The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-18 00:00:00

THE WEATHER.

Was there ever such a season for those who watch
the weather as this season of 1868-9 Having, as
Mr. Allnatt points out, had " March winds and April
showers " in January and February, which brought
out our peach.blossoms, we are now, mutatis mutandis,
plunged into the depth of winter. Writing from
Frant, Sussex, on March 14, the meteorogical
correspondent of the Times says :—" On the Ist of
January the mean temperature was 35 deg., which
was the only instance during eighteen days of that
month of the mean sinking below the estimated average.
From the 2nd to the 18th the temperature rose, and
was daily in excess, the surplus ranging from 113
deg. to 12.8 deg. During the past fourteen days of
March the mean has been exceeded thrice only, and
that by a very small amount. On the remaining
thirteen clays the deficiency ranged below the average
from 1 to 8 defy,. On the 14th, the ground at
several places was covered deeply with snow, and
mean temperature sank 81 deg. below the average
value."

THE' ALABAMA CONVENTION.

(Front the Anglo -American Times.)

There is no further development, in the United
States, at least up to the time we write on the subject
of the Alabama Convention. The decision of the
Senate was to pass it over to the next Congress and
Vie new Administration, but it was known that
Republican Senators would vigorously urge its rati-
fication. The people, however ignorant as a miss
on international law, cannot help seeing the incon-
sistency of screaming aloud at Great Britain's con-
duct in her precipitate recognition of Confederate
belligerency, and the immediate recogni ion, not of
belligerency only, hut of the independence of a
Government whenever a revolution has been suffi-
ciently successful to establish a de facto Govern-
ment. Of course, the world can no more be hood-
winked than can the American people hoodwink
themselves, and the position therefore assumed is,
that rebellion is justifiable against anv Government
but that of the United States ; and this is in a
measure avowed, on the ground that it is the
only Republic ever firmly established on true Re-
publican principles—the inalienable right of man—
which the Fifteenth Amendment will recognize as a
right not to be limited or restricted by any cause
whatever. W hat the Republicans then say is, that all
other Governments are based on error, in a greater or
lesser degree, which it is our duty, as the champions
of human right, to remove as the opportunities offer,
and we are pledged to support our doctrine wherever
it is advanced, for we then contend,not for the United
States, but for the broad principle of the Rights of
Man. In warring to split asunder the Republic,
our enemies were not ours only,but of the human race;
the contention being that of an oligarchy against the
people, iu supporting which the English Govern-
ment sinned against the principles of liberty. Hence
the very doctrine to which we are pledged, forces
us to uphold nationalities struggling for :inde-
pendence, and however apparently inconsistent to
condemn the effort to destroy us the champions of
that cause. In this there i, no inconsistency, hut
the contrary, though there may be both egotist',
and dogmatism. In Europe the apparent contra-
diction is too obvious to escape notice, and the
fact is that the action of the Republic really places
her in the position of asserting that what she does
against other countries is justifiable, but what other
countries do against her is an unpardonable sin.
Many Americans emphatically condemn the assump-
tion and the interference ; but little impression can
be made upon men who are enthusiastic believers
in their doctrine. The New York Nation hits
straight out in an article on Secret Sessions against
the Senate deliberating with closed doors on such
a Convention as the Alabama claims. Setting
aside with the utmost contempt the appeal " to God
and humanity" of such men as Mr. Yates, it desires
that the nation should be enlightened by hearing
the opinions on points of international law (whereon
it is profoundly ignorant), of the trained men and
theSumners, Fessendens, Trumbulls, Edmonds, like
Conklings. It remarks, "In the first place, one of
the greatest evils arising from the system of secret
sessions is, that a public which is of course very
ignorant of international law finds no means of en-
lightening itself, while it is able, notwithstanding,
to exert the most powerful pressure on our foreign
relations. In a country in which it is a truism that
all power comes from the people, a principle is in-
troduced which seems founded on the belief that the
people are of no consequence whatever. No sound
progress in Democracy is possible at all unless all
make progress together ; whatever is done by the
leaders must at least be understood by the rank andfile,
for if this
haverule be
the
file, neglected,
ultimateth era
power,nk andwill
knowing they
nullify in some way or other the acts of the leaders.
Now, we cultivate in the Senate a body of picked
men, the most able representative body in the
country, but on some of the most important topics
that come before them we prevent their debates