The Sun.
London, England, 1869-09-08 00:00:00

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 8, 1869.

It is not a little amusing to English readers to find
how vividly the oxcitement and interest felt on the
banks of the Thames in the result of the great inter-
national boat race have been reflected across the
Atlantic. Three thousand miles of intervening sea
have not sufficed to cool the eager anxiety with which
New York watched every stroke of the competing
oars from Putney to Mortlake. Wall - street
was nearly as much sgitated by the deci•
sive intelligence as it was by the panic on the
French Bourse and the EMPEROR'S illness. The Ame-
ricans certainly possess one notable Anglo-Saxon
characteristic : they like to do things thoroughly, and
it is impossible for them to take a half interest in
anything. Having once made up their minds to the
experiment they regarded the competition of two
boats' crews as a question of national interest, and
the issue of a decisive battle or a great constitu-
tional transformation, could not have been awaited
with more intense eagerness.

In London the interest felt was engrossing enough,
and the question of Blue v. Magenta was for the
day paramount to every other. But the excitement
experienced in New York was enhanced instead of
being lessened by the distance. The great occasion
enabled the New Yorkers to display to its full extent
their characteristic energy and enterprise, as well as
to give evidence of some characteristics with which
they are less generally credited. The news reached

New York just 23 minutes and 13 seconds after the

winning boat arrived at Mortlake, and this brief in-
terval included the transit to the telegraph station
three quarters of a mile distant. The morning after
the race, while Londoners were leisurely following
the narratives of the morning papers, the denizens of
New York were reading accounts nearly as compre-
hensive, adorned, too, by maps of the scene of action.
If we have beaten the Americans in the race
along the Thames we shall find it difficult
to outstrip them in the race across the Atlantic, for
the spirit and liberality with which they employ the
telegraph wires, may set a useful example to some of
our dilatory countrymen.

The energy displayed on this occasion, however,
was but ill repaid, though it served the purpose of
putting them out of the suspense, which some persons
consider the worst of evils. America had bad misgiv-
ings. Despite the national self-confidence and the pre-
vailing conviction that Americans not only ought to
win, but would win whenever they had a fair field and no
favour, an uncomfortable idea had been for some
time gaining ground that the contest would, at any
rate, be a very close one. The fame of Oxford had,
it is true, crossed the seas, long before ; it was that
very fame which induced the adventurous men
of Harvard to measure their oars against them. But
as the days went on, and the full and ample criticisms
on both crews, which appeared in the London jour-
nals, were carefully studied by, the Harvard's coun-
trymen, a misgiving arose, which intensified the
anxiety as to the result. We have said
that the Americans during the recent excitement dis-
played some honourable qualities not usually attri-
buted to them, and the ready frankness with
which they acknowledged the perfect fairness with
which the race was conducted, is cne of the most
conspicuous. One or two of the journals some time
since hinted vaguely that Harvard was not to be
allowed to win, but the outburst of genuine indigna-
tion which the mention of such a rumour called forth
from the English press speedily convinced our trans-
atlantic friends and rivals, that in this case the
honour and integrity which happily for England rule
her public life, were not to be overshadowed by the
disgraceful tricks and manoeuvres belonging to sport-
ing circles.

The accounts of the effect produced in the Empire
State by the disastrous intelligence are most amazing.
The boating clubs naturally felt the disappointment
deeply. The Gulick Club sat in the dark talk-
ing in low voices. The Hoboken Club
ssemed to be preparing for a funeral. At
one grand club meeting a member received the
unwelcome news just before dinner, but thought it
too bad to tell his friends until they were fortified by
their repast. But it was not only among boating
men that the excitement prevailed. The public
rooms at the hotels, the crowds in the streets, the
private assembly, and the business meeting, all alike
were full of it. Age and dignity stormed at English
assurance, and boasted of Yankee courage, while
Young America found hope in the future, exclaiming,
" We can beat them the next time, can't we pa?"
Perhaps the keenest mortification was experienced
by the Irish Americans, one of whom bitterly ex-
claimed, " 0 ye have got to git up in the morning if
ye want to beat them there Britishers !"
American good sense, however, speedily convinced
the majority that in a race between two, if one must
win the other must be beaten ; and if the discomfited
party, in the words of the New York Tribune, is "pull-
ing in strange waters, with a strange organisation, in
a strange climate, against men who were perfectly at
home and knew every inch of the course by heart,
pulling, too, against the finest crew that England had
ever put into a boat," the defeat is certainly not
one of which any nation need feel ashamed. The
comments of the New York press are singularly im-
partial, and give evidence of the genuine good will
and good temper of the people. " Don't let them
beat us in good naturelwas the phras) frequently
heard in the midst of the general disappointment and
temporary annoyance, and all agreed in expressing
the hope that Oxford would come over to try their
chance against Harvard on American waters, in
the American style, to be received whether
winners or losers with fourfold the hospitality which
had been extended to the Harvard crew in the old
country.

Lookers-on, whether English or American, to whom
a boat race is a matter of less all-absorbing interest,
even though it be an international one, may find in
this narrative one of the most encouraging signs of
modern progress. The jealousy and suspicion with
which the two great Anglo-Saxon nations formerly
regarded each other will soon, we may hope, become
as much a thing of the past as the old antagonism
between France and England.

THERE can be only one opinion as to the impor-
tance of the main question which Parliament will
have to solve next year. By common consent the Irish
land settlement will be the chief topic of 1870, as
the Irish Church has been that of 1860. But while
the importance of the first is unquestionable, we
think the difficulty of it has been greatly exaggerated.
Without attempting to deal on the present occasion
with the various schemes put forth by Lord RUSSELL,
Mr. MILL, Mr. BRIGHT, and others, we would point
out the circumstances which lead us to hope that
next year's problem will prove more readily soluble
even than this year's.

In the first place, party feeling has not yet been
aroused. Neither Liberals nor Conservatives as a
body are committed to any definite plan. The three
eminent men whose names we have just mentioned
differ from each other. The Conservatives, whether
singly or en masse, have offered no definite pro-
gramme except indeed that the most pronounced of
all of them, the present Chief Justice WHITESIDE,
has declared that " if the existence of what is called
tenant right be productive of good in Ulster,
the principle should be fearlessly applied to the
other provinces." On the other hand, the most pro-
nounced of all the' three Liberals we have named has
told the House of Commons that under all circum-
stances he would respect the rights of property, and
when he was greeted with ironical cheers he turned
to his political opponents and drew down real
applause by adding, " And my ideas of the rights of
property are the same as yours." It may perhaps be
said that the absence of party spirit on this occasiou
is because the question is not generally understood,
because politicians have not yet come to know
what it really is, nor what it involves, and that
when they do know, they will shew the same
divergencies of sentiment which they have shewn on
all other great questions, and which arise from the
innate differences of political temperament. This
may be so, yet we scarcely think it will be. The
question will have to be decided promptly, and
before there has been time for it to become the battle-
horse of party. There are other causes for hope-
fulness. The great difficulty has already been
surmounted in India. There, among races infi-
nitely more numerous than the English, infinitely
more alien from our own, we have contrived to give
the great bulk of the people the security of tenure
which the Irish are asking. \nd it must be remem-
bered that if Irishmen are idle as compared with
Englishmen and Scotchmen, much more are Indians.
As a matter of fact, Irishmen are not idle when they
have fair play. In British America, in the United
States, they are as industrious as any other people,
and are quite as successful. Then, too, we have in
Ireland itself good evidence of what may be done
where the tenants are treated justly. The exist-
ing tenant-right in Ulster which was granted
by JAMES I. may have some disadvantages,
may, for instance, involve too heavy a
charge for the purchase of good will; but on the
whole it has worked well. The tenant knows that
he is safe in his holding for a lengthened term, so long
as he pays the rent, Consequently, though' Ulster

is far more densely peopled than the other provinces,

it has exported produce in large quantities, but
not people. During the two years 1864-5 the
emigrants from Munster were nearly 6 per cent. of
the population, those from Ulster were only a little
over 2 per cent. We admit, of course, that compen-
sation for improvements and long leases
would not come up to the measure of the
changes which Irishmen generally demand. They are
asking not so much that they may be freed from the
caprice and the tyranny of landlords as that they
themselves may become landlords. Probably
nothing less than this would satisfy them. Even
if it should be needful and expedient to grant this
we see no reason to be alarmed. The problem was
faced sixty years ago in Prussia ; it has been faced
far more recently by ourselves in India. We
may still believe that Irishmen would do
better by going to that country where one
day's work will purchase an acre of land,
than by staying here, where three years' work will
hardly suffice. But our first duty is to make our
Irish fellow-subjects contented. We have no right
to drive them from their native country if they
prefer to remain in it. Emigration should be the
result of free choice, not of forcible eviction. We
have already sustained serious harm in that way, by
sending a new Irish nation to grow up across the
Atlantic bitterly hostile to England. Let us make
the Irish contented at home, and then, whether they
go or stay, we shall have friends instead of foes,
dutiful sons of one common mother, instead of aliens
and rebels.

IT is rumoured that the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council is about to be reformed. The news
will interest very different classes of persons. Men
who have neither pursuits nor tastes, nor indeed
anything in common, are concerned in the reported
change. They that go down to the sea in ships, they
that have charge of souls on land, and they who are
populating our colonies, will alike feel the influence
of this alteration. The tribunal in question is the
Final Court of Appeal in matters colonial, maritime,
and ecclesiastical. All three classes of suits
have increased so much of late years that the Privy
Council finds it impossible to get through all its
business. There are constantly augmenting remanets
to the great disgust of all classes of suitors. Of
course no one wishes to see litigation increase.
Ecclesiastical suits, especially, are to be depre-
cated. Nevertheless, if they are to be tried
at all there ought to be every facility for trying
them. A recently published statement has given
a list of all the causes of this last class which are to
come on for hearing next term. Never were there
so many before. We regret it ; but if legal pro-
ceedings we are to have, let them be speedy. One
would no more wish to prolong litigation than tooth-
drawing. Let us, however, be quite certain that if
any alteration is made in the court above-mentioned,
we have an improvement. As yet very little is
known about it, and we learn only from the Globe
that one of the main features of the change will be
the appointment of a permanent legal president, at a
fixed salary. This change will at least prevent the
possibility of hurrying on a particular case in order
that it may be tried by men whose views are known
beforehand. If the Lord Chancellors cease to pre-
side, we shall have a safeguard against political or
ecclesiastical intrigue. But we imagine that
this alteration will by no means satisfy theo-
logians. They, or at all events a portion of
them, demand a far more extensive alteration than
this. Now, therefore, is the time for them to move.
Let them, in the first place, be quite sure what it is
they want ; and, in the next place, let them lay
their wishes temperately before the public. If these
are reasonable, the public will support them. If
they are not, theologians must expect neither popular
sympathy nor Ministerial support.

Is England to be the schoolmistress of the world ?
She has always been a missionary nation ; she has
always been prompt to send her teachers through
all lands. But now the world is sending its
inhabitants to be taught by her. Indians
come hither to be instructed in English
literature and other branches of learning
Lee led for the civil service. Norwegians and Swedes
are to be found learning seamanship in the British
navy. A member of the Royal House of Italy
—the young DUKE of GENOA—is a scholar at
Barrow. And to-day we are told that the
son of the VICEROY OF EGYPT is coming to Oxford
to graduate in that famous university. This is well.
It is better—pace Mr. ROEBUCK—to be teaching
foreign nations than to be subsidising them. It is
better that they should come to our schools and
universities than that we should command their
armies and pay their troops. It is better for us
and better for them. So let them come and
welcome.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE

(RE UTEn's TELEGRAMS.)