The Sun.
London, England, 1866-01-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—" Boldness, again boldness, and once
more boldness," was the motto of the terrible Dan-
ton, and there are occasions in life in which it stands
in the place of far greater and more respectable
qualities, and achieves triumphs to which they never
for a moment could dream of aspiring. Germany
has been for years the slave of respectable and worn-
out traditions, of an order of things so rotten and
so hollow that the first touch might seem enough to
annihilate it, and which yet went on from year to
year for no other or better reason that we know of
than because it had gone so long already. The triad
of Austria, Prussia, andthepetty German States had
nothing on earth to recommend it, except that it ex-
isted. It was an obstable to progress, a guarantee for
immobility, a clumsy contrivance by which the en-
terprise of one was perpetually kept in check by the
fears and inertness of two. It was not harmony, it
was not peace, it was not influence abroad nor com-
fort or respectability at home; but, such as it v:as,
it established a sort of unstable equilibrium which
may go on for a very long time indeed, if no exter-
nal force is brought in to disturb it. The safety of
each of the three Powers consisted in the inability
of the others to agree upon any definite line of ac-
tion,- and such concord as this produced was the re-
sult of mutual fear and jealousy. How ill Germany
thus organised performed the duty assigned to her
of preventing or neutralising the shock of the other
Powers of Europe we need not now describe. Her
destiny, from the causes we have mentioned, has been
that of a passive spectator instead of an active me-
diator, and her function has been limited to attaining
neutrality for herself instead of deciding on the des-
tiny of others. She stood ingloriously by during the
struggle between the Western Powers and Russia,
and had nothing to say while one of her triumvirate
was crushed in 1859 beneath the military superiority
of Imperial France. At last a man has arisen who,
if not endowed with any extraordinary perspicacity,
has, at any rate, sense to see that the present state
of things is worn out, and that there is room for
the exertions of an enterprising and unscrupulous
Power. He saw that Austria, permanently, as it
appeared, embroiled with Hungary, ruined in her
finances, drained by her occupation of Venetia,
which she was too poor to keep and too proud to
give up, was no longer equal to the position which
she had hitherto held in the German triumvirate.
All that was wanted was an opportunity to detach
her effectually from the side of the small States, and
that opportunity the folly of those States was not
long in affording. The Bund was unwise enough
to outvote Austria and Prussia, and to take into
its own hands the prosecution of the Danish quar-
rel. Then occurred the opportunity made for a
man like Count Bismark. A common slight com-
bined Austria and Prussia together ; they snatched
the conduct of the war out of the hands of the
smaller States, and took it entirely into their own.
It soon appeared, however, for whose benefit the
change had taken place. Austria was forced in all
things to yield to the demands of her imperious
ally, and having by her means gained an absolute
superiority over the rest of Germany, Prussia was
able to avail herself of the isolated position in
which Austria remained to gain over her a supe-
riority equally decisive. Count Bismark is entitled
to the credit of having clearly perceived and boldly
acted on the realities of the political position, and
of using the follies and vanity of his neighbours as a
sure means for the advancement of Prussia. Some-
what similar was the policy which Count Bismark
adopted with regard to her internal discords. He
found Prussia divided between two powers—a King
on the one side, and a Parliament on the other. To a
superficial view the Parliament had almost every-
thing in its favour. The Press, the opinion of the
nation, the letter and spirit of the Constitution,
were all entirely for the Parliament. The King
had the army on his side, and the same clear calcu-
lation which enabled Count Bismark to see so plainly
where the real strength of Germany resided enabled
him equally to discover on which side in this quarrel
the balance of strength really lay. The same
cynical contempt for considerations merely moral
which had swept aside the claims of the Bund, and
had first trampled on and then sheltered itself
behind the title of Denmark, enabled him to see
that the army was strong enough to do his work,
and that the Parliament might be safely pushed
aside and disregarded. Such is the Minister who
has been selected by the King of Prussia to repre-
sent him at the opening of his Parliament—an
ominous appearance, bidding at once defiance to
the more liberal tendencies of the nation, giving an
assurance of the determination of Prussia to adhere
steadily to her ambitious and encroaching foreign
policy, and perhaps intended as an answer to the
reports, which have found credence in many quar-
ters, of the indisposition of the King to lend a con-
tinued countenance and support to the policy of
Count Bismark. The Speech was of the kind with
which the experience of the last few years has made
everybody familiar. The Prussian Assembly are
treated with a kind of supercilious civility. It seems
to be admitted that they have a right to be talked
to about public affairs, and to be told what is going
on, so long as they abstain from interference. The
Diet is told that during the last Session, as in pre-
vious years, in default of the necessary agreement
between the two Houses with each other and with
the Crown, the law of the Diet, as provided by the
Constitution, could not be enacted. In the past year,
therefore, the administration of the finances had to be
carried on without such a law. There is not a word of
regret or of apology of any kind. The King and the
House could not agree, and so the King has over-
ruled the House and the law, and done as he pleases.
That is all. This is the first sentence of the address, in-
tended, probably, to bring the Diet into a fitting
state of mind for hearing the rest. The finances
are prosperous, a navigation treaty has been con-
cluded with Great Britain, and a commercial treaty
with Italy. The Government does not expect the
Lower Chamber will accept its views as to military
service, and therefore will not attempt to legislate
on the subject. Lauenburg has been ceded to Prussia,
and the possession of Schleswig and the position
acquired in Holstein by Prussia are guarantees that
the final destinies of the Duchies can only be settled
in amanner corresponding with the national interests
of Germany and the just claims of Prussia. The
King is determined to hold fast this pledge under all
circumstances until the attainment of the desired end,
and knows that he is supported in this resolution by
the assent of his people. A harbour has been ob-
tained in Kiel ; a navy is to be formed, and a canal
connecting the Baltic with the German Ocean com-
menced. In this singular address the Prussian people
are told, in the plainest terms, that the Government
will persist in violating the Constitution, but that it
confidently relies on their unanimous assent to its
dealing with the rights of neighbouring nations just
as it has done with their own. It might have been
painful to the Lower House if it had been told that
Prussia meant to preserve the utmost fairness and
good faith towards her neighbours, and that it was
only to her own subjects that she was disposed to
act lawlessly and violently. This object is entirely
removed, and the Prussian Commons have the
pleasure of knowing that if their rights have been
trampled under foot and their claims disregarded
they are not in the slightest degree worse treated
than their neighbours. The King, through his Minis-
ter, asserts that his people are unanimously with
him in his policy of aggression. If they are so,
they invoke in vain those principles of right on
their own behalf which they refused to extend to
their neighbours. Politicians like Count Bismark,
whose views are narrow just in proportion as they
are clear and direct, are apt to forget that their
actions have a wider influence and more extensive
efficacy than the particular object to which they are
addressed. Such men underrate the force of example
and the danger of precedent. Prussia tastes the
perfection of bliss in absorbing her small neighbour
and thwarting all Europe, which stands by indig-
nant at the sight, and yet for various reasons indis-
posed to interfere. But she may, after all, be play-
ing the game of her most dangerous antagonists,
and setting an example which she, of all countries
in the world, should be the last to establish. What
Poland was in the last century the little States of
Europe are in the present. One by one they seem
destined to be absorbed by overbearing force, but
they will perish justly lamented by the friends of
international right, and will infallibly bring down
with them in their fall that system of public law in
Europe which, since the first dawning of modern
history, has been the refuge of the weak against the
strong, and a perpetual, though not always an effec-
tual, protest against high-handed rapacity.
HERALD.—Those who, in commenting upon the
recent tragedy in Jamaica, have taken the part of
the Government of the island against the black
rebels, considering that Government to have been
abundantly justified in the severe measures to which
it resorted in repressing the rising, have been re-
peatedly and most earnestly requested to suspend
their judgment until such time as the commission
of inquiry sent out from England shall have
concluded its labours and made the whole case
plain. But in common fairness reticence on the
one side should be accompanied by some sort of
abstinence on the part of those who are the self-
constituted champions of the opposite cause. If
nothing is to be said in defence of that small
white colony which by the mercy of God
escaped on Christmas last the horrible fate
which had been prepared for it at that holy season,
in common decency the champions of the negro
should hold their tongues. We have no doubt that
the great majority of the people of England _sym-
pathise most warmly with Mr. Eyre and the Go-
vernment of Jamaica in this painful crisis. Is it
because they are confident of his complete and
speedy exculpation that they suffer a brave and

honest servant of the Crown to be openly and
foully calumniated by a tyrannous cabal which has
all the talk to itself ? However this may be, it 's
certain that while the friends and admirers f Go-
vernor Eyre are holding their peace, while the cham-
pions of law and order in the colonies, and those
who would protect the whites against a negro reign
of terror, are patiently awaiting the verdict of a
commission appointed by the Crown, the agitators,
who denounce the Governor as a second Verres, are
making the land resound with their outcries from
one end to the other, and daily putting in an ap-
pearance in the columns of the press. Little or
nothing has been done in England to afford comfort
at this crisis to the 13,000 white men in Jamaica.
Heaven and earth have been moved to vindicate the
cause of the 450,000 insolent blacks. The murderers
of Morant Bay have their paid advocates and
lawyers sent out to them from England. The man
who wished " to make a second Hayti of Jamaica"
is compared by a distinguished orator to the
martyr Stephen, because he was executed before he
could accomplish his generous purpose. The Radical
party, the Baptist, and the Methodists, the Anti-
Slavery Society, and the zealots of Exeter-hall
are banded together for the behoof of that
teeming and festering population of idle negroes
which the generosity of England has placed
on terms of equality with those who were
once its masters but are now at its mercy. It
is idle to ask us not to prejudge the question.
The gentlemen of the " Jamaica Committee" have
prejudged the question. In their last manoeuvre
they may be said to have out-Heroded Herod, that
is, outdone themselves. They have positively taken
the opinion of counsel in England as to whether the
proceedings of Mr. Eyre and the Legislature of
Jamaica were legal or constitutional, and whether
it was competent for them to arraign the Governor
and the officers who served under him before a tri-
bunal in England, by which they should be judged
for their crimes. The counsel selected were Mr.
Edward James and Mr. J. Fitzjames Stephen. A
number of leading% questions were submitted to
them, with the object of extracting answers which
might appear to justify the committee in the violent
and extravagant course which they seem to contem-
plate. The answers are, however, given with such
care and circumspection that they can hardly afford
a handle for anything of the sort. The first ques-
tion—" What is the meaning of the term martial
law, and what is the legal effect of a proclamation
of martial law ?" is responded to in a learned thesis,
the upshot of which is that—" 1. Martial law is
the assumption by the officers of the Crown of abso-
lute power, exercised by military force, for the sup:
pression of an insurrection and the restoration 01
order and lawful authority. 2. The officers of the
Crown are justified in any exertion of physical
force extending to the destruction of life and pro-
perty to any extent, and in any manner that may
be required for this purpose. They are not Ps'
tified in the use of excessive or cruel means, but
are liable civilly or criminally for such excess." As
to the application of the power conferred by mar-
tial law in the case of Gordon, it depends, in the
opinion of counsel, upon " whether it was neces-
sary for the suppression of open force and the
restoration of legal authority to put him to
death." Governor Eyre's despatch to Air'
Cardwell contains, we are assured, no such jus-
tification of the sentence of the court-martial. Bob
this despatch does not give the evidence on which
Gordon was convicted, and upon that evidence the
whole question rests. The two counsel guardedly
observe that they will not go so far as to say that
"no conceivable state of things could justify the
treatment which Mr. Gordon received." They lealre,
the case of the alleged arch rebel just as they fin'
it, and do not attempt to throw any new light upon
it. The court-martial at Morant Bay, they sail
might fairly have condemned him to death, if they
considered it " immediately and unavoidably neces-
sary for the preservatiou of peace and the restora-
tion of order." The extreme case which was also
submitted to Mr. James and Mr. Stephen, of the
propriety of hanging a man " for a look or a gee-
ture," as is alleged to have been done by one of the
officers on the west coast, would depend much in
their opinion upon whether " the loyal population,
being greatly outnumbered by the rebellious popil-
Wiwi, measures of excessive severity might be ab-
solutely essential to the restoration of the power 01
the law." This night have been the case in Jamaica,
though Governor Eyre's despatch, they say, does
not make it appear. As to the trial of Governor
Eyre, which the " Jamaica Committee" seem to
have promised themselves, being apparently anxious
to- repeat on a small scale the grand drama 01
Warren Hastings, and Burke and Sheridan, the re-
sponse of Messrs. James and Stephen must be sin-
gularly tantalising. There is only one thing which
can prevent any British subject from indicting Mr'
Eyre in the county of Middlesex or impeaching hill
in Parliament. That bar is the Indemnity Act 49'
the Jamaica Legislature. This, however, 01
might petition her Majesty to disallow. Until dis-
allowed it is valid. Altogether we ought, perhaßsi
to be thankful to the gentlemen who have const4-
tuted themselves the " Jamaica Committee" for
having at their own private expense put these diw-
cult 'questions on something like a tangible footing.
They understand the issue now as well as we do.
In the face of the evidence which every mail brim
us from Jamaica this opinion of counsel is most
damaging to the negro party. It has called
Messrs. James and Stephen, and tempted them hi
rich presents to curse its enemies, instead of which,
like a pair of Balaams, they have " blessed there'
altogether."