The Sun.
London, England, 1866-11-22 00:00:00

The Aim and End of Good Government.

It has been the earnestly indulged belief, grown
at last into a habit, for Americans to regard them-
selves as far the most happily governed people on
earth. Indulged in, too, for so long a period, in
one degree or another ever since the first corners on
this continent emancipated themselves from the
actual presence of kings and courts, however these
for a time were represented by assumptious royal
governors, they have never experienced aught else
whilst peace reigned, but the right to express freely
any and all opinions, and to go and come as they
pleased. At no time compelled to defer to the pro-
gress of a royal cortege, or to see splendidly housed
—at vast cost to themselves—the scions and attend-
ants of kingly rule, they have really had none to
defer to or fear but themselves, until, we repeat,
they have at last come to consider their own form of
Government the only tolerable or desirable one on
earth. And if the late terrible conflict has shaken
the faith of some in the power of republics to main-
tain harmony amongst their people ; if the horrible
events of the past few years have made men distrust
any and all forms of government, as capable of
insuring happiness and quiet and prosperity, these
doubts after were not those of the majority,
since all through the late fearful contest there was a
steady belief, that with the overthrow of this parti-
cular rebellion and its great ally and stake, slavery,
we should have peace forevermore, stability, a
new development of power and of prosperity such as
the world never before witnessed. Thoroughly
convinced that such was the case, both Government
and people hastened to claim these anticipated
fruits of the frightful ordeal. We had experimented
on each other in forging and using weapons of the
most awfully destructive kind, and we were swift
to claim from Europe pre-eminence in the ability
to make war, to burn and sink and destroy, as
witness our boasts, the exhibition of our engines of
destruction abroad, and with no thought that on
this side of the water there might ever again be
occasion to turn our hands against each other. We
did this in our simplicity ; in the sublimated faith
that we had fought for and won a peace that was
evermore to be lasting. In this entire belief ; in
this thorough faith in our form of government vin-
dicated, and faith as complete in the desire of the
whole nation for peace, the President and the Secre-
tary of War disbanded the armies which figured in
the conflict, with no more idea that peace was not
assured amongst ourselves, and more than an en-
forced peace, unity, than our rulers had of the same
result at the close of the war with Great Britain.
Is it too much to say that the people of the United
States have been badly deceived—deceived all
around ; grievously disappointed. Having fought
for peace, have they indeed won it ; won it in the
sense that Prussia has won in it ; that France won
it after the battles of Magenta and Solferino, or
that the allies won it after the terrible series of fights
in the Crimea ? With peace nominally won, are
not the people of the " greatest republic" known,
the " best system of government extant," still
standing with clenched weapons and fiery glances,
bent upon each other ; are we not now threatened
with anarchy, by the arts of demagogues, as before
we were victimised by civil war. Not content with
the sufferings and ruin inflicted upon each other in
the brief past, has not liberty degenerated into
license, until with no power whatever to check
savage quarrelling, indecent and angry reproaches,
all from the highest to the lowest, are involved in
new and threatening controversies, the conse-
quences of which, anew, nobody can venture to
conjecture. We say again, it is much to have
" free government," " constitutional govern-
ment," in name ; but it is more for any people,
for a civilised people who value their homes,
who ask for security for their families, for their
property, to have security, safety, quiet ! It may
do for Tartar or Indian tribes to live in a perpetual
turmoil, because these can take flocks and herds and
tents, and migrate to suit the demands of the occa-
sion ; the avoidance of perils which in the shape of
war assail particular districts. 3ut for any civilised
people, resident in cities and farm-houses, Govern-
ment should mean immunity from perpetual disturb-
ances ; and when a Government fails in this great
end, men may come at length to envy the subjects
of even the worst reputed government, where if they
are plundered by perspective or "divine right," they
at least—they, and their wives and children—are
not oscillating continually betwixt the evils of civil
war and possible anarchy on the one hand, and those
of stringent military rule culminating in " drafts,"
which, like the visitation upon Egypt, sweep the first-
born of both sides into hundreds of thousands of
newly-made graves, and all for the ostensible objects
of peace and good government. These are matters
for the American people to consider to-day ; and
especially are these things of moment to the people
of this city and State, as affairs stand at present.
And if the people, the great, sensible, reflective masses
will, upon any pretext whatever, suffer themselves
once more to have their future compromised ; if
they will rush into new riots and fights to have
these heralded everywhere, to make the outside world
shun this region as one given over to chronic
troubles and dissensions, repentance will be indulged
at leisure, when investments in railroad lines, in
stores, manufactories, and all else remind them by
their depreciation of the costly mistake made.
There are things men cannot afford to do; and of
all ruinous indulgences, the feuds of factions are
the worst in which a commercial community can ,

engage. And not too late, as yet, to take a sober
second thought, let our people—the wiser amongst
them—come to the rescue, and resolve that for no
cause shall we sacrifice the millions called for along
with the peace of our families.—Baltimore Com-
mercial.

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

- - ~-

TIMES.—The presence of 900 guests at a grand
banquet given in the " finest dining-hall in the
world," among half a million people, with the pro -
mise of a speech by one of the best orators of the
day, is a fact that requires nothing to account for it.
We should not say that it proves an intense interest
in Reform on the part either of the lower, the
middle, or the upper classes, for all were represented,
it seems, in the room. One does not hear too much
eloquence, or even too much good English, in these
times, and Reform is at least one of the topics of the
day, as it has been now for twelve years. A number
of other speakers had been announced, but nearly
all these had withdrawn, not choosing to perform
the very minor part of ushering in the great lion of
the occasion. Mr. Bright, meanwhile, having seen
his name low down in a list of well-known names,
relieved himself of all painful responsibility, and,
upon being called on sooner than he expected, merely
delivered himself of his thoughts as they presented
themselves. He could not have done better. The
overflowings of the heart are always worth more
than the excogitations and inventions of the study.
He was at home in the place and in the subject, for
it may be doubted whether Lord Russell and Mr.
Gladstone themselves know so much about the late
Reform Bill and all the questions connected with it
as Mr. Bright. Being thus quite at his ease, master
of his theme, yet bound by no special call, Mr. Bright
went at once to the topic most at heart, which was
abuse of the late Reform Bill. A previous speaker
had somewhat prepared the way by observing that
the country was indebted to the obstructions offered
to the first bill for the more comprehensive measure
which, as we think, Parliament most properly de-
manded, and which can only be considered a ques-
tion of time. But Mr. Bright denounced the whole
bill, first and second part, root and branch altogether.
It was a sham. It was a patch that would soon make
the rent worse. It was a vain attempt to tinker up
that which is utterly corrupt, and cannot hold to-
gether long. It was good for nothing, unless it led
to more. It would not have given the working
classes, or even the middle classes, their share of the
representation, for it would not have added more
than a hundred thousand voters to the register. The
only thing in its favour was that it was an honest
measure so far as respects the late Government.
They thought it a good measure, and therefore were
honest. Mr. Bright did not think it a good measure,
but he does not draw the inference. Indeed, to do
him common justice, it must be admitted that he
never said more for the bill than that it was a lever,
which he would like to have in his hand,with a good
fulcrum to-work upon, and the British Constitution
at the other end. But, not to be hampered any more
by mere tricks of statecraft or misled by illusions,
Mr. Bright has taken his stand upon a principle.
Principles are scarce upon this subject, and if Mr.
Bright can charge Lord Derby and his party with
being " fashioned hollow" by a merciful Providence,
in order that they may swallow their principles,.they
may safely retort that Mr. Bright and his party have
no principles to swallow. But here is a principle,
and in taking his stand on it Mr. Bright proclaims
that he has the sanction of antiquity, and is in the
path of the Constitution. lie is for a rating—that
is, for a household—suffrage. He assumes that rates
are paid by somebody or other, in some form or
other, for every habitation ; that is, therefore, the
principle of a rating suffrage carries a household
suffrage. There were many such constituencies of
old. A good many were abolished by the Reform
Bill. Mr. Bright quotes with pleasure the testimony
of Sir Roundel' Palmer in favour of the principle.
It is charming to find the arch-Reformer reverential
and Conservative. Antiques and other curiosities
have often little to show, except their age, and the
stories they tell, and the odd ways they were come
at. Duly shrined and cased, the rudest cinerary urn
or the most uncouth bit of armour becomes the or-
nament of a drawing-room. A potwalloping borough,
except in its moral aspects, need not be much uglier
than an aerolite. But we beg to submit that a prin-
ciple is nothing, a name and nothing more, unless we
are to know its application. The application of the
principle was so bad in the olden time that the Re-
formers were most strenuously against it, and the
Tories as strenuously for it, and to the best of our recol-
lection, the boroughs which had household suffrage
were though quite as corrupt and scandalous as those
which had freemen, or as the worst " rotten
boroughs." Let us know how the principle is to be
applied,--and it cannot be applied except together
with other principles,—then we shall know what to
say to it. Meanwhile we cannot see the dishonesty
imputed by Mr. Bright to the politicians who were
prepared to give votes to working men if they might
only have something to say to the other arrange-
ments. It is waste of time and folly to abuse
rational people because they will not shut their eyes
and take a leap on his simple assurance that there
is a soft bottom a little way down. That is a matter
on which we would rather judge for ourselves. Mr.
Bright has the classes off at his fingers' ends.
They are always coming up like the very select
dramatis persona in a puppet- show. Here are the
upper, the middle, and the working classes. The
first does all the crime of the country, all the wicked
waste, all the gross mismanagement, and all the
social tyranny. The upper class wheedles and
cajoles the middle class out of its due share of the
representation, and bullies and terrifies the lower
class out of nearly all its share. The upper class in
this picture possesses all the cunning and all the
strength of a conquering race, preying like wolves
and foxes on the weakness of the simplicity of the
subject and conquered. Sut what reasonable being
can admit that this is a truthful picture of the British
population ? Were it a true picture, we are not sure
that the poor simpletons and the silly sheep described
by Mr. Bright had not better consult ease and com-
fort by sitting down like Issachar between the two
burdens. But nothing can be less true than the pic-
ture. Where are the virtues of the working classes,
where are the vices and weaknesses common to all
three classes ? But are there those three classes, just
those three, and thus sharply described ? Nothing
can be further from the fact. There are many men
whom Mr. Bright would now place in the upper
class, but whom he would hardly have placed so
high as the middle class, and who certainly had
not votes, five and twenty years ago, when he was
beginning his career of agitation. The truth is Eng-
land does not stand upon classes, and her whole
system is adverse to lines of social demarcation.
Life is here a social competition. We all go in for
one prize or another, and have not the slightest wish
that the things we really value should be brought
down to a lower level in order to suit our indolence.
They who rise not fall in our community. There
is much to be said for and much against this order
of things, but whatever is said can only have a
sentimental value, for this is the actual order of
things, and we must live up to it, whether we like it
or not.

HERALD.—The success of the Atlantii Cable has
given a new interest to the history of electrical
science, and it is not surprising to find that a con-
troversy as to the first invention of the Electric
Telegraph is now attracting public attention. It
is remarked that while honours have been freely dis-
tributed upon the success which has attended the
laying of the Atlantic Cable which carries the
telegraph, none have been conferred on those who
first invented the electric telegraph itself, or who
by various improvements have brought it to a state
of such perfection that it has been long in general
use all over the world. In short, that those who
have conferred on the world one of the greatest
benefits of modern times have been passed by wholly
unnoticed in the recent distribution of public
honours. The enthusiasm which attended the suc-
cess of the great Atlantic experiment appears to
have obscured for a time the merits of those whose
previous labours had already produced such vast re-
sults, and but for whose discoveries the Atlantic
experiment itself could never have been so much as
tried. Yet among others the name of Mr. Wheat-
stone is well known, and a leading journal has loudly
demanded for him the merit of the first invention
of the electric telegraph, and the honour to which
such a claim, if well founded, would justly entitle
him. This claim, however, is not unchallenged.
It appears from a letter which we lately in-
serted from a correspondent that fifty years ago
Mr. Francis Ronalds, a gentleman devoted to
scientific pursuits, and still living, invented and
offered to the then Government an " electric tele-
graph" which ho had constructed and put in
operation. The reply which he received from the
Department of the Admiralty is a curious instance
of the official tone. Sir John Barrow, the Secre-
tary, informed Mr. Ronalds that " telegraphs of any
kind were then wholly unnecessary, and that none
other than the one then in use would be adopted."
Well might Mr. Barrow perform a filial duty in
writing as he has lately done, to the editor of the
Pall Mall Gazette, in which an account of this affair
had appeared, that his father, in sending this reply
to Mr. Ronalds, acted as " the organ of the Board,
and not on his own responsibility." Mr. Ronalds,
however, not being satisfied with the opinion of the
Admiralty, published in 1823 a pamphlet entitled
" Descriptions of an Electrical Telegraph, and of
some other Electrical Apparatus," describing what
he had done, and illustrating his invention by draw-
ings. Ile there predicts with a remarkable foresight
some of the purposes to which the invention might
he applied ; for he says, " Why should not our
Kings hold councils at Brighton with their Ministers

in London ? Why should not our Government go-
vern at Portsmouth almost as promptly as in Down-
ing-street? Why should our defaulters escape by
default of our foggy climate ?" . . . • ‘; Let
us have electric conversazione offices, communicating
with each other all over the kingdom, if we can.
A more striking instance of scientific foresight can-
not well be imagined. Mr. Ronalds, being pro-
bably more of a philosopher than a man of business,
took out no patent ; and it was not till 1837 that
the first patent was taken out by Messrs. Cooke
and Wheatstone. We cannot see, therefore, hold
a priority of invention over Mr Ronalds can be
claimed for either Mr. Wheatstone or Mr. Cooke.
But however this may be, and whatever may be
the relative merits of these gentlemen, it would be
a strange thing, considering the unspeakable bene-
fits to the world of the electric telegraph, if the men
who first discovered, or developed and brought
to perfection, the most wonderful and use-
ful invention of modern times should be
deemed unworthy of the slightest public
notice on au occasion when the subject is
under
consideration, and when so striking an instance has
occurred of the successful application of their
labours. One would have thought no pains would
have been spared to seek out, if they still lived,
those to whom the world was so deeply indebted.
No one grudges the honours bestowed on the men
who have, with infinite skill and perseverance, ll
suc-
ceeded in laying the Atlantic cable.; but many wi
ask, Where are they by whose previous labours and
discoveries it became possible that there should be a
cable at all ? Do you ennoble those who laid the
electric wire across the sea, and forget the men who
have enabled you to control to useful purposes the
magic power which it contains ? It would seem
impossible ; but such is the danger which must
always exist when the power of conferring or with-
holding public honours rests solely with the Govern-
ment, whose means of information are necessarily
casual and imperfect, and who must be often at a
loss themselves to discriminate merit that does not
force itself upon their notice. If future philoso-
phers should desire to know how their labours Will
be appreciated, let them consider the history of Mr.
Ronalds. It is just fifty years since, in 1816, he
offered his discovery to the Government, vib°
scornfully rejected it. Thirty-six years later, in
1852, the Government of that day placed his name
on the civil list for a pension of £75 a year, in con"
sideration of what they called his " important dis-
coveries in electricity and meteorology," one of
which was the electric telegraph. It seems he had
subsequently made other discoveries in these sub-
jects. And this pension from the Crown Mr.
Ronalds, at an advanced age, still lives to enjoy'
scarcely, perhaps, a full recognition for servicesteh
such importance. Finally, he has to witness, 111
that equanimity which only philosophers can coal"
mand, the receipt by others of high public bon°l
in which he has no share, conferred upon them for
a particular application of his invention, and on till!,
recommendation of the same authority of the (I`e'd
vernment of the country which had already assure
him that the invention itself was " wholly unnecl:
sary." But whether Mr. Ronalds, or Mr. Airbee;o
stone, or any one else, be entitled to stand first 0' t
order of merit, it would be a national reproach, no
possible in any other country than England,4
claims of such a nature were met with nothing ,P:.
the indifference and contempt of which the ";:ti
vernment of a former day furnished so signal
example.