The Sun.
London, England, 1867-07-11 00:00:00

Republic. California under the rule of Spaniards
and Mexicans lay a dead, inanimate waste. Incor-
porated as a State of the Union, cities have been
erected, mines developed, fields cultivated, railways
constructed, and ships employed. A great territory
was opened to the superabundant industry of China,
and gold that vivified and supported commerce was
poured over the globe. While acknowledging this
result the writer sees nothing in American inter-
ference in Mexico but a grasping ambition, which
it is the duty of the world to resist. There were
three who benefited by the transfer of California
to the States. In the first degree, California her-
self ; in the second degree, the United States ; in
the third degree, the world. Can the writer inform
us who lost by the transaction ? No ; but he can
bring his little brains to sketch out the future in the
hands of PROVIDENCE; and he, who knows not what
an hour will bring forth, predicts what the feelings
will be of unborn generations, urging the necessity
of neutralising what he shows to be good in the
present, not that he fears it will be bad for mankind
in the future, but for his own class and his own
little island.

We wish that Europeans would take a broader
view of American affairs identifying them-
selves in a greater degree with the American people,
and at least glancing at the landscape seen from the
Republican stand-point. They will see there more
than they expected. A wide-spreading area of civi-
lisation, which, beyond the squabbling, corruption,
and shortcomings of the present, displays in the dis-
tance vast regions, where good-will reigns and plenty
abounds. It is well to keep this object before us,
and not endeavour, while seeking the most paltry
ends in the present, to retard the grand conceptions
of the future.—Anglo-Amenican 7imes.

THE LIBERALS IN MEXICO.

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It is not easy to estimate how far we are ruled
by sentiment. The volley that terminated the life
of MAXIMILIAN and his Empire in Mexico may
have appeared an ordinary affair to JUAREZ and
those around him accustomed to such scenes. Pro-
bably he knows nothing of the feelings that actuate
the civilised world, and, therefore, of the effect
likely to be produced by the crime to which his
Indian nature urged the perpetration. While little
understanding the horror and disgust the cowardly
atrocity would excite among all Christian nations,
he may have strongly felt the pressure of the wolves
by whom he was surrounded. Whatever may have
been the motives, it is now certain that he, as the
head of the Republic of Mexico, has sanctioned and
carried out an act called for by the voice of his
party, and in this, humanly speaking, he has sealed
the fate of his country. If Mexico were not rich in
the gifts of nature to an extraordinary degree it is
probable that the name would cease to be men-
tioned, and Europeans become as careless of what
passed in that barbarous and blood-stained region
as they are of the thoughts and deeds of the more
noble savages inhabiting Timbuctoo. But the world
does not chose that the gifts of PROVIDENCE to
mankind should be shut up from the human race
in this wild beast's den. The Empire was a protest
against a barbarism and cruelty that disgraced
humanity, and its closing scene was the strongest
proof of the necessity of a powerful intervention.
Whatever may have been MAXIMILIAN'S shortcout-
ings, he honestly and legitimately strove to improve
the Empire, and to benefit the country he was in-
vited to rule. In this he was nobly aided by his
wife, who freely gave up her time to distribute
bounty on an Imperial scale from her privy purse.
That the one shbuld be bereft of life and the other
of reason, is but a fitting return for Mexico to give.
The very nobility of the act which induced MAXI-
MILIAN to decline a return to a splendid position in
Europe that he might share the fate of his partisans
in Mexico would, had a ray of generosity lightened
the minds of his opponents, have enabled them to
view his conduct with the admiration it elsewhere
excited. Ue freely risked his life in war ; he freely
shared both the dangers and privations of the
meanest of his soldiers ; he fought not only with
the chances of the battle-field, but also with
the fate overhanging him that if taken he would be
executed. Though MAXIMILIAN appears to have
known this, it was difficult for people in Europe to
believe that such an intention could have been
carried into effect. Free from the passions of the
contest we may be too apt to argue the question
from a common-sense point of view. The folly of
the deed was here transparently apparent, but the
vindictive feelings which urged its perpetration were
hidden. With the fall of Queretaro and the cap-
ture of MAXIMILIAN fell the empire. • The Arch-
duke had only remained after Marshal BAZAINE
had left, to satisfy his honour. He was prepared to
accept the decision of the sword, renouncing all
claim to the throne of Mexico, and thus recovering,
what 'vas of greater value, the rights he bad re-
linquished for it, as next Agnate of Austria, to
which he was restored by a decree of a council of
the Imperial family. The war was ended—the
question of the Empire was settled the Re-
public was restored. There was then no political
object, no necessity either by way of example or of
terror to perpetrate this crime. On the other hand,
the reasons for treating with MAXIMILIAN and dismiss-
ing him from Mexico were overwhelmingly strong.
All Europe joined in the application. The civilised
world was interested to a degree which J UAREZ and
his followers may perhaps hereafter estimate. It
may he that they chose in the plenitude of their
arrogance and folly to set the verdict of mankind
at defiance. Here was the firet great question before
the restored Republic—that which attracted the
attention of all nations, and by which they would
judge of its fitness to rule. It was but a simple
act of common expediency, a concession to Chris-
tendom, involving a mere sacrifice of cruelty and
revenge that the world asked of this noble Republic
in sparing the life of a fallen enemy. JUAREZ and
his party solved all doubts and settled all disputed
points by not only shooting MAXIMILIAN, but by
! refusing to surrender, even the gratification that
isuch low natures can derive, of heaping indignities
on the corpse. If such things as JUAREZ were not
so despicable, they would injure the great cause of
iLiberty and Republicanism. But all parties agree
i in putting out of pale the acts of these mongrel
savages,
as dictated by the lowest feelings of jealousy,
i cupidity, revenge, and cruelty,
which involve no
principles. Were it not for a grand question
the miserable race that inhabits Mexico would sink
into utter obscurity, and be left unnoticed to wreck
on each other the punishment they deserve. But
the singular infatuation which has led to this crime
is the strangest part of the story. It is said that it
is the intention of the United States to absorb
Mexico. That the JUAREZ party dread this is quite
evident. The United States would act in this mat-
ter only on a basis of reason and legality. So long
as a Republic existed in Mexico, governing so as not
to bring disgrace
on the institutions which it is the
mission of the United States to uphold and perpe-
tuate,
R
tuate, the Great
Republic could not have moved in
the matter.
It was necessary for the Liberal party
to bring the intervention on themselves, and this
they could have avoided by simply abstaining from
needless folly
and cruelty. But so to abstain ap-
pears to be an impossibility with the ignoble class
that rule in Mexico. No sooner had the Great Re-
public raised the JUAREZ party :man the mire into
which they had been hurled, and removed every
obstacle from their path, than the ingrati-
tude showed itself inseparable from such
partizan chiefs who seize power, as robbers
seize an isolated dwelling, to tyrannise and plunder,
but for an hour. The earnest request of the
Government of Washington,
to spare MAXIMILIAN
was not only unheeded, but purposely set at de-
fiance. insolent speeches were made by the
Liberal leaders, threatening a march on Washing-
ton, and the recovery of provinces wrung by
treachery or necessity from Mexico. These poor
creatures who could make no head against a few
battalions of the French army, and were only
enabled by the forge of bribery to overthrow
MAXIMILIAN, had the audacity to assume this tone
to the nation at
whose breath they exist. The
United States had made them, and the United
States can unmake. When is the only question for
Ithe council at Washington. The world knows that
Mexicans are wholly unfit to develope the resources
bestowed by nature on their country, and the
tuiiversol voice Of map kiad seems agreed on this