The Sun.
London, England, 1846-02-02 00:00:00

TAIT.

The article on the Oregon question is written, on the
whole, in an English spirit, and takes a fair view of the
pints at issue, but still there are objections, great and
unanswerable objections, to the scheme for settling the
differences. The writer vainly urges on the American
people to compel their Government either to refer the
boundary to arbitration, or offer Great Britain a price
for giving up the whole. " A very moderate sum, we
doubt not, would be taken." This is one of the crotchets
in which the party represented by Tait delight to in-
dulge, which often pl-ase a small clique, but which, if
adopted, would lead to greater evils than those to be
removed. The value of the Oregon territory as regards
the soil, or even the extent, is absolutely nothing to
this country. Our position in the Pacific is the main
point, and all the money that the Americans could raise
would afford no compensation for such a sacrifice as that
proposed. England cannot dispense with Columbia
river, she cannot abandon the Hudson's Bay Company,
or, in short, submit to any bargain or compromise
which would put a stop to her communications between
the Chinese islands, our Australian possessions, and the
whole of the Pacific and the westcoast of Canada. She can-
not even allow California to be surrendered to the United
States, because harbours in that quarter of the world will
in time, and probably in a very short time, become ab-
solutely necessary for our mercantile as well as our mi-
litary navy. But even supposing the Oregon affair set-
tled by this objectionable scheme, would England and
America be one whit more reconciled to each other ?
would the republican aggressions and conquests cease?—
would the moral power of England be increased by con-
senting to give up her claims for a paltry sum of money?
The writer himself admits that statesmen of the United
States wish to annex Oregon, California, Cuba, and Ca-
nada, and that " democracy in America has not entirely
denuded itself of the love of power which characterised
the conquerors of former ages." He thus laments over
their backslidings:—

" It is melancholy to reflect, that the lapse of sixty years,
instead of making the views and principles of American
statesmen more humane and far- sighted—more philosophical,
in short—has produced a diametrically opposite result.
Benjamin Franklin, both morally and intellectually; was
immeasurably above the contemporary statesmen of Europe,
General Cass, President Polk, and too many more of the ex-
isting statesmen of America, have fallen almost to a level
with them. When Franklin, Jefferson, Washington, Adams,
organised the Union, they looked forward to a people and
government who were to rise superior to the low lust of ter-
ritorial aggrandisement—who were to introduce common
sense' into the dealings of nations with each other—to extend
the empire of law and reason, and narrow that of brute
force. What would these great and good men say to the
language that now rings in the Senate House of Washing-
ton ? We write not with bitterness, but with regret and
despondency."
The calm voice of reason has no effect upon such
men, and the peace.eocieties in England only make them
more extravagant in their demands. The article on
" the Lyric Poetry of Germany" contains useful reflec-
tions on the state of public opinion in that quarter, more
especially in Prussia, and draws a sad contrast between
the professions of the late Sovereign, as well as the pre-
sent, and their deeds.
"Only one remark we shall allow ourselves, that the
sting of the sarcasm alluding to some patriotic verses by
Prutz] lies in the glaring opposition between profession
and principle by which the Prussian Government stands
so unenviably distinguished. The Czar Nicholas looks like
a czar, and speaks like a czar, and uses the knout like a
czar, and no man mistakes him ; so also Austria, ' honest old
Austria,' sits spread out with a quiet breadth of contented
Conservatism on her green gossiping prater at Vienna, and
her likewise no man mistakes; but Prussia, prating magnifi-
cently about her Protestantism, her intelligence, her high
pressure education, her Zoll-unions, her Germanism, and
Liberalism of all kinds, is, when you anatomise her closely,
a hideous compound of pedant, preacher, and comedian, of
coward, slave, and liar. What is to be the end of these
things no man knows. For ourselves, we shall not be sur-
prised if the German Lyric Muse, having now at length, in
her youngest incarnation, become decidedly political and
practical, should quickly learn to indite in a fluid of a more
potent virtue, and more perilous concoction than ink. There
were songs, also, and rare ones, sung at Paris, in the year of
grace one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two."