The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-21 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, rUESDtAY EVENING, JANUARY 21, 1868.

LORD HOBART ON THE ALABAMA
CLAIMS.

Lord Hobart, commenting on the despatch from
Mr. Seward to Mr. Adams, dated the 29th of No-
vember, breaking off the negotiations between this
country and the United States respecting the Ala-
bama difficulty, writes to the Times : —There can
be no doubt that the failure of these negotiations
means nothing less than unfriendly relations be-
tween Great Britain and the United States ; that
unfriendly relations meant the risk—more or less
imminent —of war ; and that war between
Great Britain and the United States would be
a calamity as great as any which could afflict the
world. But there is a consideration more imme-
diately urgent which enhances the evil. The Gover-
nment of the United States has hitherto loyally done
its duty to this country in regard to the proceedings
of Fenianism within their dominions, but it plainly
enough intimates in this correspondence that it
may now be obliged to conform its principles
and policy to those which it considers to have
been the principles and policy of this country
during the American civil war. Nothing else is
wanting to make Fenianism, which is now only
troublesome and vexatious, serious and formid-
able. It is most important that the people of
this country should clearly understand the posi-
tion in which they are placed in reference to this
subject. When all deduction is made for faults of
national character there is in the generality of Eng-
lishmen a fund of good sense and right feeling which
would, if only they were fully instructed as to that
which the Government of the day were doing, or
about to do, prevent, as I believe, any very great
or frequent errors in our foreign policy. Three-
fourths of the wars in which this country has been
engaged would have been impossible if the nation
could have been made fully aware of what was tak-
ing place in the " drifting" period. But blue books
are tardy of appearance, inaccessible to the gene-
ral public, and unalluring to the repre-
sentative mind. The matter, then, stands thus :
The United States Government has pressed upon
the British Government a formidable list of claims
on account of losses inflicted upon American citizens
by the depredations of the Alabama and other ves-
sels of her class, and has at the same time stated
very clearly the grounds on which it urges the settle-
ment of those claims. Those grounds are recapitu.
lated by Mr. Seward in his despatch of Aug. 27,
1866, and are shortly as follows :—That by the
Queen's proclamation of 1861 belligerent rights were
wrongfully conceded to certain slaveholding States
then in insurrection against their lawful Govern-
ment ; that in consequence of such concession those
States obtained, among other advantages, flower
to assume a national flag, and to seize and de-
stroy goods and shipping of the United States ;
that thereupon, from the very nation which had
mainly occasioned this injustice, there proceeded
swift and powerful vessels of war, which became
the recognised property of the insurgents, and in-
flicted enormous injury upon American trade and
navigation ; that, to prevent such vessels from
leaving her shores, no serious, or, at least, no suf-
ficient effort was made by the Government of this
country—that, moreover, such vessels were re-
peatedly harboured and protected in various ports
of Great Britain and her colonies, and that Great
Britain owes to the United States indemnity for the
losses which have thus been sustained. The British
Government, while refusing to admit the validity of
this reasoning,offers to refer the question to arbitra-
tion ; but on one condition—that in the case sub-
mitted to the arbiter no account shall be taken of the
recognition of the insurgent States as belligerents
by the royal proclamation of 1861. On this condi-
tion it insists, because it considers that the question
as to the legality or propriety of that recognition is
of a kind upon which " every State must be held to
be the sole judge of its duty." The United States,
on the other hand, while assenting to arbitration,
desire that the " whole controversy" may be referred
to arbitration as it stands, not for decision upon its
merits, but in order that their demand for compen-
sation may be laid before the arbiter accompanied by
the arguments on which it is founded. It comes,
then, to this, that the British Government has re-
fused, not only to yield to the demand of the
United States, but to submit the case, except in
a very partial and limited form, to arbitration.
Is the British nation prepared to accept the respon-
sibility ? To decline to comply with the requisition
of a foreign Power because you cansider it unrea-
sonable is one thing ; to refuse to adopt the only
existing method, except of war, of settling the dis-
pute is quite another. And it may well be asked
whether, if a question such as that of the recogni-
tion of the South as belligerent, inflicting as it did
serious loss and injury upon a friendly State, be not
a proper subject for arbitration, any great question
of foreign policy can never hereafter be decided
by any other than those time-honoured but some-
what illogical authorities—bullets and cold steel.
In
partihse protocols
in 1856 there
epsptaended to thendsreoorded
, Declarationonthepart
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aa
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future nations
in disputewill,tions to h
beforete judgment declaring war, refer
the matter neutral
State. It was a British Minister who proposed that
inomenthtoauts pnowar,aognratphh ;it is the British
efirstopportuoi.tyfor Govern-
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But Go-
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it happens
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in
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ny thesynnehxaprrbessitrlyamexecnit. exclude from tthhenipr
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question to be submittedblotiofluiitchteedarblly nations
aree agreed.
and iter,
h which is the
question whether compensation is due to the United
t AlabamaS
States for
coadjutors,the losses inflicted
That such an arbitration may be resorted to
without prejudice to national dignity both
arc also agreed. But one of them demands that
certain facts and inferences which the other
considers material to the issue shall be excluded
from the case laid before the arbiter, simply be-
cause his decision might otherwise be influenced by
the solution, in the hidden recesses of his own mind,
of a question upon which " every State must be the
sole judge of its duty." The decision given by the
arbiter will amount, neither directly nor indirectly,
neither expressly nor by implication, to any opinion

upon that question. He may consider it ; he may
arrive at a conclusion upon it, and his decision
may be influenced by that conclusion. But what
that conclusion is, whether he has been able to
form one, or whether he believes that the question
has any such bearing upon the particular issue re-
ferred to him as that he need consider it at all, no
one will ever know. Acts and words, supposed to
derogate from national honour, have, throughout
all time, been guarded against or avenged at a ter-
rible cost to the world ; this is probably the first
time that it has been thought necessary to defend
national honour at the risk of the most calamit-
ous consequences against the secret thoughts of the
heart. I trust that it may not be even now too
late to hope for a renewal of the negotiations.
Will the English people, tacitly acknowledging the
morbid sensibilities imputed to it by its rulers, or
actuated by the childish fear of being thought afraid,
allow itself to be committed to an irreconcilable
quarrel with a nation of whose friendship it stands
just uow peculiarly in need, and to be at peace
with whom is of incalculable importance to itself
and to the world ? or will it insist on the settlement
by way of arbitration, without captious and sensi-
tive reservations, of a question which ought not to
be kept open for a single day, and which au im-
partial tribunal can alone satisfactorily decide?

An invitation has been sent from Berlin to Munich,
Stuttgart, and Carlsruhe, to send delegates to Berlin, for
the purpose of deliberating on the foundations of the new
postal treaty with Switzerland. The Norwegian Govern-
ment has opened negotiations for a new postal treaty, and
has for this purpose sent Herr Rye to Berlin,

THE CO2VSTITUTIONAL CO-VVENTION AT
ALBANY ON THE JUDICIARY.

Since the article of last July in the North Ameri-
can Review, preferring grave and sweeping imputa-
tions upon the administration of justice in New
York, more than ordinary attention has been directed
to the Judiciary. The Constitutional Convention at
Albany has given much time to the discussion of the
subject. Judge Daly, of New York City, argued
that the courts ought to be so thoroughly upright
and independent that no one could even suspect
them of corruption or favouritism ; and alluded to
the article in the North American Review as an
example of charges against the administration of
justice in New York, which, though proceeding
from a respectable quarter, still remained un-
answered. Such an event under the old judicial
system was unknown, and the mere fact of wide-
spread doubt as to the probity of any of the judges
was strong evidence not of the want of integrity in
the particular persons who might be suspected,
but of the defects of a system which left room for
suspicion.

Mr. Schumacher declared the article to be a foul
libel by a notorious corruptiouist and an Eag -
lish ticket-of-leave man ; " the former referring,
we understand," says the Nation, " to an eminent
lawyer whose worst enemies do not suspect him of
the slightest use of corrupt influences, and the lat-
ter to a well-known literary maa of perfectly re-
spectable character, who, we have good reason to
believe, had no more to do with the article in
question than Mr. Schumacher himself. This per-
sonal abuse was the staple of the argument in de-
fence of the judiciary of this city."
Although a general assertion was made that the
article in question was false and scandalous, yet, it
is well known that many of the charges are true.
The Nation asserts that the line of argument pur-
sued by those who vindicate the existing order of
things is personal abuse, which is attempted to be
justified by the fact that the imputations so met are
themselves attacks on personal character. Charges
of corruption must necessarily be personal. It will
not do to argue that the accuser is unworthy of be-
lief because he makes such charges. It must be
clearly made out, if the defence be based on this,
otherwise it is reasoning in a circle of the worst
kind.

" The fact is, that the rumours affecting the integ-
rity of the courts, which are now so widespread,
have originated among the most reputable members
of the bar, and are most firmly believed by the best
classes of citizens. The deterioration of the courts
in this city is so universally admitted by all who
deal with them that it is impossible to find a respect-
able lawyer who doubts it. Indeed there has not
thus far been found any man, respectable or other-
wise, who will publicly assert the contrary. It can-
not be said that this is a mere result of a lawyer's
habitual reverence for the past, for there is no want
of commendation of the new system in those por-
tions of the State where it has worked well. The
lawyers of those sections are so zealous in their sup-
port of the elective system as to constitute the
greatest obstacle to any change in the mode of select-
ing judges. Why
it is that the bar of New York city
presents an almost solid front in favour of a life-
tenure, and that the great majority of that bar,
without reference to party lines, are in favour of an
appointed rather than an elected judiciary ? Obvi-
ously because their experience has taught them that
a steady and uniform administration of justice is
not to be had under the present system. Even those
men who make a profit out of the corruption and
favouritism which are now rife feel that their bold is
uncertain, that some new power may come in suscept-
ible to new and adverse influences. They are not,
therefore, so unwilling to consent to reform as might
be expected, especially if they are men who could
command a good practice under a better system. The
great obstacle to reform at present lies among the
lawyers and farmers of the rural districts, among
whom justice is satisfactorily administered, and who
do not come in contact with the abominations which
sicken the city practitioner. But they will surely
suffer in time from the taint of maladministration in
so important a part of the State as the city of New
York. Indeed, it is well known that the same in-
fluences which have degraded justice there, are work-
ing gradually into the rural districts, and although
there is at present no reason to suspect that any-
thing more than favouritism has obtain a foothold
in the courts outside of the city, yet there is an
entering wedge which may yet lead to worse
results.

We believe that the Convention has not yet made
a final-decision against a long tenure of judicial
office. We hope that it will yet decide in favour of
it. For bad as affairs are in the city, they must
steadily grow worse for many years to come under a
system of frequent elections. The immense tide of
immigration mast and will carry the moral tone of
the city lower and lower during the next twenty or
more years. Some improvement takes place amongst
the settled population, but not enough to counter-
balance the effect of the flood of ignorance that is
annually poured in. Weak as are the courts now,
they will be filled with weaker or worse judges at
every succeeding decade, and the bar would far
rather let the courts stand exactly as they are than
have new judges introduced from time to time
during the next twenty years under the elective
system.
We cannot close without saying that several judi-
cial officers in the Convention deserve credit for
the stand which they have taken upon this ques-
tion. Judge Monell, we know, and Judge Garvin,
webeli
foreve'v otedfor Mr. Evarts's proposition of a
life.tenure judges. But to Judge Daly especial
credit is due for the courage with which he acknow-
ledged the defects of a system of which he consti-
tutes a part, and the earnestness with which he
strove to accomplish a thorough reform. The fact
that such a man is able to retain his place upon the
bench is about the best argument that can be made
for the present system. If all our judges were as
able and as upright, we should be well satisfied with
an elective judiciary.

Benjamin Hayes, San Diego ; John M. James, San Ber-
nardino ; T. E. Jones, Trinity ; John M. Kelly, Yolo ;
Bruco B. Lee, Sacramento; Samuel L. Lupton, San
Francisco ; R. P. Mace, Fresno; Otto Mentzoll, Cala-
veras ; L. J. Morrow, San Joaquin ; IL L. Mattingly, San
Mateo; John H. Moore, Santa Clara; S. M. Martin,
Sonoma.; John Middleton, San F. ancisco ; Frank Mahon,
San Francisco ; W. T. M'Elhany, Santa Barbara, San Luis
Obispo ; B. A. Mardis, Tuolumne, Mono and Inyo ; M.
Meagher, Tuolumne and Inyo ; Hugh B. Newell, El
Dorado ; J. W. Newsom, Merced and Stanislaus ; W. M.
Ord, Butte ; Warner Oliver, San Joaquin ; J. J. O'Malley,
San Francisco ; Goorgo M. Payne, Amador and Alpine ;
George Pardee, Santa Cruz ; Jasper J. Papy, San Fran-
cisco ; H. G. Rollins, Nevada ; C. T. Ryland, Santa Clara ;
Thomas H. Klamath and Del Norte; A. G. Russ, San
Francisco; C. G. Spencer, Placer; B. R. Spillman, Sutter;
Elijah Steele, SiskiyJu ; Frank V. Scudder, San Fran-
cisco; J. K. Smith, Yuba; E. C. Talley-, Monterey; C.
A. Tuttle, Placer; Charles Westmoreland, Humboldt;
John D. White, Nevada ; J. A. Watson, Los Angeles ;
M. Waldron, Placer; Chailos Wollob, Sacramento;
Stephen Willet, El Dorado ; J. B. Warfield, Sonoma ;
and Thomas N. Wand, San Francisco.

711 E L,ITEST PiIASE OF FENIANISM.

(From the Nation:)

There is, probably, no question of foreign politics
which interests the United States at this moment
so much as the Irish question. In all other ques-
tions the interest of Americans may be said to be
speculative or sentimental or humanitarian merely.
But the Irish question is almost as much a question
of American as of British politics. There are nearly
as many Irishmen in America who are nominally
Americans and bestow their hearts and allegiance
elsewhere, as there are Irishmen in Ireland who
are only nominally Britons. Moreover, the grow-
ing power of the Irish element in American
politics, combined with the growing determination
of Irishmen to make the United States assist,
by some means or other, in the solution of the Irish
difficulty, opens up nearly as troublous a pro-
spect, though happily less clouded with moral re-
sponsibility, for the American Government as for
the British. The United States occupies towards
Ireland now a position very similar to that which
France occupied in the last century. After the
Revolution of 1688, and the final overthrow of
James 11., the Irish flocked in nearly as great num-
bers in proportion to population to France as they
have during the present century flocked to the
United States, with this difference, however, that
the Irish emigrants to France were recruits for
the French army, while the Irish emigrants to the
United States include women and children, and
are in search of better food and better cloth-
ing, and a better future for their descendants.
But the participation of the mass of the Irish
voters in American politics is due to very much
the same feeling as the participation of the
Irish troops in the wars of Louis )(W.—the de-
sire of annoying and damaging the English. Of in-
terest in France or her affairs the famous " Irish
Brigade" made little pretence, although it is calcu-
lated that in the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury nearly half a million of Irishmen died i❑ the
French service. With the French Revolution as an
uprising against Church and King the Irish had
not a particle of sympathy any more than they had
with the late war of the North against the slave-
holders. The Irish in France probably all stood by
the old regime, just as the Irish here in the main
sympathised with the Confederacy ; whatever sym-
pathy the popular cause in France received from
the Irish at home, was due to the fact that England
was opposed to it. But there was one feature
common to both the French Revolution and the
late war here which caused them to exert a powerful
influence on Irish affairs—each brought a first-class
Power into an attitude of hostility to England, and
each threw out of employment a large number of Irish-
men, possessing more or less knowledge of the military
art, and eager to use it against Great Britain. Each
also—and perhaps this is the more importantof their
effects—sent a strong tide of Democratic feeling into
Ireland, though in Ireland the Democratic wave,
whenever it passes over the island, takes a local hue
unknown either to Frenchmen or Americans. The
French Revolution accordingly produced the
" United Irishmen" and the rising of 1793, just as
the late war has, we do not say produced Fenianism,
but lifted Fenianism from the position of a little
whisky-stained conspiracy in a Chatham-street
grog-shop into the rank of a formidable association,
aping the airs, and exercising some of the powers,
of a regular Government. The United Irishmen had,
however, a maddened population at their back who
rose and fought like furies, though without a trace of
military spirit or of military skill, while tho Fenians
have only a discontented and hopeless peasantry, who
will do nothing for them but keep their secret. The
regular Fenian " army" in Ireland, who plunder
the gunmakers and hold midnight drills, are gene-
rally young clerks and artisans from the towns,
whose imaginations have been fired by Fenian lite-
rature and oratory. In campaigning they have
proved the most harmless and best-natured men in
the world, and will hardly fight as long as any other
means of exhibiting their dislike to English rule
is left open to them. The immense popularity
of the mock funeral rites which have been
celebrated so extensively for the men who were
hanged in Manchester has been undoubtedly
due to the strong dislike to more " active
operations " which most of the Brotherhood
contracted during the brief campaign against
the police last spring ; and the blowing-up of the
gaols and assassination of single policemen is pro-
bably partly a revival of the traditions of " W hite-
boyism," which have never wholly died out, and
partly a copy of the Confederate operations at, the
North during the closing year of the war.
The hope of the Fenian leaders now is beyond
question that England will get into a war some-
how, with somebody, and that they will then at
last find both an ally and a purchaser for their ser-
vices. Ireland, in its present state of discontent,
would be a very formidable auxiliary to a foreign
enemy if England ever lost the control of the sea. It
was her complete command of the sea which deprived
Napoleon of the aid of the Irish malcontents, and made
the expedition which landed in 1797 under Humbert
at Killala such a complete failure, and prevented
the Emperor from ever again attempting to operate
against England on this her vulnerable side. In
any future war, also, no enemy will ever be able to
use Ireland against England which is not able to
teat England in a fair stand-up fight at sea, and
keep the Irish ports open. A foreign army in Ire-
land which did not also hold the sea would find
itself in a col de sac. Whether England is still the
mistress of the seas, even of her own seas
whether the sceptre has not departed from her
with the application of steam and iron plating
to war vessels—is one of those momentous
problems which nothingbut a great war, with France
or the United States opposed to her, will solve ;
and the solution is so doubtful that we think most
Englishmen shrink instinctively—perhaps uncon-
sciously—from seeking it, just as a man who feels
poorly shrinks from having his heart or lungs ex-
amined, though persuaded in his own mind that
they are sound. There can, we think, hardly be
a question that this vague misgiving has had much
to do with the firm adhesion of the English public
of late to a peace policy, and the strange indiffer-
ence they have of late displayed to any loss of pres-
tige which is not caused by positive reverses in the
field.

Foreign interference iu Ireland she would have
little difficulty in crushing if she was able to hold
the ports ; and the bigger the invading army was,
the more rapidly would its fate come upon it.
Armies need stores and arsenals ; Ireland would
furnish neither one nor the other, and the help the
Fenian chiefs would supply would be of a kind that
would in three weeks either drive a French general
mad or cause him to try his Chassepot rifles upon
them. An American general would be more patient,
partly from his greater experience of volunteers and
raw levies, and partly from his greater sympathy
for the Irish, and partly because his army would
be largely made up, under such circumstances,
of Irishmen ; but his patience would simply bring
his destruction on him somewhat sooner. England,
too, has her sympathizers in Ireland. One-fourth of
the population are on her side, heart and soul, and they
happen, unfortunately for the Fenians, to be the
fourth which possesses nearly all the education,
money, ard orgni4ing power to 3 be found in the

January par 105 134 1601 1511 160
February lO2l 1041 153 1721 1571 161
March ...1011 1021 139 1711 159 1691
April lOll 1024 146 159 1664 187
May 1021 1041 1431 155 168 190
June lO3l 1091 1401 1481 189 251
July 109 1201 1234 145 222 285
August ll2l 1164 1221 1291 2311 262
September 1161 124 127 1431 185 255
October 122 137 1401 1561 189 229
November 129 1334 143 154 209 260
December l3O 134 147 1521 211 244
1865. 1866. 1867.
N-- ti 1: 1 t."..
cA
di o Si ' .4 cra
0 or• 1 0,..
,.. % ~. gr c'
.
Date. • r" °., '.
• r•
. t :
January
February 1961 2181 1351 1401 1351 1401
March l4Bl 201 125 1361 1331 1401
April
May l2Bl 1451 1251 1411 1348 1381
June 1351 1471 1371 1671 1361 1381
July l3B 1461. 147 1511 138 1401
August
September
October
November
December
ETICES IN NEW YORK IN 1867.

PRICES
in" When the days
ho omitted days are ei

NE YORK IN 1867.
do not appear in numerical order
ther Sundays or holidays.

JANUARY.
Opening. Highest.
1324 133
1321 1351
134 134 A
1331- 134 1
t
1344 1351
1341 1341
1341 1341.
1334 133 f
134,- 134 f
134 •1341
1341 135
135 1351
1351- 137
1351 137
1371 1374
136; 1364
136} 137
1361 1361
1351 1351
134; 1344
1334 1344
1341 134-I
1344 , 1344
134 1344
1341 1361
1344 135 f
FEBRUARY.

2d .
3d .

1354
13G4
137;
1384
1374
139
k
cr 1384
L 1374
[ 1364
1374
1374
i. 1374
1364
1. 137
1364
E
li 137
1374
1384
1384
a
1381
1393-
1404
F 140 i
MARCH.

Lowest. Closing.
1321 132'1
1324 1338
1334 133
1334 1342
1331 133*
1334 134 i
1331 134 i
1334 1334
1324 134
1334 134
1344 134;1
1344 135
135

134