The Sun.
London, England, 1866-07-10 00:00:00

An English and American Alliance.

The Pall Mall Gazette regrets the change of
Ministry, as affecting our relations with Ireland and.
the United States. Something considerable was
likely to have been done for our fellow countrymen
across the Channel. The questions of tenant-
right and of the Irish Church might have been dealt
with, the folly of the Fenians thus made, in an in-
direct and undesigned manner, productive of good.
Unfortunately this will reach to the other side of
the Atlantic. Nothing could have been better than
the course which our relations with America have
lately taken. The Americans have done us an
essential service, and have acted in a manner which
ought at all events to open the eyes of that section
of the English public which has always been dis-
posed to think and speak unfavourably of them to
the good side of their character. As they always
say themselves, they are a law abiding people ; and
they have shown in the instance of the Fenians a
thorough determination to force upon others within
their jurisdiction the virtues they practise them-
selves. Conservatives are apt to under-estimate
the value to us of the American alliance. It may
perhaps be well to take the service rendered by the
Americans in the Fenian raid, as a test for a few
observations on the value of the American alliance,
and the way to cultivate it. We have managed
our affairs so as to be almost entirely cut off from
European politics. To us it is a matter of in-
difference how the nations of Europe settle the
quarrel for which they are in arms. Our influence
in Europe is small compared with our weight, but
we form the centre of four great nations—as they
will soon be—British North America, South Africa,
Australia, and New Zealand, besides our vast
Empire in India. The relation of the United States
to this system is so much connected with it, and
resembles it so closely, as almost to form a part.
Our colonies will possess, when they are :better
able to stand on their own legs, the same indepen-
dence, and which it should be our highest hope to
confer with safety on British India. Our relations
with the United States are actually closer than with
any of our colonies. Our trade with them is
greater, they take a larger number of our emi-
grants, and are the only civilised power separated
from our possessions by a mere geographical
boundary. They are governed on the same princi-
ples appliQd on a larger scale, and to a different
state of society, and are capable of doing us more
harm or good than all the nations of the world put
together. If we cultivate those relations which but
for the madness of George 111. need never to have
been disturbed, there is no reason why a century
hence the English race, with local modifications,
should not be the predominant race of the world.
It would then constitute a community of civilised
States more extensive than Europe—at least as
fertile—and possessed of other advantages peculiar
to itself. For instance, there are hardly any sub-
stantial grounds on which any of the Englands of
the future, including the United States, would have
occasion to quarrel. The probability of so happy
a state of things is remote, but still one why the
friendship of the United States is of paramount
importance. There arc small irritating subjects
between us—such as the fishery rights—but none
of any moment. The relations between the two
States arc eminently satisfactory, mainly because
the political institutions prevailing on each side the
boundary arc unlikely to dispose those who live
under them to fall out with each other, and there
is no reason, except in indiscretion at home, which
should interrupt them. If what we have seen in the
suppression of the Fenian raid is intrinsically a small
matter, it will at least serve to contradict the
notion that sympathy with violence, revolution, fili-
bustering and the like, is characteristic of the

Americans.. We believe this to be an entire mis-
take. Th ese and other bad things were the
characteristi'c vices of the slave-holding population,
but now that- slavery and its attendant evils are at
an end, we d .oubt if there is to be found in the
world a natio n more disposed to be orderly and, in
the good sense oie. the word, Conservative.