The Sun.
London, England, 1869-05-20 00:00:00

NEW SOUTH WALES V. vrcTona.

The Australian children of the great Anglo-Saxon
parent are beginning to feel the ill effects of restrictions on
commerce. The pressure of ad valorem duties is found to
be n:o3t injurious both in V:ctoria and New South Wales.
What is required is a system of taxation which will raise
a revenue without interfering with commerce ; but what
is also required is a strong government with the ability to
devise, and the courage to propound, a: u" table plan. In New
South Wales, at least, it does not seem feasible to substi-
tute other taxes for the ruinous duties on commerce, unless
a considerable reduction be effected in public expenditure.
The more farsighted portion of the Australian community
live in the hope of a Customs Union between New South
Wales and Victoria ; but this hope is by no means
unchequered. The fact is that young as the colonies
are, a sort of rivalry has already sprung up between
them ; the object of each is to draw to its
ports the rapidly-increasing commerce of the Southern
Seas. The Sgdney Morning Herald urges the people
of New South Wales to try to win the race by adopting
the lightest possible system of Customs' duties, by abolish-
ing, in fact, all levies except upon a few articles of general
consumption. The people of Victoria, knowing full well
that their commercial system, which is one of Protection,
would speedily throw them behind, are growing alarmed
at this feeling in the neighbouring colony. It is not
improbable that the rivalry of the two settlements may
secure the adontk• " ''re'- Trade in both

THE PAPAL STATES.

ROME, MAY 13.

The news of the day is that the ex-King of Naples
announced last night to Cardinal Antonelli his intention
of leaving Rome for several months' absence in Germany
and Switzerland. His Majesty has never left Rome save
to go as far as Albano since the fall of Gaeta, and the
change of purpose has made a great sensation. The
Car linal desired him to reflect very seriously before
leaving, as the affair was a very grave one. The Prince
replied that he had perfectly decided on the course
he meant to adopt. His Eminence probably alluded
to the difficulties of returning, which will pro-
bably be raised by the Emperor Napoleon at
the instance of the Court of Florence. It is, however,
his Majesty's intention to return to the Council, and he
will spend the summer at Munich, Vienna, Frohsdorff
(the chateau of the Comte de Chambord), and, with his
sister, the Duchess of Parma, near St. Gall. The Queen's
health imperatively requires absence from Rome during
the hot season, and the use of mineral waters. It is also sur-
mised that the ex-King is not sorry to break up the Court
of the Farnese, with which known spies of the French
police and the Italian revolution had contrived to
obtain an understanding, so much so that very recently
the Prince's private papers were stolen from his desk and
sold to the Italian Cabinet. A temporary absence is the
best means of breaking up the establishment; but there is,
on the other hand, a certain amount of discouragement at
such a step manifested by the Neapolitan emigration. MY
own opinion is, that King Francis does very wisely, as his
partisans of weight are not those who form his Court here,
but those who remain on their estates in the Two Sicilies.
It is to these the King must look for support, and not to
the needy courtiers of the Farnese, whose jealousies
and treasons have been of vital injury to him, and who
have done all they could to disgust his most devoted
adherents, the French royalist noblesse.
Some details of the disastrous collision in the Mediter-
ranean have arrived, and the survivors of the catastophe,
thirty-nine in all, have arrived in Rome from Leg-
horn. The Abattucci was run down by a heavy
Norwegian brig just before daylight, and while all her
passengers were below decks. The crew deserted their
captain and made off with the boats, leaving him and his
passengers to their fate. The Norwegian brutally
refused assistance, and made off, as she was
herself slightly injured in the concussion. The cap-
tain, with the aid of one of the Legionaires—an ex-sailor--
took the wreck in band, getting up steam and going in
chase of the brig, hoping her captain would relent. The
Abattucci plunged, as best she might, with a broken
waist, through a heavy sea for two hours, the soldiers and
passengers in many case jumping overboard and trying to
reach the shore by swimming, an attempt in which most
of them, and all the women, perished. The packet at
leng' h foundered, and thirty-nine of her survivors were
picked up by the Norwegian and brought into Leg-
horn. O'Donoghue and Crowley, Zouave recruits, are
among the fifty-nine drowned, as are the Papal Consul at
Marseilles, Signor Ferraris and his wife and family, a French
colonel returning to his regiment at Civita Vecchia, and
most of the military. The captain's courage and heroic
self-forgetfulness were admirable when deserted by his
cowardly Genoese crew.
A consistory will be held in June, and another in Sep-
tember. At the latter, Mgr. Chigi and Mgr. Falcinelli,
Nuncios in Paris and Vienna, will probably be raised to
the purple.
The Pope went on Monday to Castel Gandolfo, and was
admirably received. He walked down the Corso yester-
day, and looked remarkably well and strong, walking
with the greatest firmness and rapidity. The crisis of the
Italian Government seems to give the King very little
Motor Erpma.nual hest left Florence for Val
dieri, in order to spend the summer hunting chamois.

A nephew of Cardinal Antonelli has just entered the
Pontifical Artillery as a simple soldier. He is son of
the Governor of the Roman Bank.

The King and Queen of Naples leave this clay week,
Thursday, vici Marseilles and Lyons, by Geneva and
Zurich, for St. Gall.

THE ALA DAMA DIFFICULTY.

(From the Aulo-Amcrican Timr3)
Numerous letters have appeared in the English
pipers on the relations between England and Aine-
rica. The Rev. Newman Hall wrote to the ,Star to
give his opinion on Senator Sumner's Speech, as he
had heard that Americans in London much de-
sired to learn it. Mr. Newman Hall is a thorough
New Englander, although an Englishman ;
man after Senator Sutnner's heart, and, to a cer-
taia extent, endorses what his model says, which
he asserts to be but a repetition of a more exciting,
and even more explicit speech delivered in 1863,
when the cruisers were carrying on their ravages.
Mr. W. S. Lindsay denies, in the same paper, that
any .leading men, or party, or any other pergoa

than he had anything to do with the motion so long
standing in his name, for the British House of Com-
mons to recognize the independence of the Confe-
derate States. That sin and folly--he almost admits
it to be such—was his own bantling ; opposed
alike by the most prominent Whigs and Tories,
and scouted by the House, wherein he thinks he
could not have obtained 25 supporters. Mr. Roe-
buck's motion, made later, fared as badly ; the
sense of all Englishmen being dead against any
such move at any period of the war.
A very able letter from an " American Citizen"
appeared in the Times last Wednesday. He
enumerates seven points, all of which we en-
dorse. The first is, that for fifty years there
has never been less disposition to go to war
than at present :—the vote of the Senate did
not signify agreement with Mr. Sumner's argu-
ments, but with his conclusion : —the removal of the
injunction of secresy is always granted to a Senator
on his request, and this was an elaborately pre-
pared speech, taking weeks for its composition.
Sonic unwise declarations made in the British Lega-
tion in Washington conspired to secure the rejec-
tion. England's offence is, that the Alabama was
never anything but a British vessel, built, manned,
equipped by England. She sailed from an English
port and was supplied by English ports, where hos-
pitality was denied to American cruisers ; her only
home was Liverpool, her original port of departure,
and in law and conscience she had no other till she
sank beneath the waters of the Channel. This is
the grievance ; all else being the embellishment of
the advocate and orator. The next statement is
worthy of special notice, for it is that the North
Western States desire the annexation of North British
America, to control the St. Lawrence, and get un-
interrupted water communication with Europe, but
for that reason some of the Atlantic States oppose
it. The West, believing the colonies to be an ele-
ment of expensive weakness to Britain know that
England will eventually tire of the connection, and
that the colonists really desire, and will express the
'lesire, to enter the Union when their public men, who
derive all the benefits coming from Europe, cease to
stand between them and the free expression of their
opinion. There is not a respectable minority, the
writer adds, of any party in any State who would
attempt to wrest the Canadas by force. The latest
news bears out " An American Citizen" in what he
believes to be Mr. Motley's instructions. They will
be of the most pacific character, but it may be that
he will not be empowered to take the initiative in
negotiating a new treaty.
Following this is a letter from R. De Tracy Gould,
an American citizen, though we believe practising at
the English bar. He deals with Mr. Sumner's
speech and Mr. Goldwin's Smith's letter, and,
although he does not mince matters in discussing
them, we are constrained to say he is justified by
the facts. Mr. Sumner he calls an impracticable
theorist, though gifted with great eloquence, one
to be listened to, but not followed, whose " splen-
did madness" was to be heard, but never obeyed.
This is the American's estimate of that great orator,
and lie explains how Mr. Goldwin Smith might be
deluded into the belief by the praise and admira-
tion they expressed, that praying, God-fearing
New Englanders, might be so bereft of sense
and conscience as to follow such doctrines to their
inevitable consequences. He shows that " printed
by order of the Senate" means nothing, giving no
official character, " Sensationville " friends being
always at hand when a member speaks to " Bun-
combe" to move that the speech be printed. As to Mr.
Sumner being a personal friend of the President, or
i❑ any way representing him, Grant's views are too
decided, his will too strong, to be led by any one,
and he is too prudent, too deliberate, and above all
too great an enemy of " tall talk " to be influenced
by the wild imaginings of Mr. Sumner. The chief
magistrate and the people are pre-eminently prac-
tical, and are the last on earth to permit themselves
to be drifted into the false position erroneously sup-
posed in England. Mr. De Tracy Gould lost no
time in expressing a very decided opinion on Mr.
Goldwin Smith's letter, for he wrote on the Bth inst.
when it first appeared. He terms it singularly ill-ad-
vised, and calculated to produce the state of feeling
he professes to deprecate, while strangely inconsis-
tent. The folly of supposing that a position is to
be reached wherein there is to be an exodus from
America and from England is well exposed, as it is
evident Mr. Goldwin Smith had no idea about what
lie was writing. Mr. De Tracy Gould then sketches
an outline of what war between England and the
United States means.

There was a curious article in the Times last
Tuesday on the action pending in the Court of
Queen's Bench, wherein the United States attempt
to recover property as successors to the Confederate
States, their only means of success being in estab-
lishing the de facto character of that Government.
The difficulty is that the Union can only sue as the
representative of the Confederate States, and the
defendant, knowing the weak point, has pressed
it to the utmost, putting twenty very awkward
questions. He asks who the plaintiffs are, and in
what capacity they sue him ; and if his questions
were permitted in an English Court, the legal right
would be argued in London of the Confederate
States to separate from the Union, and erect a Go-
vernment of their own. In suing Sir Peter Tait
the Republic had first to prove that the Confederate
States were a de facto Government, and to do this
they handed into Court her Majesty's Proclamation
of Neutrality. The Lord Chief Justice of course
ree-gnized the Queen's Proclamation, taking the
fact as there stated ; " but," retorted the Queen's
Counsel, " the United States will not, and ought we
to be bound by it while they are not so ? " Three
question are admitted by the Court for the plaintiffs
to prove : the duration of the de facto Government
—its termination—and the authority of its agents.
The 7 imes can not conceive how the American Govern-
ment cm succeed both in its suit with Sir Peter
Tait and in its controversy with the British nation.
If it establishes that the Confederate Government
could invest its successor with the rights now
claimed, Lord Clarendon will have arguments made
by it ready to use against it ; for it will have proved
to the satisfaction of the Court of Queen's Bench
that the Confederate States constituted a de facto
Government competent t 3 make contracts and
acquire rights by its duly authorised agents ; that
a state of war occurred, and the United States
subdued that Government, succeeding by right of
conquest to its property, and that held in its behalf.