The Sun.
London, England, 1870-08-09 00:00:00

NEUTRALITY.

Neutral nations ought to be prepared to bear patiently
' the misrepresentations and gibes of belligerents. More
especially is England, as a military depot, exposed to
abuse and misconception, though she cannot deny that
belligerents are sometimes fully justified in the charges
made against her. The North German Correspondent is
now an instructive, aye, and an amusing paper to read,
however terrible are the events it discusses. It is prin-
cipally composed of translations from German journals of
every State from Vienna to Hanover, and lately its
thunder has been directed against England and her
fraudulent" neutrality. In fact, Germany keeps one of
her two eyes fixed upon England, and an uproar follows
the slightest move made by the enemy within her borders.
The French Emperor is represented as bent on designs
of aggrandisement, on extending the boundaries of
France to the Rhine, including Belgium. The Eng-
lish are represented as a great and brave people led by
hares ; as so infatuated by the spirit of gain as to supply
the Emperor with what he requires to subdue Germany,
when having swallowed up the country to the Rhine, he
will be in a position to invade England herself. " hile
affecting neutrality," says this organ of Count Bismarck,
" England allows her territory to become the base of ope-
rations against the coasts of North Germany—a French
arsenal, magazine, stable, for cartridges, coals, and
horses." And we are told, it 'adds, with cynical irony,
that Germany can buy in the same market. " Let her
abandon a system of neutrality which is making her name
a synonym for grasping cupidity and short-sighted cove-
tousness, nor forget that, before the year expires, she
may have to expend millions of treasure and thou-
sands of lives to reverse, on the plains of Bel-
gium, the victory she now aids France to gain."
Pursuing the same strain, the North German Gazette is
unable to comprehend Lord Granville's statement, that
both belligerents complain of England. Is it possible, it
asks, that France requires from England other favours
than this pretended neutrality gives her ? The question
put by a German journal it declares to be in. everybody's
month—ls England really anxious to have another
Alabama difficulty on her hands ?The Weser-Zietung con-
trasts the policy of 1800 with that of 1870. Then English-
men did not shrink from a twenty years' war, and spent
4,000,000,000 thalers to prevent what is once more
attempted. Sound state reasons existed for that course,
and the only difference which now favours England is
the existence of a united and powerful Germany. In j
what position, it asks, would England find herself if Ger-
many were defeated ?—with Ireland behind, the United
States waiting for a day of reckoning, and France the
ruler of the Continent, in possession of an army which
England cannot oppose, and of a fleet that lies prepared
for action almost withm sight of the British coast? The
Cologne Gazette, in discussing England and Belgium, also
reverts to the times when the Manchester party, intent
upon cotton-spinning alone, formed but a small minority
in England—an heroic period compared with the present,
when England merely shrugs her shoulders, and says,
"Help yourselves," while formerly she would have stepped
into the arena. It ridicules the idea of sustaining. Belgium
with 25,000 men, when Napoleon would only make his
attack after the 'defeat of Germany. Had England been
what it once was the wanton breach of peace would
not have occurred. Even now the naval power of
England, united to the military forces of Germany,
which Belgium would then enthusiastically join,
might in a few weeks restore peace to the world.
But England shrugs its shoulders, and the lips once so
' proud only utter its favourite saying May God defend the
right." The Gazette regrets to see the country Germans
so loved play the petty, sometimes contemptible, part it
does in modern history. " The nation, 'which was
once so justly proud of its manly bearing, now looks at a
didance uncommonly like an old woman." A telegram
fom New York received in Berlin, July 27, mentions that,
' " with the exception of the Irish, nearly all America is in
favour of Germany. Great indignation is felt at the
insidious neutrality of the English Government, which is
increased
bitterness." to revive the Alabama question with
bitterness." Germany, however, may be reassured, as
England, taught by a fatal experience, has passed an Act
which Sir Robert Collier says, will go beyond any
statute law passed iu any country for the purpose of
enforcing neutrality ;" and -public opinion in England has
determined that it shall be rigidly enforced. But England
must not imagine that she can escape by a mere enact-
ment, for she has the disadvantage of possessing in per-
fection the stores most necessary for belligerents; and
there are thousands ready for the sake of gain to run any
risk, while the risk to their country is to them a trifling
affair. Poor England has to answer for the greed of some
of her children ; and it was not a gain to her that the
Lair& launched the Alabama ; nor did she get anything
by any other infraction of neutrality. To protect herself
she is justified in exacting to the utmost her neutrality o 4
the part of her citizens ; the gain being the trader's, the
loss that of the country, while the latter is out of all pro-
portion greater than the former. It is, however, evident
that what Germany wants is somethingmore than neutrality
—a direct interference; in fact a coalition against the Empei.
ror. The Alabama difficulty alluded to is a reason why Eng-
land should not interfere; yet both the German and some
American papers, such as the New York Herald, in referring
to it, either urge or predict that interference. While de-
nouncing England's greed, if the Philadelphia correspon-
dent of the Times is to be taken as an authority, America
rejoices with unfeigned joy at the fine trading prospect
opened to her by the war, for what is greed with one coun-
try is legitimate commerce with the other. And it is
amusing to go back to the Crimean War and notice the
attitude then assumed by Prussia, the base whence Russia
derived her supplies. What was an honest gain at that
time, is now "fraudulent neutrality," and England was
then an unreasonable belligerent, though at present " a
synonym for grasping cupidity and shortsighted covetous-
ness." Yet there is nothing more natural than the atti-
tude assumed by Germany, for the position between a
belligerent fighting for existence, and a neutral driving a
profitable- trade from the necessities arising out of the war
which threatens another with destruction is as wide apart
as the Poles. One Would suppose, says a German paper,
to hear the English talk, that we were just so many par-
tridges to be shot—and that is just it. No nation can
realise the feelings of another nation thus invaded.
Indeed,-such is the wiekedneSs of human nature, that the
exciting military events give to those who see no danger to'
themselves a positive pleasure, the difference •as the New
York Nation puts it, whether we hunt the tiger or the tiger
hunts us. It is impossible for a nation, under such cir-
cumstances, to be just ; but it ought to do its best, and
distrust its own judgment. We do not hesitate to assert
that the Republic has not yet done justice to England
during the Civil war, and the difficulties of her position,
or it would not have nursed so tenaciously as it has the
Alabama, and other grievances but would have accepted
the reparation England has been prepared to offer.—
Anglo-Amer ican Times.

The excitement about the Ocean Yacht Race in
this city has for the day quite eclipsed the excitement
about the European war ; and it was somewhat refreshing,
too, a,s a change of the public mind from the grim visage,
of war to the gentle face of peace, and a gallant contest
between two yachts, .each bearing the flag of a mighty,
nation, and both representing a peaceful riyalry for the
ohampionship of the seas.—New York. Herat4,

THE PEOPLES OF EUROPE AND THE
GREAT WAR.

To and fro the tide of opinion sways, from side to side,
in reference to the right and the strength of this Power
or of that, in the terrible conflict which threatens to cover
Christendom with blood and ashes. The number of the
armies is counted, the array of fleets is given in elaborate
detail, and the ability of the leaders and the captains is
extolled in endless articles. France, Prussia, England,
Russia, Italy, &c., are mentioned confidently
as undivided units of strength. But as yet
no one in the press of Europe or America has be-
thought him, or at least has expressed the thought, that
there may somewhere beneath the surface reside a vast,
silent, suffering multitude of men to whom the marching
and countermarching of these hosts mean ruin, misery,
and death. What has the individual in either nation
embattled against the other to charge upon 'the
poor working man or peasant who lives and toils
beyond the dividing frontier ? He is a brother in
' poverty, and in oppression, perhaps, with the
conscript who is suddenly called from his humble
hearth to face bayonet and bullet for a cause he does not
comprehend, and to the benefit of men who have been the
masters of him and of his kindred before him for hundreds
of years. Peace is the gospel of civilisation and progress,
and war is the doctrine of every violence and every vice.
A century ago this was not comprehended, but to-day of
the one hundred and fifty millions of human beings who
people Europe the vast majority, in accepting
the general truths of the religion of Christ
and receiving the rudiments of knowledge, have
learned to look upward for a higher glory than to
manure the soil for the ambitious satisfaction of a prince,
and to a nobler end of life than the memory of wounds
and slaughter received by their comrades or inflicted
upon their antagonists. This is the idea that pervades
the working masses—the true bone and sinew—of Europe.
Emperors and kings issue pompous orders from their
palaces and bodies of armed soldiery advance to
the field of death ; but the million—the mass
of suffering, toiling men remember that on
the East and on the West they have only
brethren labouring and praying like themselves.
This is the inner tone that we begin to discover
already in the great diapason of war that sounds in our
ears from beyond the Atlantic. At Strasburg, at Cologne,
at Geneva in Switzerland, at Florence and Milan in Italy
the popular party, as contradistinguished from the Court
and the army, has spoken. When, as early as 1851, M.
Remieu predicted the coming of the " Red Spectre,"
he feared the terrific outburst of revolutionary passion
that then threatened to overthrow all forms of
order in Europe. But the rise of Napoleon 111. and
his military government conjured the ghost and laid it
with the welcome formula, " The empire is peace." Peace
alone was the safety, an only with peace could the old
systems hope for any lingering permanence. But now it
has been shewn by war after war, culminating at last in
a catastrophe that has no better pretext than the succes-
sion to a discarded crown •in a country of but third or
fourth rate importance in the world, and that while the
monarchical system endures and standing armies are tole-
rated there is no guarantee against a sudden deluge of
blood. The only rainbow in the sky to the
nations of the earth is seen in the colours of the republic,
one and universal. This is a mighty lesson, and at the
hour while we write the peoples of the Eastern hemis-
phere watch impatiently for the moment when by mutual
defeats the iron rod wielded by either hand of armed
power shall be worn and broken. Every necessary of life
made costlier the very finger of Providence, by its shorten-
ing bomities in the harvest field and its burning heats on
land and sea, pointing to a period of intense tribulation,
how shall the people exult in mutual slaughter ? The
voice of the humble Ascends to the throne of God for
rescue from this endless scourge. The prayers
of all good men go up incessantly for peace
and for the banishment of the causes and instruments
of war. How shall the most venerable and most en-
lightened nations of the world. continue this bloody
orgie while on the hither borders of the ocean there is
a spectacle of strength, prosperity, and happiness with
liberty, and without the sword, continually offered to
their gaze ? This war, with its accumulated horrors,
will do more to utterly disgust men with the grim Moloch
that has so long deluded and trampled on them, and its
memories will more incline them to the cause of repub-
licanism, and, we believe, of final truth and peace
among nations, than any event since the Crucifixion.—
Hew York Herald.

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