The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PDBLIO JOURNALS.

TIMES.—In one of the first days of this last
stormy month of September there happened one of
the most critical and heart-stirring events in the
history of this world. It was something that the
wise and the good of all ages had imagined, and de-
sired, and that many had thought for and written
for. Yet it was not on any one of the usual theatres
of this mighty drama. It was not on a field where
half a million of men decide empire ; it was not in a
senate or at a national fete, or in a congress ; there
was not even so much visible solemnity, or such a
concurrence of appearances, as when a man of
science promulgates a new law of nature. It was in
a dark cabin constructed on the deck of a ship roll-
ing heavily in the midst of the Atlantic, carried far
out of its course by unknown currents, without a
ship in sight, or aught but sea and sky, both tem-
pestuous. All who have done that crossing know
the sense of utter separation from the world of land
that must come on them sometimes. But all at
once the occupants of that gloomy cabin found
themselves freely conversing with both the conti-
nents that lay many days' sail beyodd the far east
and the far west of their horizon. They got the
exact time to the fraction of a second from Green-
wich ; they got the current news from home ; they
learnt that the Terrible had arrived at St. John's
only about an hour after the occurrence ; and they
were informed of the ships that were to meet at
Trinity Bay. Exact orders for stores were sent and
acknowledged, and appointments made as to time
and place of delivery and meeting. Inquiries were
made, answered, and exchanged as to the weather in
different parts of the Atlantic. The company are
entertained with the forebodings of a sceptic re-
ported to them, and they send back as an answer
the fact of their honest, well-earned triumph.
They receive a congratulatory message from the
New York Chamber of Commerce, and send it
a long-winded sentence in the best telegraphic
style, containing a crowd of long words and
good wishes. No doubt they also sent a little
" chaff" to their private friends, and got some in
return. No doubt they had the substance of the
London papers a good deal earlier than most Lon-
doners. That a "voice" or a "message"should come
from the deep at all is wonderful, and we all know
the melancholy form in which it comes. A bottle is
thrown on the beach, or pickedup floating. A hasty
scrawl in it tells friends that some weeks before a
ship was fast settling down into the sea, or, perhaps,
that its crew were dying of hunger or beaten by fa-
tigue. By this time the voice is from the grave, and
a mere record of human helplessness. But the com-
pany on board the Great Eastern were talking
cheerily and pleasantly about the success of a great
enterprise, and the few arrangements that still re-
mained, about public affairs, and no doubt private,
with the inhabitants of two worlds. The message
went to Valentia, and thence to London, to St. John's
or to New York, 5,000 miles by this route. It cer-
tainly had been possible before to converse with two
worlds, and it had already been possible to converse
with one world from the mid-Atlantic. But now, for
the first time, it was possible, and it did aetuallytake
place, that men, tossed about on a stormy sea, in utter
darkness, could hold a conversation at the same time
with Europe and America. There has in all ages
been the idea of such communication either by men-
tal sympathy, or by the sympathy supposed to exist
between fluids of substances and phases of mind, or
by spirits, which were generally only another name
for laws of nature hitherto baffling investigation, if,
indeed, they were ever scientifically observed. It
was to the mind that the ancients and our fore-
fathers looked most for the higher effects upon mat-
ter or brute natures ; and Bacon evidently thought
it worth a serious trial whether, by the use of strong
efforts of the imagination and the will, it would be
possible to make crops grow faster, hounds run
quicker, and hawks pursue the quarry more keenly.
It is only at the tail of a multitude of similar sug-
gestions, and expedients far more ridiculous, that
he drops a hint or two really founded on observa-
tion and capable of being followed up. But he leaves
the true scent as heedlessly as he finds it. "It is
an ancient tradition," he says, " everywhere
alleged, for example of secret properties and influxes,
that the torpedo marina, if it be touched with a long
stick, doth stupefy the hand of him that toucheth it.
It is one degree of working at distance, to work by
the continuance of a fit medium." lle here suggests
that the stick had only to be sufficiently continued,
and any distance of communication could be ob-
tained ; and this in a context of instances, from his-
tory and his own experience, where the illnesses of
distant friends, great victories, and sudden deaths
had become known by a secret sympathy. So apt
are even the most hopeful and inquiring minds to
halt on the very threshold of a discovery, and dis-
credit the practical consequences which it obtrudes
upon them. Now that these amazing results have
been obtained, the Atlantic is found to be so little
impediment to conversation that the dropped mes-
sage may be picked up from its deepest abyss, and
wanderers on its faithless surface, though unable to
hold their course, in strong currents and tempestuous
gales, can yet converse with two worlds. It is im-
possible fun to cast a glance at the future effects of
an achievement which destroys at once more than
half the time necessary to all undertakings that em-
brace a wide sphere and require the least degree of
international separation. The old proverb says that
the beginning is half the work; but that may be
more truly said of the requisite information, intelli-
gence, and arrangement, orthe common understand-
ing and concert. This mustalways be a waste of time;
and when a communication has been made at much
cost of time, it has frequently had to be unmade and
the work begun again. It is this time which is saved
by a discovery enabling all the civilised world to com-
municate instantaneously, one may say. It is true
there appear to be obstacles of a practical and very
serious character, somewhat damaging to the disco-
very thus far ; and it is also true that the telegraph
is only open as Dr. Johnson said of Courts of
Justice and the Clarendon Hotel were open—that
is, to those who can pay. But what we have to con-
sider are the great common interests of mankind,
and no doubt they will be furthered by a discovery
that brings all men nearer to one another. We can-
not suppose that the news vhich concerns all will
suffer needless delays, careless miscarriage, or ob-
structive devices of a purely mercantile significance.
The various Governments of the world, too, will
see the wisdom of allowing intelligence of universal
interest to pass across their frontiers without idle
and mischievous scrutiny for the mere benefit or
amusement of officials. The nations that have to
thank England and France for this vast accession
to their comfort and convenience may well be asked
to give the electric fluid the freest possible course
through their countries, and do us a service which
even the stormy Atlantic does not deny. The land
ought to be at least as hospitable as the sea, as
generous, and as sociable ; for it would, indeed, be a
stigma on humanity if it should avow itself less
kind even than the rude elements of nature in their
wildest and stormiest mood.

POST.-If, as there is every reason to suppose,
the peace now established in Europe continues for
some years, we may expect to find the commercial
relations subsisting between the several European
Powers placed on a still more satisfactory footing
than that which they now occupy. Much has been
dOne of late years to effect the substitution of a free
trade policy for one of protection, and the long list
of commercial treaties which have been concluded
bear witness at the same time to the zeal with which
the expounders of the new doctrine have pursued
their labours, and to the sagacity which their con-
verts have displayed in turning the lessons they
have recived sto practical account. But although,
with one notable exception, to which we will pre-
sently direct attention, the majority of the Conti-
nental States have entered into conventions for
removing those restrictions upon trade which
formerly were supposed to constitute its only safe-
guards, we conceive that the application of the
principles on which these conventions rest is still
only in its infancy. This country and France
have outstripped many others in the race, but
there remains still some distance to be traversed
before even these Powers reach that goal which the
late Richard Cobden would have prescribed for
them. If, however, not only they, but those other
States which as yet have scarcely banished the ap-
prehensions with which they viewed the extinction
of that protective policy in which they have here-
tofore trusted, are to make further progress it can
only be under conditions which will favour the pro-
secution of trade in all its various branches, and
which will insure commerce against those disturbing
influences which so speedily paralyse it. _The expo-
sition of the policyof the French Government which
has just been made will tranquillise the fears of those
who were inclined to think that serious offence had
been given to France by the brilliant successes which
Prussia has achieved. From France, the traditional
disturber of the peace of Europe, no danger need be
apprehended, and, without being prepared to endorse
the sentiment that when France is satisfied Europe
is tranquil, it will probably- be admitted that her
contentment contributes in no small degree to create
a sense of security which would otherwise be want-
ing. As one of the principal results of the restora-
tion of peace, and of the removal of those causes
which have hitherto kept the peace of Europe in
continual jeopardy, we may therefore expect to find
an additional impulse given to that spirit of com-
mercial enterprise which has already swept down so
many of the barriers with which States loved to en-
circle themselves. By no State ought greater benefits
in this respect to be reaped by Austria. She alone
of all the European Powers has refused to believe
that free trade means wealth, and protection
poverty. The experience of the past has, until now,
been lost upon her, and it remains to be seen whether

she will benefit by the lesson which she is no fr
taught. Not that Austria has been without warn-
ings and examples sufficient, one would have
thought, to have convinced her that her system of
commercial policy was radically bad. Years ago
she allowed Prussia to strike the first of those
blows which eventually occasioned her exclusion
from the Confederation when she refused to be a
member of the Zollverein. One by one the
various German States recognised the soundness 0;
the advice given them by Prussia, and made and
accepted those mutual concessions which were re-
quired from those wbo joined the customs union.
But Austria persistently stood aloof. She saw, for
she could not help seeing, the commercial advantages
which resulted to those States which joined the nevi
league, but she refused to believe that by adopting a
similar course she would share in them herself. Nor
was it any success which attended her protective
policy that could have rendered her thus obdurate.
In all Europe there was not to be found a state
whose finances were in a worse condition, wilese
trade was at a lower ebb, or whose credit was held
in less estimation on the Exchanges of Europe. Year
after year Austria added largely to her debts, with-
out either developing her industrial resources or
bettering her position. Making every other consi-
deration subsidiary to the object of holding, at B,il
hazards, dominions which were useless to her, and
sacrificing everything to the prosecution of a tali-,
torial grandeur which was a source of weakness, and
not of strength, Austria continued to maintain 3
struggle which exhausted her treasury without afford-
ing the slightest prospect of creating the germs °I
future greatness. The long-continued and disheart-
ening struggle is now at an end, and it is not too
much to know that the willingness which she seemed
to evince during the past two or three years to re-
trieve her past errors will be shown now in a still,
more marked manner, and that one of her firs"
steps towards reformation will be a spontaneous
entrance into that great league which already num-
bers amongst its members almost every civilised State.
Austria is almost the only Continental State
whose industrial resources may be said never yet to
have had fair-play. Without possessing in an ex-
traordinary degree the elements of great natural
wealth, it may be said that she is at all events
endowed with the means of providing in the most
ample manner for her own necessities. All that
she needs is to direct her expenditure into different,
channels, and to open her markets to the rest 0f
the world. The jealousy which so long subsisted
between her and Italy is now at an end, and we
may expect to see the speedy restoration of those
commercial relations between the two countries
which were brought to an abrupt termination 3
short time since. Austria and Italy respectively
produce commodities of which the other bas need
Italy can give to Austria her wine and timber, ou
and fruits, in exchange for manufactures, and t
that is necessary to facilitate the exchange is the
removal of the restrictions by which such a barter
e
is at present rendered almost impossible. On ti=%,
part of Italy it is needless to say no unwillingness
will be manifested to adopt a policy which has been
left her as an heirloom by 'one of her greatest states:
men. Cavour was one of the first to.recognise the
merits of a free trade policy, and, to his credit be
it spoken, he left no opportunity untried of securing
for his country the benefits which he knew wow
flow from its adoption. Antipathy to a Govern-
ment or to a State did not prevent him seeking to
form commercial alliances. In this respect his con'
duct was notably different from that of the states;
men who have always ruled in the councils ,°:,
Vienna. However, it is of the future and not of the
past that we desire to speak. Austria, we believe:
has a prosperous future before her if she will but
abandon the selfish and suicidal commercial policy
which she has so long pursued.