The Sun.
London, England, 1866-05-31 00:00:00

MAY 31, 1866.

Royal Society of Arts.

The closing meeting of the season was held last
evening—Mr. A. S. Ayrton, M.P., in the chair. The
paper announced was " On Popular Errors Regard-
ing Australia," by the Hon. Charles Gavan Duffy,
and the attendance was remarkably numerous.
Mr. D UFFY began by remarking that Australia
and its institutions were much misunderstood in
England, though so closely allied to it by various
ties. Its people were English, and included repre-
sentatives of no mean number of well-known families
here. It was too much believed here that the
Australians had failed in carrying out the problem
of self-government ; but he maintained that they
had conducted that deeply interesting and pregnant
experiment in such a manner as to deserve the ap-
plause, and not-the-censure, of thoughtful men. He
quoted a remark from the National Review, which
said that their Parliaments had not patriotism
enough to give a decent stability to a Government;
that there were crises once a week and changes of
Gevernment once a month. He proceeded to show
that these statements were false, and gave the num-
ber of Administrations in different colonies for vari-
ous periods, showing that the duration of govern-
ments had been about the same as in England. And
he showed that England had not been free from
some of the faults charged against the colonies,
such as the exclusion of eminent men at periods of
excitement, &c. Criticism of their institutions
ought to be made on sure grounds. The colonial
statesman had to contend with difficulties from
which the English statesman was free. In Eng-
land the bones and sinews sustaining and moving
the body politic—the vital machinery of the State
—were covered by flowing robes of ceremony, and
custom forbade too close an inspection of the
august and mystic organism beneath. In Australia
they had only the naked ribs and vertebra, pos-
' sessed with a vigorous principle of life indeed,
but with scarce a rag of traditional veneration to
shelter them. The colony of Victoria, in which he
resided, had never cost the mother country a guinea,
and had sent her a hundred millions in the way of
trade, and he trusted that her citizens would not be
deemed unreasonable in moving for a rehearing on
the ground that the verdict against her was contrary
to evidence.

Mr. MARSH, M.P., said he regretted that Mr.
Duffy had not dwelt more on the social condition of
the Australians, who were highly civilised. He had
been out there himself recently. In Queensland
they had given him a dinner, which was attended by
about 300 persons of very various classes, but they
all wore white neckties. (Laughter.) He considered
that evidence of a high state of civilisation. He
thought universal suffrage worked badly where estab-
lished, and that property was insecure in those colo-
nies ; but that Queensland, where they had not uni-
versal suffrage nor the ballot, was very prosperous.
Captain HART, late Chief Secretary in South
Australia, said in that colony the Government and
the people were most prosperous, and that universal
suffrage worked well. They had a large yeoman
population from having sold a great number of 80
acre lots of land long since.
Sir John Gray, M.P., Mr. Gilpin, M.P., Mr.
Brady, M.P., and Mr. B. Hawes also took part in
the discussion, and the chairman summed up in a
graceful speech, concluding by proposing a vote of
thanks to the Hon. C. G. Duffy, which was heartily
responded to.

The late American War.

EARL RUSSELL TO LORD LYONS.

" Foreign Office, May 6, 1861.
" My Lord,—Her Majesty's Government are dis-
appointed in not having received from you by the
mail which has just arrived any report of the state
of affairs, and of the prospects of the several parties,
with reference to the issue of the struggle which
appears unfortunately to have commenced between
them ; but the interruption of communication be-
tween Washington and New York sufficiently ex-
plains the non-arrival of your despatches.
"The account, however, which her Majesty's
Consuls at different ports were enabled to forward
by the packet coincide in showing that, whatever
may be the final result of what cannot now be
designated otherwise than as the civil war which
has broken out between the several States of the
late Union, for the present, at least, those States
have separated into distinct confederacies, and as
such are carrying on war against each other.
"The question for neutral nations to consider is,
What is the character of the war ; and whether
it should be regarded as a war carried on between
parties severally in a position to wage war, and to
claim the rights and to perform the obligations
attaching to belligerents ?
" Her Majesty's Government consider that the
question can only be answered in the affirmative.
If the 'l'z-ovum:tient of the northern portion of the
late Union possesses the advantages inherent in
long-established Governments, the Government of
the southern portion has, nevertheless, duly con-
stituted itself, and carries on in a regular form the
administration of the civil government of the
States of which it is composed.
" Her Majesty's Government, therefore, without
assuming to pronounce upon the merits of the
question on which the- respective parties are at
issue, can do no less than accept the facts presented
to them. They deeply deplore the disruption of a
Confederacy with which they have at all times
sought to cultivate the most friendly relations;
they view with the greatest apprehension and con-
cern the misery and desolation in which that dis-
ruption threatens to involve the Provinces now
arrayed in arms against each other ; but they feel
that they cannot question the right of the Southern
States to claim to be recognised as a belligerent,
and, as such, invested with all the rights and pre-
rogativesof a belligerent.

‘‘ I think it right to give your lordship this
timely notice of the view taken by her Majesty's
Government of the present state of affairs in North
America, and her Majesty's Government do not
wish you to make any mystery of that view.
" I shall send your lordship by an early oppor-
tunity such further information on these matters
as may be required for your guidance. At present
I have only to add that no expression of regret
that you may employ at the present disastrous
state of affairs will too strongly declare the feel-
ings with which her Majesty's Government con-
template all the evils which cannot fail to result
from it.—l am, &c.,
(Signed) " J RUSSELL."
EXTRACT OF EARL RUSSELL'S SPEECH IN THE
HOUSE OF CO3IMONS, MAY 30, 1861.
From Hansard.

"My honourable friend, the member for the West
Riding of Yorkshire, alluded the other night to
one subject in a tone which I was very sorry to
hear used by any one. My honourable friend said
that ' the great Republican bubble in America had
burst' Now, Sir, lam proud to confess—l may
be subject to correction—but for my part, when I
find that a dark and tyrannical despotism has
been abolished, and that people are likely to enjoy
free government in its place, I rejoice. It is my
duty to represent her Majesty as friendly to all
existing States ; but if a despotic Government fall,
and. the people who have been subjected to it are
likely to obtain better and freer Government, I
cannot conceal that it gives me satisfaction and
that I sympathise with them. But I own I have
very different feelings when a great republic, which
has enjoyed for seventy or eighty years institutions
under which the people have been free and happy,
enters into a conflict in which that, freedom and
happiness are placed in jeopardy. I must say that
thejoy which I felt at the overthrow of some of
the despotisms of Italy is counterbalanced by the
pain which I experienced at the events which have
lately taken place in America. I admit that 1
have thought, and that I still think, that in this
country we enjoy more real freedom than the
United States have ever done. I admit also that
the great founders of that Republic, wise and able
men as they were, had not the materials at hand
by which they could interpose, as we are able to
do in this country, the curb and correction of
reason in order to restrain the passionate outbursts
of the popular will. Yet we cannot be blind to
the fact that the Republic has been for many years
a great and free state, exhibiting to the world the
example of a people in the enjoyment of wealth,
happiness, and freedom, and affording bright pro-
spects of the progress and improvement of man-
kind. When I reflect that the reproaches which
are cast by the States of the North upon the State
of the South, and the resistance which they have
called forth, have arisen from the accursed institu-
tion of slavery, I cannot but recollect also that
with our great and glorious institutions we gave
them that curse, and that ours were the hands
from which they received that fatal gift of the
poisoned garment, which was flung around them
from the first hour of their establishment. There-
fore I do not think it just or seemly that there
should be among us anything like exultation at
their discord, and still less that we should reproach