The Sun.
London, England, 1868-03-03 00:00:00

INTERNATIONAL ERRORS OF OPINION.

(From the Anglo-American Times.)
Last Monday the Times in an article on Mr.
Adams remarked—cc We have only to read the
speeches constantly delivered in the Senate of the
United States to appreciate the mischief which some
prominent advisers of the American people would
have produced in the plice of the American Minis-
ter." There are two rooted and mischievous errors,
the one in England, the other in America, which
many who ought to try to dig up prefer to
cultivate and cherish. So long as they do this
the English will never learn that all speeches in the
United States are not to be taken as matters of
fact or expressions of real opinion. It is as well
known in England as in America that an Opposi-
tion in attacking a Government party may denounce
actions, may stigmatize both ends and means, may
promise brilliant reforms and measures almost re-
volutionary in character, but when those who thus
talk are placed in office they have aVonderf al facility
of forgetting these pledges. Make Mr. MILL Prime
Minister, and see if he introduces a bill to confiscate
the property of landlords in Ireland. He may
really think it might end well, but official responsi-
bility has So powerful an influence that Utopias
dissolve into thin air, the wild and the impractic-
able that looked to the heated imagination so easy
and inviting, disappear—leaving nothing but the
bare reality. If the United States desired to
give a red-hot Fenian Senator a cold bath
let him be appointed Minister to St. James's.
RORERT J. WALKER has been enlightening America
on the advantages to the country of the islands
of St. 'Thomas and st. John. With these two
islands, the United States in the next war with
England, will flank the British fleet in the West
Indies, destroy all her carrying trade, amounting to
two billions cf dollars a year, annex the Dominion
of Canada, which PAL3IERSTON got up to be a rival
power on the Continent, secure the independence of
Ireland by sending there a sufficient force with
arms for the whole Irish people. " From our
Pacific possessions," went on the lion. ROBERT,
"we must assail her East India possessions, and
finally destroy her commerce upon the ocean ; and
when in want of food, or of the raw materials for
manufacture, or of markets for them, the fires in
all her workshops will be extinguished, revolu-
tion would be inevitable, and a Republic would
arise on the ruins of crowns and coronets." The
Hon. ROBERT J. WALKER in good English, him-
self the descendant of an English family, thus
sketched the ruin of England. But this scion of
the celebrated HooKEY never dreamt of these
endingsan-
iil
He was merely the ruin of his ancestral
hguominearbyeisncghecamresri, intoed
effect.
in-
dulging in afacon de parley, which, we regret to say,
delights the American mind. He is aware that
England is the only free State in Europe, and that
the cause of freedom, in whose interests he uttered
these threats, would be deeply injured instead of
advanced by their consummation. In England
the words of HooKEY's descendant, and of such
others, are accepted as proof of an undying
hostility. They are quoted in British papers
as clear evidence of the impossibility of
winning even by the extreme of conciliation not
merely the affection, but common justice, from the
United States. The British Lion turns angrily
away with a sense of unfair dealing strong upon
him, with the dislike intensified, of those for ever
threatening him with annihilation, and a determi-
nation when the time comes, to show how vigorous
are his old muscles, how strong his teeth. Mr.
CONNESS, Senator from California, desired that
England should be informed that if she did not
make reparation, the American flag would be car-
ried from the Pacific to Nova Scotia while the Cross
was engaged in trampling on the Crescent.
Although this warlike Senator, whose term we are
thankful will soon expire, and whose Irish blood
may excuse his hatred of England, talks thus, he
would be slow to act, and such declamation
means less than nothing. The rooted error
in America is that they
think such speeches
harmless, and are pleased if they succeed in
annoying the British lion. Yet, we assert unhe-
sitatingly, that indulgence in this practice has
most injuriously affected the interests of the
United States. Englishmen are persuaded that
Americans hatethem, and having been reared in this
belief, a social prejudice has been engendered.
They love power, they worship success—the
United States is the most powerful and successful
of nations ; therefore, Englishmen would, if per-
mitted, esteem the one and bow down to the other.
Of all admirers and well-wishers, Americans might,
if they liked find the warmest in England. This
they repel by the prominence they give to these
stupid speeches, and the latitude they allow them-
selves in Congress in discussing their foreign kindred.
" I may say what I think proper," exclaimed Mr.
HOWARD in the Senate, when rebuked for abusing
the Emperor NAPOLEON ; " be should say wh it he
pleased, he did not care whether the EMPEROR
liked it or not." If Americans indulged generally
in the same language towards foreign nations,
England would have accepted it as a playful
habit of the people, and allowed them the widest
latitude ; but, unfortunately, the old country has
been singled out as an exception, and to make this
the more marked, others have been lavishly praised
that the contrast might be the stronger. The lan-
guage being the same, and the exception made very
pointed, we cannot wonder that England has grown
into the belief of a national antipathy in America

against her, and that a social prejudice is widely
entertained in England against Americans. This
being sol nothing so much surprises EDglifshraeu as