The Sun.
London, England, 1867-04-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It will be seen from Lieut.-General SHERMAN'S re•
port to General GRANT, that the Government is about
to adopt vigorous measures for the suppression of the
depredations of the Red Men. Ever since the fight at
Sand Creek the country, from the Missouri River
to Great Salt Lake, has been in a most unsettled
state. The action of the Indians has compelled the
Military Department to take up the subject, and to
bring it to the simple issue of peace or war. Two
flying columns have been organised. One for the de-
partment of the Platte, under Alajor -General AUGUR;
and the other, under Major-General HANCOCK, to
back a conference with the Cheyennes and the Kio-
was, and to proceed at once against them, in case they
decide on war. General SHERMAN'S opinion is dis-
tinctly given ; and though it may not commend
itself to New England philanthropy, we believe it
to be a policy of absolute necessity. The General
holds, that defensive measures, will not answer
against Indians. He knows that it is impossible to
defend the routes from the Missouri, to Denver.
The establishment of small posts, enables a body of
Indians on the war-path to select the weakest and
destroy them in detail. The warriors move with
their ponies, lodges, wives, and children. After
attacking one station, and committing all thed am age
in their power, they disappear from the locality, to
reappear a few weeks after, at another, hun-
dreds of miles away. While such positions are most
difficult of defence they are costly to keep up,
situated as they arc in the wastes, distant from the
nearest point of civilisation, entailing the greatest
labour in transporting the necessaries of life to the
men there placed. General StrEeatAN's plan is a
very simple one :—" Our troops," he says, " must
get among the Indians, and kill enough of them to
inspire fear ; and then, conduct the remainder to
places where Indian agents, can, and will reside
among them, and be held responsible for their con-
duct. No mercy should be shown ;—for they grant
no quarter, nor ask for it." Undoubtedly such
rules of warfare are calculated to shock the
humanity of the Eastern States, and if they
be carried into practice, will give rise to an
indignant appeal against such barbarism. It
is, however, true, that where a nation orders
a general to obtain a certain result, he is compelled
to adapt his means to the circumstances. The rules
of civilisedwarfare cannot be acted on by white men
operating in the wild prairies, against tribes of Red
Indians. Warfare has a degrading tendency ; and
the more humane, noble, and chivalrous foe, is even-
tually compelled to adopt the lower standard of his
enemy. Every white man that falls, is scalped and
despatched by his Indian antagonist. Every cap-
tive taken, is roasted or cruelly worried to death by
every device that the ingenuity of fiends in the
shape of squaws, can devise. There is not
a soldier in the column either of HAN-
COCK or AUGUR who does not know what
his fate would be if taken prisoner by
an Indian tribe; and all the thunders of the
pulpit and press would not for a moment stay his
hand when his enemy was on the ground before
him. The roads between the Missouri and Denver
city, must not only be kept open, but freed from the
perpetually recurring obstacles and antagonism in-
terposed by the Red Men. To effect this, the war must
be carried into their own villages, if war there must be;
but any terms which could secure their friendship and
permanently remove the obstructions, would doubt-
less be adopted in preference to annihilation.
Strange as it may appear, there is a fatality that
rules in the affairs of these savages which
baulks every effort at civilisation, and every
attempt of a humane
Government to avoid
the last extremities. Ridiculous as is the idea,
these Cheyennes, Black Feet, and other wretched
tribes of roving Indians, are penetrated with the
conviction that they are all-powerful in the prairie.
Isolated among their herds of wild buffaloes, they
know nothing of the power of the nation they pro-
voke. The few who have strayed into the regions
of civilisation are discredited on their return when
they tell of the countless number of the pale faces, of
the rivers ploughed by great steamers, of the earth
shaking beneath the rush of iron horses. " Kaw !"
they say, " what lies you tell us !" Their
idea of the white man's power is derived
from the wretched shanty standing all alone
on the wide prairie, with its few half-starved in-
mates, trembling in the presence of the Red warrior
baud, while the last morsel of food is cooked for
these hungry savages to devour, with the un-
pleasant conviction, that the feast may con-
clude with the exciting pastime to the guests,.of
roasting their hosts, over the dying embers of
the fire. England has had a vast experience of the
difficulty of dealing with ignorant savages. They
cannot be made to comprehend the power of the
force which a first-class civilised nation can direct
against them. Even with such a country as Spain,
we see this extraordinary ignorance carried
to a point likely to end in a catastrophe.
Reports from Fort Laramie state that the Com-
missioners had refused to comply with the condi-
tions which the chiefs, in council, had laid down as
the preliminaries of a treaty. One of these, em-
braced the withdrawal of the stages and all travel
from the Smoky Hill route, running west from
Kansas. The council had broken up, and the
Indians were removing their families to places of
safety. We must not therefore be surprised on
finding General SHERMAN'S preparations close, in
an Indian war. Mr. DIXON gives an admirable
illustration of the argument used by the red
chiefs on being told that the roads must be free and
open. Are your own roads open ?" they ask.
" Would Black Hawk be allowed to hunt through
the fields of Ohio ?—would Spotted Dog be
suffered to pitch his lodge in the streets of Indiana-
polis? Could Roman Nose, on the road from St.
Louis to New York, kill and eat sheep and cows ?''
sow, it cannot be denied that there is t rude

TIMES. —our difference with Spain is in a fair
way to a satisfactory adjustment. The Spanish
Minister for Foreign Affairs, General Calonge,
assured the Senate, the other day, that Quee❑
Isabella's Government would cause the rights of the
nation and the decisions of the Spanish Tribunals to
be respectOd. The Minister well knew to what
extent he could rely on the Spanish magistrates.
Yesterday--that is, less than three weeks after
the date of Lord Stanley's conclusive letter to
Sir John Crampton—we heard that " the Prize
Court at Cadiz has recognised the illegality of the
capture of the Queen Victoria ;" and the most
moderate paper of Madrid, commenting upon
this news, considers that "by this decision the
difference between England and Spain in this
matter is terminated." For several days, indeed,
we have had every reason to believe that the Court
of Madrid was inclined to acknowledge the justice of
the demands of her Majesty's Government. It was
positively stated on Saturday that Spain had agreed
to make complete reparation as to the flag, vessel,
cargo, and crew in the case of the Queen -V ictoria.
No mention was made of the Tornado, but with a

little goodwill on both sides it will not be difficult to
bring that part of the dispute to an equally reason-
able arrangement. We need hardly waste many
words in congratulating the country on its happy
release from an unpleasant difficulty. We have
repeatedly expressed our opinion that nothing
could be more repugnant to the feelings of every
Englishman than the idea of a real, serious
quarrel with the Spanish people ; and, as to the
Spaniards, we were unwilling to suppose that no
recollection remained of the time in which they
professed to care but little for the enmity of all
other nations so long as they could only secure our
friendship :
" Con todo el mundo guerra,
"Y paz eon Inglaterra."
Although the authorities at Cadiz, and their supe-
riors at Madrid, had contrived to put themselves
so clearly in the wrong that no other course was
left to this country than the one followed by Lord
Stanley, it would hardly be just to deny that in-
cessant provocation is offered to the Spaniards by
the facilities afforded to the contraband trade on
their coasts by the position we occupy at Gibraltar.
The very sight of our flag on " the Rock" is already
a constant, though by this time a familiar,
subject of mortification for that proudest
of all human races ; and, notwithstanding
the most friendly behaviour on the part of
our military, naval, and civil officials in that im-
portant possession, the brisk intercourse with the
opposite shores of Africa, arising from the necessity
of victualling our garrison, cannot fail to put the
watchfulness and patience of the Spanish coast-
guards to the severest test. Not a little good will
and forbearance on either side is required under
such circumstances to avoid collision, or to smooth
down difficulties wherever they may arise, and the
narrow escape we have had of an open quarrel in
the present instance will, it is to be hoped, prompt
both Governments to remove any cause for future
grievance. We shall have no reason to find fault
with the Spanish Government for putting down
smuggling by any measures their own law, or the
law of nations, may justify. Neither shall we com-
plain of any legal penalty their courts may decree
against those zealous persons whose importation of
books and tracts is a source of such sore annoyance
to the bigoted clergy and peasantry in many parts
of the peninsula. Lord Stanley's success is the more
a subject of congratulation, as it is never an easy
matter to bring Spaniards to see their own conduct
in the same light as it appears to the rest of the
world. In the overweening conceit of Spanish pa-
triots, that country continues to be at the present
day what it was at the time of the invincible
Armada; and such, it must be avowed, to a great
extent, the soil and the people actually are, a
brave, sober, patient people, living in a rich and
fertile land. The individual Castilian is conscious
of no decline or degeneracy, and notwithstanding
the depopulation of his country, the dwindled
boundaries of his empire, and the exhaustion of
his treasury, he would, in proper hands, still be
capable of sustained effort and of boundless sacri-
fice. But the Spaniard never was, and probably never
will be, in proper hands. From the age of the First
Isabella to the reign of the Second, anything like
even a tolerable Government has been impossible in
Spain. The land was no sooner rescued from the
Moorish invader than it fell into a state of legisla-
tive and executive impotence. The Philips and the
Charleses, who filled the throne for above two cen-
turies, broke the nerve of the nation, and expended
the wealth of the world. Whether employed against
English rivalry or Dutch rebellion, the largest means
were always found unequal to the smallest ends.
From the days of Gonzalvo and Cortes there is not
a single foreign achievement to soothe the Spaniard's
humiliating sense of rapid and general decay. Yet
for any kind of mad Quixotic enterprise the worst of
Governtnents could always rely on the co-operation
of the vainglorious multitude. A lull in the ordinary
run of military Pronunciamentos at the close of a
quarter of a century of civil war had barely allowed
the distracted nation leisure to breathe, and foreign
capital was hardly beginning to infuse fresh blood
into its when O'Donnell galvanised it into a
rehearsal valeoifnist's chivalrous exploits against the Moors.
African trophies awakened the longings for Ameri-
can triumphs, and the achievements at San Domingo,
at Valparaiso, at Callao, possibly suggested a new
trial of strength with the old English foe. Under
such circumstances we may, indeed, rejoice that Mar-
shal Narvaez and Gen. Calonge should not have
deemed it expedient to turn against us that
of the Spanish people which they have drawn upon
themselves by the excesses of their misrule. If con-
siderations of humanity did not forbid our ever look-
ing upon war as anything but a serious business, it
would have been difficult to restrain a smile when
contrasting our threatened dispute with Spain with
the great quarrel which seemed equally imminent be-
tween France and Germany on the subject of Luxem-
burg. Spain, to be sure, boasts of 122 men-of-war,
armed with 1,264 guns, and manned by 1,121
officers, 14,680 sailors, and 7,980 marines;
but no small part of this formidable arma-
ment is still cruising in the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, and her war with the Republics
of the Andes would hardly allow Spain to muster
sufficient forces to make even a show of hostilities
in Europe. We hardly know whether we are in-
debted for the better temper in which Queen Isa-
bella's Ministers listened to Lord Stanley's remon-
strances to a sense of internal security, or
whether their avoidance of a quarrel abroad was
prompted by an acknowledged necessity of turning
all their energies to the control of unruly passions
at home. It would, however, be hardly worth our
while to be inquisitive as to the causes, so long as we
have reason to be satisfied with the effects. What di-
rectly concerns us is the settlement of our dispute
about the Tornado and the Queen Victoria. That
little matter being disposed of, we shall resume our
part of neutral, though not indifferent, spectators of
Spanish politics, heartily wishing that the Spaniards
way find the Government which may best suit them ;
but well resolved, at the same time, never to inter-
fere with that Government, be it good, bad, or in-
different, and never to allow that Government to
interfere with us.
Pose.—Strikes appear to be now the only recog-
nised means of settling any differences which may
arise between employers and employed ; and, as the
tendency of them is to increase in extent and impor-
tance, it is useful to gain such an insight into their
causes and conduct as will enable us to form a clear
estimate of them. An opportunity for doing this has
lately been afforded by the strikes of the engine-
drivers—first, on the Brighton, and now on the North
Eastern Railway ; for both sides to the disputes have
in some sort appealed to the public, and have done
their best to put forth statements calculated to sup-
port their own view of the case. There is no doubt
that strikes of any sort do entail a large amount of
inconvenience and of actual loss upon all those who
have the misfortune to be affected by them, and it
is therefore unfortunate that some other means
cannot be devised by which disputes between masters
and men could be arranged witht)ut recourse being