The Sun.
London, England, 1867-02-08 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, FEB. 8, 1867.

The public will learn with regret that the Jamaica
Committee have actually put their threats into exe-
cution, and have commenced the prosecution of Mr.
EYRE and those of his officers who were immediately
concerned in the Jamaica affair. Such a course is
deeply to be deplored in many respects, and we
cannot see any possible gain that can come from it.
It is not usual for private individuals to settle
questions connected with the laws, and the Govern-
ment is, or ought to be, competent to determine if
the representatives of the Crown in the colonies
and elsewhere have rightly fulfilled their duties.
So far as Governor EYRE was concerned,
in the memorable matter of the Jamaica insurrec-
tion, there was only one opinion as to the propriety
of his conduct with all who were well acquainted
with the matter. The House of Assembly expressed
its warmest approval of his spirited action, and all
the leading inhabitants of the island concurred in
this view. It is, indeed, surprising to find so strong
a feeling against him and all who acted with him
in certain quarters in this country. It was surely
enough, and more than enough, to disparage their
doings in all places and at all times without pro-
ceeding to the extremities which the Jamaica Com-
mittee have done. There is no knowing to what
extremes people will go when they get prejudiced,
and we have a notable instance of this in the steps
but recently taken. Those who believed that the
affair was more talk than action, and would even-
tually come to nothing, were startled to hear that
on Wednesday last an application was made to the
magistrate, at Bow-street, for the issue of warrants
against Brigadier-General NELSON and Lieutenant
BRAND. These were granted yesterday, but not
without some difficulty. Mr. EYRE is not in the
country, and hence the proceedings against him
are suspended. It is understood, however, that
he is quite willing to meet all charges
against him, and it is so far satisfactory
to know that Mr. STEPHENS is prepared to conduct
the case in as considerate a manner as possible. He
remarked that he did not desire these gentlemen to
suffer any needless restraint or annoyance, and that
it would be sufficient if Lieutenant BRAND gave his
word to attend at the court in a specified time to
answer the charges preferred against him by the
committee. After the very insulting manner in
which many of the members of the committee have
spoken and written about those concerned in the
Jamaica insurrection, it is certainly gratifying to
meet with this reticence on the part of those who

conduct their prosecution.
Of Mr. EYRE himself Mr. STEPHENS expressed
himself in terms of great courtesy, and even went
so far as to state that he apprehended he would be
ready to meet all charges against him. It certainly
might puzzle the most astute to determitie how a
gentleman and a man of honour could be answerable
on a charge of murder ; but at any rate it was more
fitting that those gentlemen should be spoken of in
the wanner they deserve, instead of being insulted
as they have hitherto been done in many quarters.
When we consider the long time which has elapsed
since the melancholy events referred to took place in
Jamaica, it seemed all the more inconsistent that
this extraordinarystepshould be taken respecting the
chief actors in that affair. From the first outbreak
of fanatic zeal at Exeter flail until this time there
has been, on the part of the faction, an exhibition
of intolerance and prejudice rarely witnessed in this
country. For the credit of their reputations we
could have wished that many of those whose names
figure on the Jamaica Committee did not appear
there ; and we are grieved that one who so ably
served his country at a momentous crisis should
be so traduced and insulted. The English public
will, we feel assured, estimate at its true value all
this virtuous indignation on the part of those who
are in no way called upon to decide the question.
A more ill-judged and ill-timed case has seldom
been seen in our courts of law, and, as we before
stated, we do not see what is the object of the pro-
secution. Is it so to constitute matters that
it shall be rendered impossible for a repetition of
the occurrences in Jamaica to take place. A court
is not the proper place to decide as to the rights of
martial law and the manner of its observances. The
points concerning which inquiries will be made will
not immediately relate to the very acts so dwelt
upon, but will refer to the legality of the Court
which tried GORDON more than to the culpability
or innocence of those who composed that Court.
There can be little doubt in the minds of those
most initiated into the affair that these efforts of
the Jamaica Committee will result in failure, and
that Mr. EYRE and his fellow-accused will be
cleared from the charges preferred against them.
" For the sake of the cause of the principle therein
involved," it is argued, the matter must be pro-
ceeded with, and certainly it requires the greatest
ingenuity to explain how this can be achieved by
pushing on the trial. Mr. EYRE may be injured in
fortune, but he cannot be assailed in character by
such absurd and groundless imputations. Universal
condemnation has no effect upon those who aro so
predetermined to carry out their intentions as the
Jamaica Committee have shown themselves to be,
and it is therefore idle to expect that even now they
might have the sense to give up their vexatious course.
We live in strange times, it is often said, and surely
nothing stranger and more unsuitable in the pre-
sent day than that a man who has saved an im-
portant dependency of the British Government
should be charged with murder for his energetic
efforts in putting down sedition and rebellion. It
seems almost inconceivable that public men should
so far confuse themselves as to what is their duty,
and at any risk should attack and persecute those
whose only crime is that they displayed spirit and
energy, such as are rarely witnessed, in the suppres-
sion of the outbreak. While we regret that these
gentlemen should thus be exposed to so much need-
and uncalled-for inconvenience, we feel con-
vinced that the verdict will be in their favour, and
that the public generally will denounca the course
pursued by those who have shown themselves so deaf
to all reason, and so perverse as to follow no other
dictates but those of prejudice carried to an inordi-
nate excess.

The relations between master and workman seem
likely to receive a good deal of attention this Ses-
sion. There are many reasons why it should do
so. The great and continued depression of trade
during the last year bad its origin, no doubt, in
many things beyond the control of the English
mechanic or artisan, and could not in fairness be

attributed to anything on their part. But there
seems to be little doubt that the constantly recur-
ring strikes of the last few years have seriously inter-
fered-with many branches of industry. They have pro-
duced the dangerous effect of alarming capitalists,
and snaking them excessively cautious about invest-
ing their money in business, which is liable to be
affected not only by the ordinary fluctuations and
vicissitudes incident to trade, but by the caprice or
ambition of the workmen. It needs not only a
large business, but a solid sum in reserve to enable
an. employer to refuse contracts, to suspend engage-
ments, to stop his business altogether for three or
six months, and a firm may have valuable property
in floating capital, and yet be brought within sight
of failure by the perversity or short-sightedness
of its employjs. Another very great evil, con-
sequent upon the abuse of the strike system,
is that the men voluntarily throw the business
of those particular kinds most liable to suffer
into the hands of a few large capitalists,
—in short, those who can afford to run the risk of
temporary suspension or to go to the expense of
importing hands. By this means the cause of the
masters is materially strengthened, because a
counter combination is rendered so much easier and
the class of employers is narrowed, and their views
and sympathies narrowed too. It is next to im-
, possible for a poor man who has saved money, a
few working men who have gained experience, and
have won their way by their own abilities and
industry, to set up an independent business. The
strike which the rich man with money lying idle at
his banker's can resist with passive indifference, which
the man with large credit and influence can fight
down with imported aid, must be fatal to the
struggling firm or the Ivan of restricted means and
limited resources. The working men in this, as in
many other points, are their own worst enemies.
They talk about the hardships of class exclusion,
and they do their best to keep down the enterpris-
ing and talented members of their own ranks who
might fight their way upwards. The uncertainty
and want of confidence thus imported into all busi-
ness relations are, of course, most damaging. In
every rank of life, and every department of busi-
ness, there must be some security that faith will be
kept, and that engagements once entered into will
be properly fulfilled. The two great requisites for
a flourishing trade are confidence and free compe-
tition, and both of these are seriously affected by
strikes. It was the confidence in the good faith
and exactitude of English merchants that laid the
foundation of our commercial prosperity. It
was the removal of all unpleasant restrictions
from our policy, which has made the trade of;Eng-
land what it is. But if there is to b.?, a weakness
at the very foundation ; if, with every advantage
' of raw material, skilled ability, inexhaustible capital,
and abundant industry, the machinery of trade is
to come to a deadlock for want of mutual forbear-
ance and conciliation, all these advantages will be
thrown away. We cannot hope that England will
retain her place as a first-rate manufacturing and
exporting Power, because other countries are
already pressing fast behind us in the race,
and we have no longer that exclusive
superiority of mind and matter in industrial
arts which we once possessed. Already importa-
tions of manufactured goods from France and Bel-
gium are common, and it has even been said that
great part of the carpenters' work—such as doors
and window frames —are now imported from abroad.
There is certainly no apparent reason why English
workmen should not make doors and windows, and
it argues ill for the state of the trade that it
should be necessary to import them. This
fives another evidence of the suicidal policy fol-
lowed by the men in their ignorance of political
economy. It is actually cheaper for the Eng-
lish employer to import manufactured goods
than it is to have the same goods manufactured
for himself in England. The members of the
Trades Unions are, in fact, adopting that protective
principle which f`they so strongly denounced in the
case of the agriculturists. They set up an immut-
able and uncompromising standard, and will allow
no departure from it. Whatever the state of trade,
whatever the condition of European politics, and the
consequent position of the financial world, the men
must work at a certain rate of wages or not work at all.
In theory, when the question is argued among them-
selves, or when their leaders are addressing them, it is
very easy to show that the strength is on the side of
the men, that " labour is capital," and that a re-
solute adherence to their own rules must compel
the masters to come to terms. But they forget that
to insure the successful termination of a siege it is
necessary that the besieged play should have n o
other means of egress, and that the masters have
the option of importing hands, of giving their orders
carryinge
ttehrei
ei rs cwaepriet aslt
eeillspeevai here
it . If b alle
abt raadd ething
abroad, and of giving up business altogether and
would
for the masters, no doubt, but it would be also a
bad thing for the men; and if theypress matters to an
ultimatum they may b damaa e others indeed, but they I
are not likely to benefit themselves.

We are far from contending that in particular
cases the men are always in the wrong, or the masters
in the right ; on the contrary, if in former days the
masters had been animated by a less overbearing
and covetous spirit it is likely that many of these
complications would not have arisen. But are we
to believe that in all the strikes we have heard of
during the last two or three years—in the North,
in the South, in the Midland counties, among
miners, and puddlers, and bricklayers, and builders,
and carpenters—there has been a point of right
and wrong involved in which the masters were
to blame ? Has it not rather in almost every
case been a question of the rate of profit
and the state of trade which many of the men have
quite intelligence and education enough to ascertain
for themselves if they choose to do so.

We believe a large proportion of the workinr,
men are already heartily tired of the system, and
would gladly subscribe to some fair and equit:ble
scheme for the adjustment of differences which
should represent the interests of both sides. Lord
ST. LEONARD'S, last right, introduced a bill of this
kind, and we have a similar promise from the Go-
vernment. We hope before the session is over
something definite will be accomplished for the
good of all parties and the relief of trade.

PRESENTATION TO CAPT. HANKEY, R.N., BY THE
SURREY UNION HUNT.—The members of the Surrey
Union Hunt on Monday presented a piece of plate to Capt.
Frederick Barnard Minicoy, R.N., as a recognition of the
courtesy ho had displayed during the eight years' tenure of
office of master of the hounds, and also of the services of
his family in tho cause of fox-hunting of a century. The
object of the testimonial being to afford to the greatest
number tile opportunity of expressing their feelings towards
Capt. Hankey, it was arranged that subscriptions should
be limited in amount. In a brief time over 70 subscribers
were enrolled, and these included nearly all the gentry and
a largo proportion of the yeomen and tenant farmers of the
district. The presentation was made by the Hon. F. Scott.
at the seat of Mr. H. Currio, West Horsley Place, and the
testimonial consisted of a tea and coffee service, with
salve; from Messrs. Garrard's, Haymarket, and was of a
most chaste and elegant pattern. The hen. gentleman made
a few appropriate remarks. He said he accepted the testi-
monial with the greatest pleasure, not only as an evidence
of friendship and goodwill towards himself, but also towards
his family. These and some other remarks were cordially
greeted. The large and brilliant party of hunters then
proceedod to partake of Mr. Currie's hospitality, and after-
wards " looked up" a fox, which they ran to ground in
°4lKhana ,Park 7 iu e. spirited xun of 25 minutes.

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

AMERICA.

(Br ATLANTIC TI:T.I:ORANT)
NEW YORK, Feb. 7.

The Reconstruction Committee has reported a
bill for dividing the States which took part in the
rebellion into five military governments.

NEW Yonx, Feb. 6 (Evening).
On the Ist of February the debt of the United
States was $254,300,000.