The Sun.
London, England, 1869-03-04 00:00:00

J ~ /

I,S PEACE?

(From the Anglo-American Times.)

There is reason to believe that General GRANT
expressed an opinion adverse to the CLARENDON-
JoingsoN Convention freely and strongly during
his visit to New York, and we regard this as the
most unfavourable circumstance connected with
this most unfortunate subject of dispute. If the
' PRESIDENT be decidedly hostile to any settlement
(for any other settlement we believe to be impos-
sible), the question must remain open as an un-
healed sore, perhaps hereafter to stir up the States
into uncontrollable irritation—perhaps for retalia-
tion, which would immediately produce war. This
will be the deliberate election of the United States,
fur Eogland is acknowledged to hive c -,needed Mr.
SEwaan's demands, an 1 to hare satisfie I not only
the
chosen b
United States c:na Exeve, bit the Plenipoten-
tiaryth) Senate without a dissentient
voice to con Ina, this very negotkti in. The Re-
public is under the impression that she can wait ;
that li •r C/:1,1113 lose none of their force by time ;
and that in them she 111.3 a standing grievance an 1
menace against Great Britain. We consider this
to be a most unfortunate delusion, born of the old
arroganci of man a3suniing the place of Phovt-
PENCE. There is no country so placed as to need
the speedy removal of disputes inora than the United
States. England is an old, settled Monarchy, worn
into its present form by the friction of ages, ac-
companied by numerous convulsions and dreadful
wars. She is an extinct volcano which might blaze
up again, but now shows no signs, indeed in this
way is believed to be exhausted. Her late elec-
tions have proved. a marvellous similarity of feeling
through all classes, from the Land's End to Johnny
Groat's House, the whole people with very slight
divergence thinking alike. The foreign policy
of . England is such that nothing save the
- most wanton aggression could drive her into
war, and possessing the knowledge that a war with
any other country would involve a war also with
the United States she is bound in heavy damages to
keep the peace. Her weak spot is Ireland, but
Americans exaggerate the degree of her weakness
there. Such is the nation which some America is
consider will soon offer them the chance for retalia-
tion by its becoming involved in strife. Although
the United States are masters of their continent,
and separated from other Powers by au ocean, yet
we doubt whether their chance of war be not greater
than that of England, The Union is the most
rapid formation of a first-class Power ever known,
not created by conquest. She is a volcano lately
in active eruption, and even now smoking. The
elements of contention are scattered abroad, and
subjects of dispute grow quickly and loom threaten-
ingly in the future. It is possible the United States may
desire to keep this foreign difficulty to neutralize home
difficulties, on the same principle that a homeopathist
treats his patient; but though it may answer for the
physical body, we doubt its applicability to the
body politic, convinced that the speediest and com-
plete settlement of a dispute is, as a rule, the best.
The chances are that in future political contests
public attention being absorbed the Alabama claims
will be wholly or partially lost sight of. Dropped for
a few years, it will be difficult again to arouse
for them public attention, for they involve
endless, wearisome despatches, and much dry
legal references. The general impression will then
be that England's offer to pay for the damage caused
by the piratical cruisers which got to sea from her
harbours was refused by the United States. The
proposal to submit the case to arbitration will esta-
-1 blish a precedent favourable to Great Britain, and
one that will tell against the United States if
cruisers escaping from a port of the Republic here-
' after destroy British commerce. Why should not
the United States then do what Great Britain now
does ?—offer to submit the claims to arbitration.
The nation that proposes to do this will find it more
profitable to keep their cruisers at home ; yet the
precedent will be difficult for America to evade.
Thus England, by this rejected Convention, will
hive materially improved her position in a matter
before so bad that Englishmen scarcely liked to
talk of it. Mr. GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS'S letter,
1 tranferred from the New York World to the Mites,
' rune,ioly states the reasons why Lb, cunv elliatill
should not be rejected in America. But our object
is rather to consider what might reasonably be ex-
pected to be the position if the claims remain
' unsettled during GRANT'S Administration. " His-
toricua " amusingly arrogant now' as always, be-
lieves, and so do we, that, notwithstanding the
PRESIDENT'S opinion, who really knows little or
nothing of foreign affairs, that the subject will be
reconsidered after his inauguration, either through
' another Ambassador instructed by his Administra-
tion, or, as suggested by a writer in an evening
paper, by the despatch from England of such
a Minister as Mr. JOHN BRIGHT. The hope is all
the brighter as there arc no people easier to deal
with than Americans, if the authorities only know
he way ; but it has been the misfortune of
England to be ignorant of America in density
almost in proportion to rank; and as rank rules in
Britain, that ignorance has caused unlooked-for
mischief. A glance shows many home reasons why
the dispute should not be kept open, although they
' have nothing to do with the Convention or the claims.
Although General GRANT enters the White House
with the exclamation still clinging to him "LA us
have Peace," the sort of peace he is about to have
has been aptly illustrate I in the counting of the
electoral votes. On the one side were the Senate,
on the other the Representatives, and
champions of thoseon the floor,
in angry controversy, were the
bodies. The question was whetherthehavd ruled
sleodf
Senate
Georgia should be counted; the
that they should, the House that theysehoiiltlnot,;
th
but the President of the Senate was presiding
office' of the joint Convention, and the Speaker of
the House was about to succeed
if
fo
tlis
thesnoeflil.
Their ruling was on the decision
setting aside that of the .louse as it had never
been made, and BEN BUTLER, with his sleeves
tucked up, was battling for the rights of the Re-
presentatives, cheered by most of them, while the
Senators upheld the presiding officer. After the
Senate had retired to their own Chamber, BUTLER
proposed a strong resolution of censure for this in-
fringement of the rights and privileges of thepeoapolde.
There is a fight brewing between the Senate
the Representatives which does not augur peace.
Last Monday, the Republican caucus of the Senate
dßeeepideaeld toB itllakuenntoil ancteixotn
coonngtrbeess'..lr'enuarle-aotfsmffipclye
eidxetnwt,eekan_d
Iv
with
means distrust of the
rgceo
still less bodes Peace.
we go to press againh—
for the new Congress Smeinnagte ofr ens
Wefore they transfer the de-
iankoesnt identicaltheir
seats
wilillihbaevealt
the present body : t
Ives after GRANT has sent to their
Cabinet, to themselves de-
cision from themselves, before, GRANT proclaims his
Chamber
the names of the men he selects. Should
with
those chosen not tally the wishes of the Senate
the in the face of this difficulty,
immediately .
the Tenure-of-Office Act. will not be repealed, and
GRANT is
most brought into contact. Does
a-grave misunderstanding with that legislative body
with which he is ,,
this portend peace? Simultaneously with GRANT'S
inauguration a firebrand will be thrown into the
country, for ex-President JOHNSON, stripped of the
Itrammels of his high office, will stand free to take
up the gauntlet cast down by the Radical chiefs. It
is a mistake to suppose that ANDREW JOHNSON will
drift into retirement to brood over the Radical in-
dignities inflicted on him during his Presidential
term. Already a great party has formed in Ten-
nessee which he has been invited to head, and the
fiercest political conflict ever known in that State is
there anticipated. Now this means something to
those who know the limits of a political contest in
Tennessee, nor are these elements of strife to be re-
strained within the boundaries of a State. The
proceedings -which gave the epithet of " Bleeding"
to Kansas inaugurated the civil war, and although
a man would have been pronounced mad who pre-
dicted that JOHN BROWN was but the herald of a
mighty invasion, yet we now look back and see the
smooth sequence ; event following event in the na-
tural order of things, although our glance is over
States devastated—a prairie of graves—and a poli-
tical change which makes the Union of 1869_ differ
from the Union of 18-60. The moral we de-
rive from all this is the same for which wes have so
long contended, and it is that given.by our ~..a...viouß"
" Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou
art in the way with him !"