of the men were arrested, but no life was lost. It
was feared that an attack would be made at night on the
WA% 41.04b3g fleriNik iNg-Urrtdt.
Government offices, and troops were kept,ll,!,. readiness to

AMERICAN EXCLUSIVENESS.

(From the Anglo-American Times)

Sir GEORGE E. CARTIER, in a recent debate in
the Dominion Parliament, is reported to have said,
" Individually the Americans were kindly neigh-
bours, but as a nation they were the most illiberal
in the world, except the Chinese." There is more
truth in the remaik of the Canadian statesman than
Americans are prepared to admit; indeed there is
in it a curious combination of fact and error. It
is not because Americans are averse to a fair criti-
cism that they angrily deny the assertion, for their
day of extreme sensitiveness has wine by, but be-
cause they cannot see its justice. To know what a
house looks like, it must be viewed from a point out-
side, and to appreciate Sir GEORGE'S remark, the
observer must be placed in a foreign country. The
idea of coupling the great Republic with the
Chinese Empire strikes an American as ridiculous,
these being the two Ja'thons most widely dissimilar.
The one is the oldest, the other the newest of great
communities; the one is the most passive and im-
moveable, the other the most sensitive and progres-
sive ; the one that people which most looks to the
past, the other that which most looks to the future ;
the one a despotism ruled by a Brother of the Moon,
the other the only genuine Republic which ever
took root on this earth. Still extremes are said to
meet; and again and again have doctrines of Ame-
rican policy been not inaptly compared with those
of the Chinese both abroad and at home. The
truth is, that two dissimilar elements, in extreme,
enter into the American system, both being main-
tained by the great body of the people as the best
principles upon which to ground the national policy.
The one is in advance of all other countries in its
liberalism ; the other is behind all other countries,
except China, in its exclusiveness. While the eyes
wlr taLeti aaeanced gnaw anti
they take credit for leading in the van of civiliza-
tion, they see nothing of their lagging rear guard
on which the eyes of their foreig❑ critics may be
fixed. Hence the charge and hence the incredu-
lity ; for the people who make it and those who dis-
pute it, are looking at two very different things.
On the one hand, Americans regard the vast na-
tional domain they possess as a trust from the
world's CREATOR, to be used for the benfit of man-
kind. Grounding their policy on this, nothing can
exceed the liberality of the measures adopted to-
wards the word, so far as the invitation gois to
make that land the home of the world's industrious
ocr. The welcome is extended to all races and
tongues to settle on the larid at the disposal of the
Government, and to become citizens of the great Re-
public, possessing equal rights with the native born.
Whatever tends to facilitate this ingress is adopted,
and has caused a very enlightened code of laws in
the relation of the Republic to the rtst of the world
in this respect. While all must admit this to be the
case, the answer will arise to the lips of many that
such a policy was dictated by motives of self-inte-
rest ; but the reply is that a liberal spirit of legis-
lation is almost certain to forward the interest of
any nation adopting it, and success should not be
advanced as a reason for impugning the motives or
generosity of those who adopt it. On all matters
of legislation, however, where the interests of Ame-
ricans are brought into collision with those of
foreigners, the Republic is said to be actuated by
precisely the same motives as those which actuate
the impassive Celestials. The design is to bui d a
Chinese Wall round ttie Union, so as the more effec-
tually to exclude the work of other men's hands ;
and were it not for the tastes of the individual
Americans, the statesmen of the country would long
ago have succeeded in raising an impenetrable bar-
rier, to shackle and shut up the freest country on
earth. Not only is this policy seen in the laws
enacted, Lut in the motives avowed by the legisla-
tors in debating the proposed rnea.,:ur,s ; indeed no
subject having a foreign connection is ever handled
in a liberal sprit by a large Eection of Americans
except such as facilitate the ingress of settlers. It
is to th's GEORGE CARTIER alluded; it is to this
the English and the European press generally point
when they write on American exclusiveness; and it is
this feeling against the " foreign barbarian" which
brings the American in one point of his character
so close to the Chinese. Take the Civil War ; and
it is found that the most strenuous upholders of
rebellion in every other country, fiercely denounced
everyozher country which gave aid and countenance
to the rebellion at home, showing that what was
"sauce" for others, was not "sauce" for them. Take
all the fiscal legislation of the United States ; and it
is found that the object of the laws is to make the
United States supply every want of its citizens, which
means the identical policy adopted by the Chinese
and Japanese before the red-haired barbarians with
gunboats and muskets broke down their ring fence.
Take the late Messages delivered in Congress by
the PRESIDENT, and the general tone of the debates;
and the avowed object is not to forward the na-
tional trade with mankind on a free field and no
no favour, but the absolute exclusion of compe-
titors, to grasp everything foreigners will give, but
to let nothing go in return ; members making ro
concealment of this, but urging it on the national
attention as the wisest policy for the country to
adopt. '1 hat it is a mistake we have little hesi-
tat:en in asserting, at.d that a wider and more Ca-
tholic policy will eventually prevail, we have every
reason to believe. But it is at the same time
evident that officials in the very highest plipes
lave much to lear4 in the mere rudiments of politi-
cal economy. Among the most striking instances
of the " want of reciprocity" feeling which dictated
Sir GEORGE CARTER'S remark are the extraordinary
arguments which have prevailed in America to
defeat the clause which could alone have made
the Funding Bill a successful measure. We give one
or two extracts from the American newspapers :

"It dues appear to us that such a proposal (to pay the
i❑terest in Europe) implies a very imperfect appreciation
of the credit of the United tates Government, and a
very derogatory estimate of its dignity. After having
gone triumphantly through the war without asking for
ono dollar from foreigners, it seems strange, indeed, that
we should now open shops in Europe to peddle out our
bonds. Such a proposal brings the blush of shame to tln.
cheek of every citizen who properly respects the dignity
and the independence of the Government."
Another says :

"Still no harm can result from the passage of a Fun
ing Bill that simply permits the Secretary of the Treasuri
to receive in exchange our present 6 per cent. 5-20 Bonds
for longer bOnds bearing a lower rate of interest, if any
holder of the bonds may desire to make such exchange,
but no humiliating peddling of our securities through
Europe."

And this is the way, both in the Senate and ii the
House, that the subject is discussed. Now, who that
read such remarks, or first bear them, without
any knowledge of the subject, would suppose that
the Secretary merely designed to get foreigners
to whom Americans had sold a thousand million
dollars of their bonds to accept on an average 4i
per cent. instead of 6 per cent. for the loan ? Here
was a simple business proposition calculated to
benefit immeusely the tax-payers of the Union ;
but because it recognized any agencies out of the
country, or any debt due by America to foreigners,
implied a small benefit in return to these foreign
holders, the bill is denounced as calculated to bring
"the blush of shame to the face of every citizen."
Well might aleading New York newspaperexclaim,
"Is this rank nonsense, or are we insane?" Yet
strange as it may appear to the Triliune, there is non-
sense almost as great which it upholds. A batter in-
stance reaches us while we write. A letter al pears in
the last Nation, which has arrived, awarding high
praise to the PRESIDENT fur his words in a recent
Message showing that freight money or passage
money paid to foreigners is a direct drain upon
America—indeed, equal to casting the money into

the sea so far as the nation is concerned. At the
same time the writer censures the PRESIDENT for

arriving at a halt and impotent conclusion; there
is but one mode of reviving American shipping,
which is to create a vacuum, a demand to stimulate
a supply ; "we must exclude all foreign vessels
from our ports, and then native vessels will do our
carrying trade." The editor fills nearly a column
with his reply, h ilf jocular, half grave ; but bad
not the writer formerly appeared in the columns of
the .Nation we would have imagined that the letter
had teen concocted at the office of the paper in
a spirit of satire. The fact is that Arncrica com-
bines the extremes of liberalism and exclusive-
ness ; and, after all, both flow as a natural con-
sequence from her institutions. The more en-
lightened and better educated a man is, the more cos-
mopolitan will be his views. The more ignorant he is,
the more contracted and prejudiced he surely will be-
come. The masses are less enlightened than the
wealthy classes, and as the masses rule in the Union,
they must impart in some measure a narrow tone
to its legislation. At the same time, as they are the
most strenuous upholders of individual liberty, that
spirit will also pervade the Government ; but the
spread of education is more and more enlightening
the masses, and with it will grow a more liberal
spirit in legislation on those subjects wherein the
American system is now so contracted; and surely
40,000,000 of an enlightened and energetic people,
inhabiting the finest territory give❑ to one com-
munity, might not fear boldly to enter the ring and
compete on equal terms in trade, commerce, arts,
and science against all corners in the world.

RE-OPENING OF THE LEGAL-TENDER
QUESTION.

Judging from the tone of the American press the
ch... Q. R.aearenae Court DTO-
nouncing Legal-Tender not a valid payment for debt s
contracted prior to 25th Feb., 1862, has been gene-
rally pronounced by the country to be sound law.
That an effort was being made to re-open the ques-
tion in the hope of having the decision reversed was
known, and by most journals censured. The outcry
against the judgment was attributed to the corpo-
rations interested, a few politicians, and those
lawyers wha had strongly committed themselves to
the constitutionality of the Act. But though the
nation showed no sign of discontent, a movement
against the ruling was progressing in high places;
and it is evident from the result that those who
wade this assertion were not misinformed. The
Nation attributes the scheme of reversing the deci-
sion to a political intrigue, based on the well-known
fancy of the Senate for grasping at power, and on
the notorious dislike of Senators to the Chief Jus-
tice. lYe adhere to the opinion (expressed in this
paper last week) that the Executive, through the
Attorney-General, has succeeded in getting the case
re-opened with the object of protecting the freedom
of the Government to act in an emergency. The
decision, however, in the case of HEPWORTH V. GRIS-
WOLD implied a great deal beyond what it settled.
It settled, for instance, nothing more than that the
Act was not retrospective, and did not therefore
affect contracts made prior to its passage ; but that
does not declare the law to be unconstitutional, nor
raise any issae with Congress on the subject of its
power of dealing with Legal-Tender. Such points
were carefully avoided, but the arguments used
both by .the majority and the minority of the
Justices incidentally touched on these ques-
tions, and it appears probable that if the Court is
obliged squarely to meet the issue, it may affirm
the Legal-Tender Act from beginning to end to be
unconstitutional. It is c'ear that there never existed
any necessity for making the Act retrospective,
though it is grounded on necessity solely, and jus-
tified alone by what is called the War Power.
Congress made a mistake in not distinctly enacting
in the measure that it was not ex post facto, and
debtors naturally took advantage of this oversight
materially to lighten their burden, or, in other
words, to defraud their creditors. A well informed
writer in the Philadelphia Ledger asserts that the
Court within his personal knowledge has decided
several cases, where the question of legal tender
was elaborately argued as being involved, but in
which the decisions proved it was not involved, as
they were given on other grounds. He adds that
there are no cases on the docket involving the ques-
tion, though two are erroneously supposed to do so.
The subject hes been argued six times by the
ablest counsel in the land, having been held for
nearly two years under advisement before being
finally adjudged. Several times have decisions
in the U. S. Supreme Court on which the Judges
have been much divided been brought up again by
counsel on a change of judges in the hope of
a reversal, but in no -instance have they suc-
ceeded. The Judges have invariably regarded the
the question as closed, though they themselves
may have recorded their own opinion against the
judgment. Nor can the U. S. Supreme Court be
packed or materially influenced by politicians or
caucuses. The Judges are not elected by a vote,
while their term is for life ; hence when they take
their seats, however they may have before inclined
to bend to the mandate of a caucus, the atmo-
sphere of the Court makes nem independent,
as has been proved in numerous cases. Again and
again have judges, under strong obligations to a
party, given decisions in utter defiance of the howl
of wrath raised by the very party through whose
instrumentality they had reached the Bench. The
last man to degrade the Bench will be one of its
justices; nor has he. the excuse of judges in many
of the other coarts, who are elected by party majori-
ties, pledged to decide as that party bids, under the
penalty of being set aside at the next election.
There is nothing the Supreme Court so much respects
as its own decisions, and it, is wise in setting such
an example to the nation ; therefore we hold to the
position we last week took, that the decision will not
be overthrown, and that if it is, it will he solely on
sound reasons, based on constitutional law. The
Nation, in an article on the Senate and the Chief
Justice, gives the following problem, commonly
known at Washington as"" General G A RFIELD'S
Conundrum," as he proposed it in a conversation
with Mr. Justice MILLER :
"The opinion of the Court carefully avoids the general
question of corstitutionality. It is confined to contracts
made prior to Feb. 25th, 1862. The dissenting opinion,
OD the contrary, covers the whole subject. It rules that
g the law was in any sense essential, the degree of neces-
sity was for Congress to determine. It affirms that a
necessity did exist ; that the necessity was ono of war;
and that the Legal-Tender Clause was necessary to meet.
it— the degree of necessity being determined by Congress,
and the decision of Congress being final. Now, it happens
that only a few months since, in the case of the United
States against Anderson, the Supreme Court, Justice
MILLER, and all, unanimously ruled that Congress has by
its own legislation fixed the 20th August, 1866, as the close
of the war; and the Court went on to say that there is
no reason why this declaration should not be received as
settling the question wherever private rights are affected
by it. The exigency, therefore, which was the authority
of Congress for interfering with private rights in the
matter of legal tender as on other matters, was declared
by Congress itself, and affi med by the entire Court, to
have terminated the 20th August, 1866. What then,
asked General GARFIELD, is the authority which upholds
legal tenders since August 20, 18,36."

Since writing the above we have received the
Attorney-General's argument. He said

'• A more important decision, in its consequences, it
seems to me, was hardly ever made by this Court, as I
understand it and have it here. Speaking upon the record,
it stands thus: Your Honours have not decided that this
Legal-Tender Act did not, as a matter of construction,
apply to contracts made before the passage of the Act. If
that were so, it would settle no very imporiant and greLt
principle ; but your Honours have decided that it was not
within the constitutional power of Congress to insert that
provision making Treasury notes a legal tender for private
debts previously contracted in the statute. We have, then,

this position of affairs which bear on private and public
grounds. I feel that I have a right to press upon your
Honours' notice a statute passed by a large majority in
both Houses of Congress, approved by the President,
having all the forms of law—the attention of Congress,
when it passed, being called to the question of its consti-
tutionality. With this weight of authority to begin with,
on one side a statute substantially acquiesced in by the
people of the United States for eight years, more than
seven years of which millions upon millions of contracts
have been settled to the great loss of the parties to them
--a statute which, so far as I am aware, with but one ex-
ception, has been hold constitutional by every State
Court, upon and after the most thorough, elaborate, and
exhaustive discussion—a statute upon the constitution-
ality of which this Court, at a time when, by law, it con-
sisted of nine judges, did, by a majority only of four to
three, enter its judgment. with two vacancies upon the
Bench, and it stands, therefore, reducing it to its essence,
that upon the judical opinion of a single man, whose voice
turned the majority, that great question is adjudicated ;
and if (which is a supposable case) it turned out that it
was an opinion about which even the deciding judge of
the Court had entertained a different opinion at some
other time, it would come down to the point that on the
differing opinions at different times of his life, of a single
man, the whole constitutional power of Congress and
the execution in time of the direst national necessity
of this long-popular acquiescence and the decisions of
State tribunals was to be subverted and set aside and
expunged from the practical powers of -this nation
by the judgment of this Court, and, upon the question
whether it was necessary for the exercise of admitted con-
stitutional powers, to deciding that that necessity is a judi-
cial and not a political one. The gravity of such a deci-
sion, your Honours, 1 have no doubt, justly estimate; that
it was my duty, if the question could be presented again
with propriety in the exercise of my official functions to do
so, seemed to me clear ; and may it please your Honours,
involving as it does such a great mass of private interests,
but more, because it seemed to me to involve a fundamental
principle in the powers of the Government, and in my
apprehension to involve the question whether it is ever
constitutional to have a rebellion beyond a certain magni-
tude, I have decided at the earliest possible period to pre-
sent it to your Honours, when the Court should be full, and
to ask that if this is not to be bencelortn and for ever the
settled view of this land."

It appears, then, that we are justified in what we
have said, the-Attorney-General having based his
argument almost wholly on the broad cons itutional
power of the Governmeht to act in an emergency.
—Anglo-American Times.

Saints and sinn.ers when thexgetinto a fix use much
the same means of wriggling out of it. The Methodists con-
nected with the Book Concern, finding that they wore ac-
quiringa disagreeable publicity from the interest an inquir-
ing public took in its affairs, have been skilfully handling
the light so as to throw it in dazzling effulgence on the
wrong place, leaving the right place obscured in darkness.
Had it not been for the new superintendent who injudi-
ciously publicly reported peculation, all that clirty linen
might have been washed at home; but an investigation
was thus necessitated, and "how not to do it" has ever
since been the aim of the investigators. A second in-
quiry followed the first, with which no one was satisfied,
and the majority report that there is nothing amiss, while
the minority state that there is a great deal wrong. The
person most implicated has been appointed to a high office,
and the New York papers remark the curious similarity
of the proceedings of this religious ring with those of the
Tammany ring, or an Erie ring when striving to screen
an offender.

It is curious to note how important events shower
down on the head of an individual, fortunate or unfortu-
nate, then pass him unnoticed for a long spell. Just at
the time that Vice-President Colfax was being elected to
the highest post in the land next to that of the President,
and during &lithe turmoil and excitement of the con test, he
was paying his addresses to his present wife, and his oleo-
tion and his marriage occurred almost simultaneously.
One of the men lately moat discussed in the United States
has been Gen. Ames, who was taken from his command
in Mississippi and sent by that State to Congress as Sena-
tor eleot. While the Chamber has been in fierce discus-
sion over him and his right to the seat, which gives him
a place in dignity only atter the Vico-President of the
United States, he, if report speaks true, has been paying
his addresses to Miss Blanche, the charming daughter of
Gen. Butler, to whom it is now said he is engaged, and
will speedily be married.

A letter has been received at Washington from
the Darien Canal expedition, dated March 4th, to the
effect that a road had been cut three miles into the inte-
rior, and a river had been mot which was said to flow
int(' the Pacific Ocean. All the party wero well, except
Commander Selfridge, who was suffering from lameness,
which would prevent him from crossing the Isthmus.
Captain Heins, an American, who says he knows a route
across the Isthmus of Darien superior to all others, by
which he can pass from Aspinwall to Panama entirely by
water, has chartered a sailboat to make the voyage, and
has gone to Caledonian Bay. There was no doubt that
Columbia would ratify the Darien Canal Treaty.

An important case lias just been decided by
Judge Blatchford of the United States District Court in
Admiralty, in the case of John N. Cushing and others
against John Laird, the younger The motion was made
by the counsel of the defendants to dismiss the attach-
ment on the ground that the Court had no jurisdiction of
the person of the defendant Laird. The ruling of the
Judge was very elaborate, wherein he emphatically affirmed
the jurisdiction of tho Court in the case, and the motion
was denied. The merchants of New York and Boston,
who suffered from the depredations of the cruisers, have
petitit,ned Congress for a commission to establish proof
and certify the amount of their losses, as with time the
evidence may vanish, perhaps hereafter throwing insur-
mountable obstacles in the way of the claimants should
the matter continue to lie dormant. It is to be deplored
that this matter was not long ago settled, and it is cer-
tainly hard upon the claimants that they should have to
suffer from the delay.

The lion. George B. Upton, of Boston, has
managed to write a letter to Earl Russell without once
addressing that Peer as "My Lord." Mr. Upton does not
object to term the Earl "Right Honourable," but the
stern Republican can't bring himself to write "My Lord."
The letter was a reply to the objections made by Earl
Russell in the introduction of his recent volume to Mr.
Upton's statements in his petition to the U. S. Senate
against the settlement of the Alabama dispute on the terms
proposed by the Clarendon-Johnson Treaty. Mr. Upton
upholds his assertion that the Alabama and her consorts
were British built, British manned, and British armed—
the last two being digputed by the Earl. Three-fourths
of the persons on board the Alabama when she left the
Mersey were British subjects, three of them belonging to
the Naval Reserve; and when sunk between 80 and 90
per cent. were British, four being of the Reserve. If Mr.
Upton will turn to the list of the crew lost in the Oneida
he will find that most of them were British born ; and if
he overhauled the crew of the Kersarge it would be seen
that many had been born subjects of Queen• Victoria. The
tru h is that no two ships can fight in any part of the
world without finding ou board Britisher arrayed against
Britisher; and it could scarcely fail to be otherwise, con-
sidering how many of the population of the British Isles
take to the seas, and how enterprising, and we may add
how unscrupulous, many of them are.

Governor Senter of the State of Tennessee
received a despatch from General Butler inviting him
to Washington, to testify before the Reconstruction Com-
mittee touching the condition of affairs in rennessee. He
was to leave Nashville for Washington on Monday,
March 28.—Mr. Trumbull recently introduced a bill into
the United States Senate "for the encouragement and
protection of dramatic compositions, by securing to the
authors and proprietors of the same the right of exclusive
property therein for the term of ten years."
THE STATE OF lOWA.—The total population of
lowa in 1869 was 1,040,819. Number of dwelling-houses
in 1865, 114,351; in 1869, 183,921: Number of families,
187,407. Number of acres of land in cultivation 6,109,743.
Bushels of spring wheat harvested, 16,823,520; winter
wheat, 1,140,035; total of wheat, 17,963,555. Number of
bushels of corn, 76,507,575. Fruit trees in bearing,
1,539,913; number not in bearing, 4,100,2(17. Number of
hogs of al ages, 2,403.679; cattle 2,108,669. Number of
mulch cows, 367,602. Number of sheep, 2,370,206. Pounds
of wool shorn, 4,478,934. Number of horses, 482,786.
Value of manufactures, $16,061,210. Number of acres of
land assessed, 30,109,771. Assessed value of laud and
town lots, $222_,561,061; of personal property, $71,971,191.
Total assessed valuation, $294,532,252. Number of miles
of railroad, 1,900. The population of lowa in 1817 was
116,651; increase in 23 years, 921,168.
MAILS FOR CONSTANTINOPLE via FRANCE AND
AUSTRlA.—lnformation having been received of the re-
opening of the navigation of the Danube, closed mails for
Constantinople, for conveyance by the route of France,
Vienna, Ru,tchuk, and Varna will be made up at this
office on the evening of every Tuesday and Friday, and
supplementary mails on the morning of every Wednesday
and Saturday, until further notice. No more closed mails
for Constantirople will be forwarded via Trieste, so.long as
the more direct route, via Ilustchuk and Varna, remains
open.— General Post-office, April 11.
Gen. Butler some time since nominated Charles
Sumner Wilson, a coloured youth, as a cadet at West
Point The cadet has been rejected in the War Depart-
ment for wanting eight mouths of the ago required by law,
which is 17 years.