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

Tali 6UN, LON'T)2ONt
_WEDNES6AY EVE.Ni.NO,-lijAY. 5 1869.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

TAR STATE OF IRELAND.

-~ ,

" W. li. G.," whom it is not difiictllt to recognise
as Mr. Greg, the well-known essayist and reviewer,
writes a forcible letter to the Pall Mall Gazette on
the state of Ireland. He gives a list of thirteen
instances of murders, or attempts to murder, since
(and including) December 20th, 1867 ; 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 works and improvements; and asks,
Who is responsible for this most sad state
of things ? " Impartial justice will reply : the
British people, British statesmen, the British
Constitution? English orators, English politicians."
Mr. 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 j ustice awes them;
severity is yielded to as fate; crime, if followed by
stern, speedy punishment, is soon drivenfrom 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 CRIMEA.

" 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 Iu 11. 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 hero
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 prospectof
retrogression in any-subsequent session and with Mr. Glad-
stone and Mr. Brig h tswelling those majorities, to the effect
that while ample and prompt and easy compensation
should be granted to tenants for all unexhausted improve.
meats, 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."

-
_itinan_iib_ertY.to marry his wife's sister, it ought also pirate was a public nuisance, involving the British
to give a woman liberty to marry her husband's
move an instruction to that
brother; Government, which must respond in damages, not
;-and he will
effect when the House goes into committee on Mr. only to the individuals who have suffered, but also to
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
shall have power to marry " his deceased wife's awarded belligerent rights on the ocean to the
brother's or sister's daughter ;" in other words, his Confederacy. If the demands are larger now than
niece by marriage. Mr. Chambers, cheered by the at the first call, 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 curt] re-
to extend its operation by legalising all marriages yjected the early overtures of the United States.
with a deceased wife's sister contracted hitherto.
Mr. SUMNER 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
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
French Revolution or that of the Reformation, when
civilization was fighting a last 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
slavery. Here was a protentous mistake. Strange that
the land of Wilberforce, after spending millions for eman-
cipation, after proclaiming everywhere the truths of
liberty, and ascending to glorious primacy in the sublime
movement for the universal abolition of slavery, could do
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
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
kindred nations which all must desire."
Mr. FESSENDEN briefly indorsed what Mr. SUMNER
had said, and but Senator M'CREERY, of Kentucky,
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
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 of slavery
from the base furnished by their allies in England, on
the plea of its being too lenient. Mr. MOTLEY is
Senator SU3INER'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 3ked for solution turns up thereis 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. Anotherpointadvers3toasettlement,
unless the speakers mean a settlement by war, though
this is universally disclaimed, 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 thc reverse effect. A n influ-
ential section of English society believeJOHN 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.
SU3INER 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 sometime s 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 iu the bitter
enmity tO them of the PRESIDENT; in the hatred
of the whole Republic, in the desire for war nut
only of GRANT, 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 be pushed into humiliating concessions, 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. REVERDY
JOHNSON. The correpondent 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 Repre-
sentative sent by America, and our concession of
all he asked ? Believing the assertion, 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 such as thes.i 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 he
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
CrntiN 1, rils ativisers, 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 msant. " Why
we do not hate you—how could you have receivedi
such an impression ?" llad she read the English
papers there would have been no necessity for
this
question. The Times of yesterday quoted Dr. LEA-
\ITT, to whom 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 British na-
tion." If the writer gets into a " ring" he might
learn something more about the objects of Protec-
tion, although Monopolists may use the ignorant
Irish element by representie, their privileet s
as
ruinous to English trad3. T"he Times also ' states
that the fate of the American Union at one moment
depended " ou the voice of England." It notices
as a lamentable instance of the partizanship of Ame-
rican statesmen that Mr. SUMNER did not once
allude in his speech !o France, although the coun-
tries acted together, and it is a matter of history 1

that the DEI;EROR would have recogniieed the in--.
dependence of the Confederation had not the Bri-
tish Government opposed it. It is a pity that Mr.
MOTLEY should be sent on an errand so fruitles3 as
he will find his mission to England ; but it is as
well that the refusal even to entertain the
demands about to be made should be couchtd in
courteous terms, accompanied with regret that the
negotiations should have failed, and that this reply
be forwarded to Washington through such friendly
hands. And it must not be forgotten henceforth,
by either England or America, that as the relations
between the countries will rest on an insecure basiP,
they should be confided to good and well-tried
men, or those who have worked for the rupture
may find it burst upon them, like a tornado, before
they are ready. We still hold to the of inion that
the extravagance of these demands is but a feint--
and that Mr. SUMNER'S real aitn is the annexation
of the Canadas.

UNITED S 7 ATES CURRESCE

The currency in the United States consists almost
wholly of legal-tenders, nick-named greenbacks, and
notes of the National Banks. Both were de-
signed by Chief Justice CHASE when Secretary of
the Treasury, under whose auspices in 1861 the
bank-note circulation that then obtained currency,
was converted into legal-tenders, and the Acts
were passed in 1863, which created the National
Banks and permitted their issues. The one system
was in a high degree profitable to the State, as it
made money, au inconvertible legal-tender, out of
rags; theother was in a high degree profitable to the
proprietors of the stock, who through it received in
annual interest upon their capital 14 to 15 per cent.
The privilege of a National Bank is to issue in the
proportion of $90,000 in notes for every $lOO,OOO
in United States Bonds deposited in the National
Treasury, the extent to which this may be done being
limited by law. It follows that while the Bank draws
6 per cent. in gold on the Bonds it has deposited in
the Treasury, it is permitted to traffic with a sum only
fractionally less for its own benefit, obtaining thereby
double interest. Such a privilege is worth having,
and that the people eagerly availed themselves of
it is evident from the rapid increase of the National
Banks. On the 25th March, 1863, the law was
passed, and on the 20th June following the first
bank was organized. In October, 1864, there were
50 of these banks with an aggregate capital of
$86,782,802, and a year later they numbered 1,513
with a capital of $393,157,206, increasing so as
on Jan. 1, 1868, to exceed two hundred thousand
proprietors, with a capital of $120,073,415. The
system worked well, answering the wants of the
people at the time. The great crisis of the war was
tided over, and the monetary affairs of the nation
were placed on a more secure foundation, as was
shown by the few failures and the small sums lost
to the creditors by the insolvent insitutions. One
great advantage was that they facilitated exchange
as their bills were current in distant State 3, whereas
the old notes were only received in places far from
that of issue, at a heavy discount. The Senate has
lately passed a bill to amend these Acts, of which
the Fourth Section is important, as it provides for
a better distribution of the national banking cur-
rency. We do not say that the Senate therein acts
a like part to that CANUTE satirised when he placed
his chair on the shore, and, surrounded by his
courtiers, commanded the flowing tide to recede.
The section withdraws $30,000,000 from banks
having a circulation exceeding that provided for,
distributing the overplus an- ong the banks in States
wherein there is less than the authorized amount.
The law provides for a total of $300,000,000, and
the comptroller is to calculate on the basis of the
half, or $150,000,000, accorded to population, and
the other half, or $150,000,000, accorded to pro-
perty, real and personal; but he must so arrange
that the aggregate of circulation shall not at any
time exceed the whole or $300,000,000. The Fifth
Section is as follows :
"Sec. 5. And bi it further enacted, that any Banking
Association located in any State having more than its pro-
portion of circulation, may be removed to any State having
less than its proportion of circulation, under such rules
and regulations as the Coutrjller of the Currency, with the
approval of the Secretary of the Treasury, may require."
Early last year, of all the 1,639 United States Banks,
New England possessed 490, with $83,000,000 of
deposits, $104,000,000 in circulation, and a capital
of $145,000,000. In the State of New York there
were 314 Banks, but their deposits swelled up to
$262,000,000, the circulation being $69,000,000,
and the capital $116,000,000. The three middle
Stares of Ohio, Indiana, andlllinois together had 290
Banks, with $18,000,000 of deposits, $:3.9,000,000
of circulation, and $16,000,000 capital. All the
other States and Territories, excluding Pennsy-
lvania, had 342 Banks ; deposits, $73,000,000;
circulation, $42,000,000 ; and capital $67,000,000.
This distribution wanot unequal, although the
single State of Newyork possessed little less in
deposits than all the others put together. When
the rebellion ended, however, the South could have
neither greenbacks nor National Bank notes, while
whatever the Southerners had hoarded in gold, and
their few stray legal-tenders, were expended at once
to keep them from starvation. On the Southern
States being re-admitted the distribution of the cur-
rency was in the highest degree unequal, as a large
section of the country had no money at all, nor
was it the intention of Congressthat these "rebels"
should have any, as the Legislature ruled that it
served them right. But here we find the laws of
nature commencing their beautiful work of reno-
vation. The South bred in luxury, and trained to
squander, was taught by the results of the war
lessons of economy, which are now strangely react-
ing on the Union. Two bad harvests followed
wars devastations, then the tide of Southern luck
turned, the yield of cotton increased, as well as
the value, grain had been cultivated, and the
poverty-stricken Southerners, cured of their extra-
vagancies, ceasing to regard luxuries as necessaries,
and taught to practise economy, absorbed all the
money they got, sending little back to pay for
that which in olden days they had so freely con-
sumed. The South was like an empty reservoir,
into which poured sundry streams, but the water
remained, and will remain until it commences to over-
flow. The currency comes from the North, where
the drain begins to be felt, but it is in the
West that the shoe pinches, as circumstances there
are the reverse of those in the South. The produce
of these States sold well during the war, the cur-
rency inflated prices, and the farmers, with an ex-
aggerated idea of their wealth, lived more expen-
sively. These conditions have lately changed, both
the farms and the value of their produce hav-
ing fallen, but the farmers refuse to accept the
fact, holding the grain in conjunction with spec-
ulators, for higher prices, while they maintain
their style of living. Thus the South is not
spending money though making it, while the
West is not making money but spending it, the
East being merely the channel of trade. In con-
sequence currency has been flowing from the West
to the East to pay for the luxuries so freely con-
sumed, while that stream thence tends South in
payment for cotton and other Southern staples,
or is carried there in the pockets of settlers in
search of cheap (states. This is in obedience
to a very simple law of economy, which no
law of Congress can alter, or even modify. If
the West will buy Eastern produce, but will not
sell its own produce, it will be depleted of currency
to pay; and it is in vain for Congress to attempt
to supply the deficiency thus created, for it can
only be done by the Western citizens acting on the
plain rule of consuming less and creating mote.
Nothing can be simpler than the economy taught
by ADAM Ssirrtt, but the world will often persist in
looking on such questions as abstruse, and seek
deep, for c tuses and remedies, while they lie on the

surface. If they be on the top, and Congress bur-
rows at the bottom, the deeper these wise Legisla-
tors get the further they are from what they seek.

Nor is this Act grounded only on an economic error ;

or the Nation shows that it would in no Way, even

temporarily, procure the object sought. The IQgi-
sl.Ltion of Congress is intended to give a State the

privilege of obtaining currency on the pledge of
United States Securities in a limited proportion to
its population and property ; but is this privilege
beyond what each person possesses in his own right?
Any one who has these securities can at any time
obtain greenbacks on them ; if they must gather