The Sun.
London, England, 1868-06-06 00:00:00

-.•-
SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

The Saturday .Review is or opinion that the platfortas'or
series of resolutions, adopted by the Chicago Convention
betrays a suspicion that the Republicans are notmmited
on the question of negro suffrage in the South. In.ldirect
'opposition to the reconstruction proposed by Congress, the
Convention recommends that each State should regnlate ,
„jts own suffrage, under the condition that the franchise
shall be impartially extended to negroes as well as to
whites. Impartial suffrage, as it is called, would be
intrinsically just, and politically expedient, if only the
susperstitious belief in universal suffrage for the white
race had not rendered a sounder system impossible.
Declarations in favour of equal taxation, of the encourage-
ment of immigration, and even against official corruption,
have no definite meaning or importance. The proposal
that political disabilities shall be removed from 'the
vao-called rebels, as soon as the public safety allows of the
change, is at least ostensibly liberal. The declaration
that the debt ought to be paid according to the letter and
spirit. of the contract might point to payment in gold, or
to evasion by greenbacks ; but an express protest against
repudiation supports the more creditable interpretation.
The Convention carefully abstains from the vexed ques-
tion of Protection or Free Trade ; and, as might have been
,expected, it denounces the policy of President Johnson.
The concluding resolutions are melancholy specimens of
vonal malignity. A declaration of sympathy for peoples
strviggling for their rights is virtually addressed to Ireland,
unle.s.s Crete is included for the purpose of placing Turkey
in the same category with England. The display-of mean-
ness is foe more lamentable because it will be useless, for
the Fenians will vote for ',the Democratic candidate. The
Chicago plaaform ought not to be forgotten when. blind
fanatics and partisans in England again endeavour taper-
suade their countrymen that the Republicans are less wan-
tonly hostile than. their opponents to a nation which has
-.never wilfully wronged America.
The Spectator has a few words to say as to the temper
which has been evinced by the English middle class in the
.matter of the matter of the prosecution of Mr. Eyre. It
Us not (it says) been amongst those who blamed Mr. Eyre
far sternly putting down the first outbreak. It has not
blamed him for any act prior to his own declaration that
the outbreak was virtually suppressed. It has never denied
the great difficulty of his position. It was amongst the
Jrst to call attention to the honourable, and even heroic,
mirage which had marked his previous career as an ex-
plort-T, and it never for an instant questioned the sincerity
of his sown belief that in the matter of the Jamaica rebel-
lion he had acted in the way best calculated to preserve
the colony to the Crown. It admits, and even contends,
qtliat under these circumstances the nation ought to adopt
tile most lenient construction of which his actual conduct
wad capable, consistently with the due assertion of the
right a all classes of her Majesty's subjects to equal and just
government, and of the strict responsibility of ill-judging
governorgior blunders of judgment so grave as to issue in
all the consequences of deliberate oppression. But what
it cannot help seeing is that the upper and middle class of
thd English .nation—especially the latter—do not care to
assert these principles at all ! that they are positively
.enraged at the demand of negroes for equal con-
sideration with Irishmen, Scotchmen, and English-
men ; that proceedings which would have cost the
most well-meaning of weak-judging men his head if
they had taken place in the United Kingdom—which
would have been received with shouts of execration if they
bad taken place in France or Austria—are heartily ad-
4mired. as examples of strong government when they take
place in the British West Indies. It seems to the Specta-
tor to be simple insincerity to maintain for a moment that
3fr. Eyre's conduct would find a single palliator except on the
implicit ass imption that British subjects,being negroes or
mulattoes, with rebellion amongst them, cannot expect for
a moment the same treatment as British subjects of Anglo-
..9axon or even Celtic descent with rebellion amongst
them. That is the true axiom at the bottom of Mr. Justice
Blackburn's mind, and at the bottom of the mind of the
great majority of both the grand juries which have
ignored the bills against Colonel Nelson, Lieutenant
Brand, and Mr. Eyre, and at the bottom also of the
minds of nine-tenths of ourown class—if not of nine-tenths
of the British nation.

The London Review declares that any man who will put
his band to the task of elevating the agricultural labourer
is entitled to our gratitude. Labourin towns can take care of
itself. Masters have to knock under as often as their men.
But agricultural labourers can be beaten in detail. They
work hard and live wretchedly; they must take what
wages they can get, and have no means of standing out
against employers for an advance. A farm labourer lives
in a miserable cabin, whose accommodation, not more than
decently sufficient for a family of three or four, is made
to give shelter to eight or ten, or perhaps a dozen members,
and in thousands of cases his whole weekly earnings do
not exceed as many shillings. In Devon, where Canon
Girdlestone has been busying himself to improve their con-
dition, wages are from eight to ten shillings per week.
Some one is needed who will show them how to combine
for the promotion of their interests. But a man who can
and will do that must not only possess capacity, but
courage. He must be someone wbo is known to them,
and who, from his position, can command their confidence.
Just such a man is Canon Girdlestone. It is some time
now since he undertook, as far as his personal exertions
could do it, to transfer the surplus labour of one locality
where wages were low to another where there was a
scarcity of labour, and where wages, consequently, were
high. This drew upon him the wrath of all the farmers in
his parish, who regarded him as their common enemy.
They did not stop to consider that while the labourers
would gain by his efforts they themselves would not be
altogether losers. A half-fed population—and how can
families be more than half-fed upon eight or even ten
shillings a week ?—involves heavy rating to the parish.
Somehow or other even farm labourers must live, and if
their employers will not pay in meal, they must pay in
malt. But this consideration was lost upon the Devon
farmers, and Canon Girdlestone had to face the alternative
either of abandoning a good work and allowing himself to
be beaten out of the field by selfish and brutal opponents,
or of bearing as well as he could the insults by which they
endeavoured to revenge themselves. Of these two courses
he chose the latter ; and in his address to the farm
labourers of Halberton, on Monday, he placed himself
heart and soul at their service in whatever efforts they
might make to obtain fair wages from their employers.
The London Review sincerely trusts that he will succeed in
his Christian efforts to raise the farm labourers of Devon
above the level of the brutes they drive or feed. Both in
Devon and elsewhere men of this class have been degraded
to a still lower level ; and it is high time they should be
taught how to place themselves and their employers at the
bar of public opinion, and enable that equitable judge to
redress the balance between them. Occasional articles in
newspapers upon this or that case of hardship will do little
good. Unless the farm-bands can unite for their mutual
protection we doubt whether even so generous and zealous
a friend as Canon Girdlestone will be able to do much for
them. But this is the object he is labouring to bring
about ; and we leave the matter in his hands, equally con-
fident that it is in good keeping, and whenever he thinks
the time has come to invite help from the public at large
the appeal will not be made in vain.

The Imperial Perim observes that it is evident that
the recommendations of the Neutrality Commission
are aimed at particular events which have re-
cently.' occurred. If the Confederate struggle was
to be fought Over again, the grievances complained
of by the Washington Government could not again
arise. It is another question whether British subjects
might not suffer inconveniences of a different character.
Mr. Vernon Harcourt, who under his well-known nom:
de-guerre has taken so large a part in the literature of
this question, decidedly considers that the mischief to
private personswill exceed any public benefit to he derived
from the proposed legislation. In this view the Imperial
Review entirely concurs. It cannot see the great difference
between the arming of a ship of war and the constructing
and adaptation to destructive purposes of any warlike
weapons. It is hard that a Liverpool shipbuilder should
not derive, from the quarrels of foreign princes and re-
publics, as much profit as may fall to the share of a gun-
maker or sword-maker of Birmingham or Sheffield. The
fitting out of an armament with_ its full complement of
men, its officers appointed, and its pomp and circumstance
complete, is of course a very different matter. Such was
the case of the expedition against the Miguelite authori-
ties in the Azores, to whose departure the British Govern-
ment justly raised objections. But the general rule „f
neutrality, as laid down by the highest authorities, is
simply to grant or refuse-nothing to one party, on account
of the war, which is not granted or refused to another
equally. Vattel, indeed, states that a neutral is required
" not to give assistance equally, but to give no assistance,
for it would be absurd to assist at the same time two
enemies." This, of course, applies to the action of the
State as such. For there is no absurdity or violation of
neutrality in allowing private individuals to furnish the
means of carrying on war to each of the belligerents.
icor, incl,pendent of positive law, could it be a want of
neutrality to allow subjects to take service in the forces of
either Power.

MURDER BY A STUDENT.—At Pont-a-Mousson,
France, a pupil in the training college for young men in-
tended for the priesthood, attacked apparently by lunacy,
got out of bed at two o'clock the other morning, went down
to the ground floor, and, heaping up papers and copy-
books, set fire to them. Returning to the dormitory, he
awoke his comrades, and with a razor he inflicted a mortal
wound on the throat of one of them, a young man of 17,
named Fernand Jocatte, of Nomeny. The unfortunate
youth survived only a quarter of an hour. The murderer,
who is 19 Yarls OA, made l 9 Mtcw tS? eIiCADe.