The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-12 00:00:00

CLERICAL. MEDICAL, AND GENERAL
LIFE ASSURANcE SOCIETY.
13, ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, LONDON, S.W.

CHAIRMAN.
Right Hon. John Robert Mowbray, M.P.

DEPUTY-CHAIRMEN.
William Bowman, Esq., F.R.S.
Sir Charles Locock, Bart, D.C.L.,

Extracts from the Report of the Directors, presented at
the Annual General Meeting held on the 27th November,
1868 :-
1. The sum of 4412,345 was proposed for Assurance, of
which £307,395 was completed at Premiums pro-
ducing £10,067 per Annum.
2. The amount paid under Claims by death was £100,883,
being the smallest since 1860, whilst the expenses of
management and all other outgoings were even less
than for many years past.
3. On the other hand, the Income was raised to £219,769,
notwithstanding that its increase was retarded by
abatements of premium which did not take effect in
the previous year, and by the cessation of interest on
the large sum paid as Bonus in 1867.
4. The Surplus income was very considerable. It
amounted to £93,152, a sum exceeding by more than
£B,OOO any previous Surplus during the forty-four
years of the Society's existence.
5. The Accumulated Fund was thereby increased to
£1,598,906.

The following are among the distinctive features of the
Society :
CREDIT SYSTEM.—On any Policy for the whole of
Life, where the age does not exceed 60, one-half of the
Annual Premiums during the past five years may remain
on credit.

ENDOWMENT ASSURANCES may be effected,
without Profits, by which the Sum Assured becomes pay-
able on the attainment of a specified age, or at death,
whichever event shall first happen.
INVALID LIVES may be assured at rates proportioned
to the increased risk.

PROMPT SETTLEMENT OP CLAIMS.—Claims paid
thirty days after proof of death.
Tables of Rates and Forms of Proposal can be obtained
of any of the Society's Agents, or of
GEORGE CUTOLIFFE, Actuary and Secretary.
13, St. James's-square, London. S.W.

On WedneAay the Times h;ld an nth which
opened with a 6:tong indictment agains:.
Sumner, whose unreasonable demands forced 1.1. e
South into the civil war, and thereby as,oeiated
Lis name with the opening chapter of that disas-
trous epoch. Ills demands then were of the same
preposterous nature as his claims now, and as the
imes insinuates may lead to another terrible cala-
mity. It goes on to show that for every act which
might be construed into an infraction of interna-
tional law, of England against America; there were
ten such acts by America against England, and_ if
English sympathy and assistance were toa ards the
South in the struggle, American symi why and
assistance were still more in favour of every enemy
of England, in every British emergency since the
birth of the Republic. The 'I imes asserts Oat if
the upper classes in England were not sorry to see
the Union endangered, it was the fault of Americans
who had never ceased to aid those whose design it
was to sever the British Union. The Standard takes
the warlike attitude that venerable lady assumes
when her pride is touched. Senator Chandler's
proposal it regards as more dangerous than Set-later
Sumner's famous oration, which had the good effect
of reducing conflicting English views to a common
! denominator, and making a unit of British re-
sistine. to American aggression. England before
had been able when united to overcome greater
difficulties than now, or ever again can threaten.
Were Senator Sumner's speech embodied in diplo-
matic demands they would make America the laugh.
ing-stock of the world, for they would resolve the
negotiations into a farce ; and the Standard thinks
they could only have been put forward as a prelimi-
nary to Mr. Chandler's demand for the cession of the
Canadas. That would be more difficult to dispose
of, for 4, thePhilo-Americansin this country, Repub-
lican sympathisers eager to advance the Democratic
cause andstrike any blow at Monarchical institutions,
have long been in the habit of assuming that in the
progress of events Canada must necessarily fall a
prey to the Union." Englishmen have been found
to dishonour their birth by their attempts to betray
the loyal Canadians into the hands of the Philis-
tines :

" In this way it has come to pass that a dema :d fur the
cession of the British North American provinces may not
strike all parties in this country with the same feeling of
indignation whichAwould be excited by any other 'demand
which, though it might not in reality be more unwarrant-
able or insulting, would be less familiar. There would
be a party, let us hope it would be a small one, but still
there would be a party in this c,ouutry,:prepared to defend
and justify such a demand."

After striking these stunning blows, which we, being
among the culprits, could not but feel, the Standard
asserts that it behoves the British to preparo, to let
Americans clearly know where concessions will stop
and peaceable endurance end ; that England, no mat-
ter what the consequences, N. ill refuse to surrender a
foot of colonial territorycxcept. through the action of
the colonists themselves, and that any attempt to in-
fringe this principle would bring about a war with
the whole power of Great Britain. While discuss-
ing the Standard, we may mention that there is an
excellent letter, also in Thursday's issue, from " An
American Shipowner." lie, in a few teling sen-
tences, points out two errors undor which his coati-
turtle!' I our as to the consequences of the cscape
of the Alabama and other pirates; the one, that
they prolonged the war, the other that they per-
manently weakened American preponderance upon
the ocean. We regret that we cannot trans-
fer this letter intact to our columns, for it
is an admirable resume of the arguments for the posi-
tion all along taken by the Anglo-American Times.
But there are a few points too important to be
omitted. This American ship owner, himself a
sufferer from the Alabama, calls the Confederate
effort to get up a Navy " f asserting the
" ornamental fighting" done by Semmes and others
to have injured in a material way their cause in Eng-
land, annihilating the Southern sentiment, perhaps
preventing the union with France in recognizing
the independence of the Confederate States. They
supplied nothing to the South, they did nothing in
aid of Lee or Stonewall Jackson, their work being
only unmitigated evil, alike to themselves and to
every one else. The monstrous taxation prevented
America, on the termination of hostilities, from re-
gaining her preponderance, and Congress unwisely
declined to allow the vessels transferred to the Bri-
tish flag during the war to hoist the Star Spangled
Banner after it. But a change had also taken
place whereby the ship-building in which the Union
excelled became a thing of the past—wooden sail-
ing vessels having given place to iron screw s' earners,
in which the British excelled, as the Americans had
formerly done in wooden sailing ships. The sentimen-
tal part of the question only is seen by the greatmass
of Americans, who, having settled West, away back
from the Atlantic, know little of the subject, and
believe in the figurative talk of sails whitening the
ocean. The " Ship-owner" desires that Mr. Bright
would institute an inquiry as President of the
Board of Trade into the cause of the increase of
British and the decrease of American shipping, and
he is so popular. in America that he would be believed
there as readily as any statesman of the Republic.
We may here observe that he would find the
whole ground already traversed by Consul-General
Morse, in a fair and equitable spirit, a journey
which took him to the same conclusion as . the
" Ship-owner," and, as all practical Americans ac-
quainted with the subject. One point more. The
Americans who sold their ships to foreigners during
the war receives a higher price than could since
have been obtained for them. Will Mr. Sumner
give England credit for this, when assessing the
damages? The Daily News concurs with nearly
all other English journals in thinking Mr Stunner's
exposition absurd, and the supposition that a de-
mand could be made on England for the cession of
Canada, in liquidation, preposterous. If the Pall
Mall Gazette represents the " gentlemen" of Eng-
land, they are in a fighting mood. Our evening
contemporary is bitter as well as bellicose, and is
raking together against Americans every vicious
scrap it can glean. The letter of an American
correspondent to a morning paper furnished an op-
portunity, as it gave specimens of how New York
was governed. Every one knows that a rowdy
Irish mob has been so skilfully organized in that
city as to rule ; and Cork might as well be pointed
to as a specimen of Democratic Government. There
is a pleasant little habit Cockneys have of forget-
ting their own shortcomings, for, in three years,
more iniquitous swindling was done in London--
and by the respectability, too, of the City—than in
a generation in New York, and with worse coup-
quences. The Pall Mall censures the Spectator
for admitting that America had any grievance
at all against England, and proceeds much in
the same way as Mr. Sumner, on the other side, to
prove this, taking the road which so often brings us
alltogrief. Thusnationsdrift intowars; thusindivid-
uals into law courts. But however one-sided the
arguments may be they are intelligible, whether
American or British, and we who endeavour to get
as near the centre as we can are called British by
Americans, and American by the British. Having,
however, the arguments on both sides before übs:lm.t.e
can comprehend'them ; but we confess our inability
(asly
to understand Mr. Reverdy Johnson_'s.tre.auli.av
Fund
circumstances
anything
reported in the limes) at the Royal
the,
American Minister was on his ?
Aelthouah this did
Literary Fund
Dioinhritsere.arLonrodt Stotatnalleky
rooccliutpicsie.d
Although
doing so,' it perhaps
not prevent Mr. Johnson frot
air
to his observations.
gave the enigmatical
I°l ta.wraocuel would
tblenci
emsptrho
apte him
in them
There WBS
between England and
likely to lead to a
thisrupture
to refer minutely to
America. Then followed .
cllo,entalyekonc°cwurierdedge.
" That which any man might state after he got to. the
ttoh
tahtce
teethe, the person to whom ho al-
vital consequence w
summit of the mountain was immaterial, nor was it of
the convention which was intended to settle all
1u,1,:d had or had not succeeded in bringing about the
loseofre-
jection-te.sbetween the two countries, and he begge.l tl
‘cvilsMinti he was addressing to believe that that person was
not expressing the real, honest, and patriotic sentitnents of
his country.
- -

He had always dwelt at the base, and from that
position he could not see the claims that had since
been discovered. From the way in which the re-
porter of the Times gave his remarks the reader
would suppose that he had alluded to the Presi-
dent., but we believe he meant Senator Sumner,
regarded by him as an old rolitical foe against
whom he had often led his party in the Senate.