The Sun.
London, England, 1861-08-02 00:00:00

Government would long pause and hesitate be- I
fore it entered into any agreement with
-foreign countries LIMITING the amount of force,
naval or military, which this country ought to
maintain." In other words—the Premier implies
here that the thing is really and truly, as we
have said, impracticable ! He casts the notion
aside with an air of very natural disdain as, in
itself, the merest Quixotism. As to the amount
of forces, naval and military, requisite for the
exigencies of this country, and not only for these
islands, but for the whole of the vast British
Empire, for the whole of the world-wide domi-
nions owning allegiance to the sceptre of VICTORIA,
as to that we alone can be the right judges.
"WE should judge of that amount," says Lord
PALMERSTON with emphasis, " WE should judge
of that amount according to the circum-
stances of the moment," meaning that no other
power in the wide world could in reason be left
to decide the limits of our military and maritime
forces for us ! " Any agreement," said the Premier,
yesterday from his place in the House of Commons,
" would be with several foreign Powers, because
it is not France alone that is a naval Power.
There is Russia, the United States, Spain,
which is growing in importance, and other
States which have navies, and therefore
any limitation of our own force must be made
with a view not only to the naval power of France,
but to any possible combination of other Powers.
Such an arrangement," he adds, " would I think
lead to interminable doubts and disputes. We must
have officers watching them, and they must
have officers watching us; there would be
doubts and suspicions of bad faith, and, instead of
laying
the foundations of peace, we should, I
fear, be sowing the seeds of future 'interminable
dissensions." Now, as to the common-sense of all
this, there cannot be two opinions. And therefore
—while it is, of course, delightful to indulge occa-
sionally in these millennial daydreams about en-
tering into diplomatic negotiations with France or
with any other country, with a view to the eventual
beating of our spears into reaping hooks and our
swords into ploughshares—one can't help asking
immediately afterwards— How it is we are expected
to do it!

Mr. BRIGHT has at last given us his mind on
America. In the populous north—the West Riding
and South Lancashire especially—canvassing is
almost entirely carried on by public meetings, the
vast number of electors rendering individual appli-
cations nearly impossible. Mr. JOHN CHEETHAM,
the Liberal candidate for the new seat for
South Lancashire, paid, of course, a visit to
Rochdale, the proper home of the honourable
orator for Birmingham ; and of course, Mr.
BRIGHT was there to take his part in demolishing
Mr. TURNER, the Tory candidate, and in backing
Mr. CHEETHAM. He had an easy task, for Mr.
CHEETHAM is a known and sound man—and Mr.
TURNER he attacked through his party, firing at
him, certainly in most amusing style, and with
great good nature too, all the blunders of
the Tory party, for the last thirty years,
and logically drawing the inference that the
associate of blunderers must be presumed to be a
blunderer himself. Ergo, since the country had re-
jected as folly all that Tories had fought for to
desperation as wisdom, the electors ought to
reject the candidate who had been on the side of
the rejected folly, and to choose the one whose
views the nation had accepted as political and
commercial wisdom.

Mr. BRIGHT alluded very happily to a kind of
plausible representations which are becoming very
common with a certain class of writers more
than of speakers—" There is," he observed, " a
curious kind of trick being played upon the public,
and it is not played upon us only by the Tory
party, mind—there is a little of it in another
party, which we are not allowed to say much
about to-night. We are being told that now
nearly everything is done ; that there is nothing
for anybody to ask for ; that politics are coming
to an end ; that it doesn't matter very much what
sort of a man you return to Parliament ; and that,
therefore, it does not matter very much whether
Mr. TURNER be returned fur this division of the
county or Mr. CHEETHAM. I utterly repudiate
that doctrine, According to certain people in this
eountry, including nearly everybody of the ruling
class, the time had always been unfavourable for
further advances, and they have generally been
quite satisfied with what has been done. But the
people have never hitherto been satisfied, and I
hope there are a good many things to be done yet
before they are satisfied."

But let us glance at our sturdy peace champion's
views on America. He is in a rather awkward fix,
as his Yankee friends would call it. He cannot
praise the war spirit, and the war preparations,
and the war loans of the North, and yet he warmly
advocates their cause, and warmly opposes seces-
sion. He identifies the integrity of the Union with
the existence of Government at all in the United
States—and compares the Southern secession with
a secession here of Yorkshire and Lanca-
shire. He shrinks from the actual defence
of their fighting, yet cleverly adds :
"At any rate, they have never fought for the
balance of power' in Europe. They have never
fought to keep up a decaying empire. They have
never squandered the money of their people in
such phantom expeditions as we have been en-
gaged in. And now at this moment, when you are
told that they are going to be ruined by their vast
expenditure, why the sum that they are going to
raise in the great emergency of this grievous war
is no greater than what we raise every year during
a time of peace."

Mr. BRIGHT is as gentle on the slavery question
as Mr. LINCOLN himself, and is quite satisfied that
the North should fight for THE UNION AND SLAVERY.
" They say," he exclaims, " that they are not going
to liberate slaves. No ; the object of the -Washing-
ton Government is to maintain their own consti-
tution, and to act legally, as it permits and re-
Yes they are going
quires.' act legally
enough if Mr. BRIGHT thinks that
a pro-
slavery constitution can be a legal thing --But
were Mr. BRIGHT'S heart as right on this
subject as Lord SHAFTESBURY'S, we are sure
he could as much surpass his lordship in the elo-
quence of his invective against paper legality in
defiance of the laws of God and human nature, as
his lordship now surpasses Mr. BRIGHT in the noble-
ness of his position. Yet, further on, when he desires
to excuse the North for warring on the South, and
claims our sympathies for the North, he says " that
the people of England, if they are true to their own
sympathies, to their own history, and to their own
great Act 1834, to which reference has already
been made, will have no sympathy for those who
wish to build up a great empire on the perpetual
bondage of millions of their fellowmen." Way,
President LINCOLN pleads for a Constitution and a
fugitive slave law designed "to perpetuate the
bondage of millions of their fellow men !"
Oa the general question of the war our belli-
gerent peace friend is very ingenious—he stands.
upon the ground that it is a war for Government
merely, and he appeals to those therefore who would
uphold any Government. "No man," he says," is