The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-05 00:00:00

TftE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAYS

MISCELLANEOUS NETTS.

0
TIM, STATE OF IRELAND,

" W. R. G.," whom it is not difficult to recognise
as Mr. Greg, the well-known essayist and reviewer,
writes a- forcible letter to the Pall Mall Gazet:e on
the state of Ireland. He gives a list of thirteen
instances of murders, or attempts to murder, since
(and including) December 20th, 18(i7: he recalls
several cases of threatening letters, and draws
attention to the case of Mr. Ilorridge, J.P.,
Westmeath, who was fired at on his way
to church, and who now goes about escorted by two
policemen. He confirms, on the authority of private
letters, what Lord Stanley said about the general
sense of insecurity in Ireland, and the consequent
stoppage of wor:s and improvement's and asks,
Who is respo:isible for this most sad state
of things ? " Impartial justice will reply : the
British people, British statesmen, the British
Constitution, English orators, English politicians."
yr. Greg's indictment includes- all the prominent
statesmen and writers on the Liberal side; and he
charges them with a general ignorance or disregard
of the Irish character. The Irish (he says) are a
fervid, imaginative race. Inflexible justice awes them;
severity is yielded to as fate; crime, if followed by
stern, speedy punishment, is soon driven from amongst
them; but mercy is taken for weakness ; cle-
mency is attributed to fear; crime unpunished soon
grows and multiplies. Yet it is to this people that
Mr. Mill spoke of the immediate creation of a peasant
proprietary; that Mr. Bright pronounced against
English landowners, and spoke of an Ireland two
thousand miles away in which the populace would
rise and exterminate the dominant race ; and that
Mr. Gladstone declared that he would try to govern
Ireland according to Irish ideas. If they would
make Ireland a peaceful, happy, contented nation
they must go very differently in the future.

THE GRAVES IN THE CRLDIEA.

" G. Arbuthnot" writes to the Times on the con-
dition of the graves in the Crimea, and adds his
voice to that of Dr. Russell in denouncing the mean-
ness of the English Government in this matter. He
believes there are more than seventy-two cemeteries,
the most interesting being on Cathcart Hill. Here
he spent two or three hours only last summer,
making a list of the names, &c. The stones are in
many cases crumbling away. But the graves here
are by no means as bad as in Balaclava. There the
wall has in some parts been knocked down, some
head-stones are broken, others are lying on their
faces, and the place is without anyone to look after
it. The French manage things better. They have
gathered their dead into one cemetery, and have put
a man to attend to it. The same thing has been
done by ourselves at Scutari. But before Sebastopol;
where fell the bravest, the noblest of England's sons,
there will soon be nothing but mounds here and
there to mark the last resting-places of our deal
warriors.

"Three measures, and I believe three only," says Mr.
Greg, " would now bring tranquillity to Ireland, the tran-
quillity of feared and assured control of law to the dis-
turbed minds of the peasantry and farmers, the
tranquillity of secure reliance on the law to the
irritated and alarmed minds of the landowners.
First, a law making the maintenance of the family of
any landlord, agent, or occupier, murdered for agrarian
reasons, a first charge on the rates of the district, to be
levied at once and levied upon occupiers alone. Secondly,
the location in every such district of a detective police
force `in plain clothes,' literally and metaphorically, till
the murderers and their accomplices were given up,
coupled with a Queen's proclamation to the effect that no
pardon or commutation of the sentence of the law could in
such cases be under any circumstances hoped for. And
thirdly, a vote of both Houses of Parliament, passed by
such overwhelming majorities as to preclude all prospect of
retrogression in any subsequent session and with Mr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Brightswelling those majorities, to the effect
that while ample and prompt and easy compensation
should be granted to tenants for all unexhausted improve-
ments, no legislation would concede fixity of tenure,' or
interfere with the established rights of property in any
shape or under any pretext. In- a word, Lord Stanley's
very temperate advice should be taken. Agitators and
assassins would then cease to hope, to intimidate, and to
waylay ; and improving landlords and enterprising capi-
talists might cease to fear and to withdraw."

MR. BP.IGIIT'S LAND SCIIEHE.

The ,S7ar, in its defence of Mr. Bright, &chiral
incidentally that Mr. Gladstone cried out " No," in
answer to the question put by Mr. Hardy, "Has Mr.
Bright given forth the measure agreed upon by the
Cabinet " The Star is now requested to say that
this was a mistake. Mr. Gladstone did not answer
Mr. Hardy's question.
The London correspondent of the Manchester
Guardian says that Mr. Bright's blunder on Friday
night has given rise to much bickering and bitter-
ness" among the Liberal patty. The disagreement
is said to have invaded the Cabinet itself. " The
names of more than one member of the Cabinet are
freely mentioned in connection with warm dis-
claimers of the assumption by the President of the
Board of Trade of the right to pledge them to his
well-known scheme for buying up Irish estates with
Government money, and breaking them up into
peasant properties. It is said by those who dislike
the scheme, and who object to its announcement
from the Treasury Bench before it has been consi-
dered in the Cabinet, that the expressions with
which it was accompanied, intimating that unless
brought forward its author would not con-
tinue to hold the office of a Minister, were
calculated to take away freedom of deliberation
in the Cabinet. This is stoutly controverted by the
friends and supporters of the right hon. gentleman,
and will, as a matter of course, be repudiated by his
colleagues, if they are interrogated on the subject, in
both Houses."

E:MIN6I-, M 5, 1869.

a man liberty to marry his wiles sister, it ought also pirate as a public nuisance, involving the British
to give a woman liberty to marry her husband's Government, which must respond in damages, not
brother; and he will move an instruction to that
only to the individuals who have suffered, but also to
effect when the House goes into committee on Mr.
T. Chambers's bill. The member for Marylebone the National Government. One after another ships
will find it hard to say why the licence granted in were built, escaped on their errard and enjoyed
the one case should not be granted in the other. the immunities of British ports ; these ships were
Mr. Monk means to go farther, and, we imagine by built under the ill-omened proclamation which
way of irony, will move as an instruction that a man
awarded belligerent rights on the ocean to the
shall have power to marry " his deceased wife's
brother's or sister's daughter;" in other words, his Confederac. If the demands are larger now than
niece by marriage. Mr. Chambers, cheered by the at the first tall, it is not the only time in history,
success which his bill has received thus far, intends and to Lord RUSSELL this is due who so curtly re-
to extend its operation by legalising all marriages jetted th early overtures of the United States.
with a deceased wife's sister contracted hitherto.
Mr. SUmNF closed with these words :
" The truth must be told, not in anger, but in sadness.
▪ England has done to the United States an injury most
s difficult to measure. Considering when it was done and
in what complicity, it is most unaccountable. At a great
• epoch of history, not'less momentous than that of the
1, French Revolution or that of the Reformation, when
e
civilization was fighting ilast battle with slavery, Eng-
) land gave her name, her influence, her material resources
to the wicked cause, and flung a sword into the scale with
e 'alaVery. Hero was a protentous mistake. Strange that
0 the land of Wilberforce, after spending millions for eman-
cipation, after proclaiming everywhere the truths of
r liberty, and ascending to glorious primacy in the sublime
0 movement for the universal abolition of slavery, could do
t 'this thing! Like every departure from the rule of justice
• and good neighbourhood, her conduct was pernicious in
proportion to the scale of operations, affecting individuals,
' corporations, communities, and the nation itself. And
yet, down to this day, there is no acknowledgment of this
L wrong ; not a single word. Such a generous expression
would be the beginning of a just settlement, and the best
' assurance of that harmony between the two great and
t kindred nations which all must desire."
5 Mr. FESSENDEN briefly indorsed what Mr. SUMNER
1 had said, and but Senator M'CREERY, of Kentucky,
1 out of fifty-five, opposed the rejection.. GARRETT
Davis, of Kentucky, also asked for a day's delay to
consider, but this being rejected, he likewise voted
r with the majority; so the Democrats joined the
) • Republicans in throwing out a treaty framed for set-
tling the damages caused by the action of their
Southern friends working in the cause o slavery
from the base furnished by their allies in England, on
r the plea of its being too lenient. Mr. MOTLEY is
▪ Senator SUMNER'S guest at Washington, and his
instructions may be gathered from this speech.
They formed the matter for an especial Cabinet
meeting, and it is announced that the new Admi-
nistration will act on the views of the Chamber.
Unless some unlo oked for solution turns up there is no
, chance whatever of the settlement of the Alabama
Claims. If England under-rates the magnitude of
the injury the Republic sustained at her hands,
the United States, in a still greater degree, exagge-
rates it, and the nations, seeing things from points
so wholly different, have little chance of reconciling
the discrepancies. Mr. LAIRD built a wooden ship
for the Confederates, and a poor thing she was, and
such old crazy craft as the Shenandoah, the Georgia,
and the Sumter, found eager sellers in owners only
too happy to get rid of them. But these vessels
now are "the ships after ships that were built,
armed, equipped, and manned in England," which
country became the Confederate base of naval ope-
rations. The Tribune never speaks of them but as
the " ironclads," and the tone is so extravagant that
the strong position of the United States is weakened
in the general incredulity which therebyattaches to all
the arguments. Anotherpointadversstoasettlement,
unless the speakers mean a settlement by war, though
this is universallydisclaimed, is the habit of dragging
into the discussion everything JOHN BRIGHT said in
the heat of debate against England. Instead of his
presence in the Cabinet forwarding an adjustment,
the chances are it will have the reverse effect. A n influ-
ential section of English society believe JOHN BRIGHT
to be more American than English, and as Ameri-
cans constantly quote him in support of ultra de-
mands, and in proof of the villainy of England, any-
thing he proposed or that he sanctioned would be
regarded with the extreme of suspicion. Mr.
SUMNER stated there were many in America who
would desire to push this matter to war, and he
thought there were many in England who, taking
counsel of a perverse political bigotry, have spurned
the claims, adding, " I know it is sometimes said
that war between us must come sooner or later. I
do not believe it ; but if it must come, let it be later,
when I am sure it will never come, for good men
will unite to make it, impossible." Many, however,
good or bad appear to be uniting now to make it
not only possible but probable. In England the
people are being taught to believe in the bitter
enmity to them of the PRESIDENT; in the hatred
of the whole Republic, in the desire for war nut
only of Gessrr, but of all his chief advisers, and
in the certainty that unless they gather themselves
up so that their attitude should make it one of the
most disastrous steps ever taken by a nation to
force that war upon them, forced it will be, or they
will bepushed into humiliatingeoncessioes, which will
prove even worse than vain to avert it. Every effort
made to do honour to the American representative
lately sent, the English say but recoiled on their
own head, being hurled contemptuously back; and
thus it ever is, concession breeds but demand, no
olive branch can conciliate, nor can any national
humiliation satisfy American hatred. Such opi-
nions are so widely held that it will make Mr. MOT-
LEY'S task very different from that of Mr. REVEIIDY
JOHNSON. The cerrepondent of the Times asserts
that the feelings of hostility in America at this
moment towards England are quite equal to those
entertained at any time during the late civil war.
The English ask, why ? Is this the response to the
friendly interchange of expressions with the R pre-
sentative sent by America, and our concession of
all he asked? Believing the asseridon, the conclu-
sion is direct that even if they conceded what Mr.
SUMNER sketches as the American demand, that the
hostility would then boil over, and be instantly fol-
lowed by a war. It is pitiable to see what poor
contemptible things the leading nations of the
world are ! Those who did not know that other
nations were more contemptible still, might wonder
at ouch as these being leaders, for their conduct can
only be compared to that of baboons attempting to
beat Out each other's brains with the nuts they had
stored for winter.

England's reception of SUMNER'S exposition of
the subject is what we expected. It is considered
so preposterous as to remove the question beyond
the limits of discussion. No Ministry of any party
could hold their places if they entertained it, and
as the speech is regarded as the official declaration
of the American people, to be framed by Mr.
MOTLEY into diplomatic demands from which be
cannot recede, the settlement of the claims is not
considered even possible. The Washington Ad-
ministration will hereafter then have to consider
the next steps on Mr. MOTLEY'S announcing the de-
termination of the British Government. If General
GRANT, his advisers, and Congress desire war (as
some people are foolish enough to assert), an itn-
mediate declaration will not only be open, but be
the natural sequence, and it is clear that although
England does not look for such consequences, the
people are being taught to consider them not im-
possible. Indeed, we may add, that they are care-
fully being trained to regard hostilities as the almost
certain eventual result of America's course, and the
caution is everywhere given to prepare. The in-
' tense and unmitigated hatred of America towards
England is spoken of as a fact beyond dispute,
although it is as gross an exaggeration, amounting
to an untruth, as was ever palmed off upon a people.
" How is it you hate us so bitterly ?" asked an
' English lady the other day of an American.
" Hate you !" exclaimed she with surprise, not
comprehending at once what was meant. " Why
we do not hate you—how could you have received
such an impression ?" Had she read the English
papers there would have been no necessity for this
question. The Times of yesterday quoted Dr. LEA-
VITT, to whdtn the gold medal of the Cobden. Club
was lately awarded in proof of " the perfect truth"
that Protection in America " is cherished as a
weapon of special power to injure the Britishi
na-
tion." If the writer gets into a " ring"
ie might
learn something more about the objects of Protec-
tion, although Monopolists may use the ignorant
Irish .element by representing their privileges as
ruinous to English trade. The Times also states
that the fate of the American Union at one moment
depended "on the voice of England." It notice's
as a lamentable instanceof the partizanship of Ame-
rican statesmen that Mr. SUMNER did not once
allude' in his speech to France, although the coun-
tries acted together, and it is a matter of history ►