The Sun.
London, England, 1868-02-24 00:00:00

SPIRIT' OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS,

In the -midst of the singularly intricate and difficult
negotiation which arose between the Governments of Great
Britain and the United States out of the incidents of the
civil war, it has happened (the Times points out) that the
envoy of each Power has been removed. It is a contro-
versy which has passed through many vicissitudes. Of
the persons who were originally engaged in it only one
remains to carry it on. The English Foreign Office has
been under the direction of three Ministers since the ques-
tions still in dispute were first raised, and of the two
Plenipotentiaries who represented the Government at
Washington between 1861 and 1867, one is now Ambassa-
dor at Paris, and the other is dead. On the part of the
Americans there has been no change in the principal nego-
tiators until now, when the retirement of Mr. Adams is
announced, and thus Mr. Seward is left the only
Minister who has throughout taken a chief part in the
discussion. There might be circumstances in which
the substitution of one voice for another in so pro-
tracted a dispute would prove of advantage, but the
resignation of Mr. Adams can only be regarded as a great
loss to both Governments. He is thoroughly familiar
with every aspect of the points at issue, and although he
has never shrunk from presenting his own case with firm-
ness and decision, and maintaining it even with persist-
ence, he has always been fair and courteous, anxious to
maintain peace, though never for a moment forgetting the
interests of his country. There have been times, no
doubt, within the last seven years, when we should have
liked him better if, consistently with his duties, he could
have put before us the views of his Government in a less
rigid and inflexible form. It is natural, although .per-
haps not altogether reasonable, that we should have wished
him to look at the questions between us with English
rather than with American eyes. But Mr. Adams had
his duty to his own Government to perform, and the
nicest ingenuity could not have enabled him to render that
duty specially attractive to us. He invariably, however,
exhibited a wise discretion and a cool judgment. It is
easy to comprehend the painful embarrassments into which
both coun.,,ries might have been plunged by a less cautious
or a less capable man. 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. Mr. Adams,
the representative of a family which has been connected
with public- life in the United States since the earliest
days of the Republic, has himself taken an active part in
the politics of his own country for almost a quarter of a
century. It would be ingratitude on the part of the
American people to forget the services he has rendered
them in England. He has been unyielding in their behalf,
but no English Minister has ever questioned his good faith
or good feeling. It is a success of no common kind for a
man to have been constantly engaged for years together in
pressing upon us questions and claims which we deemed
strained or unjust, and yet to have won the regard of the
Government and the nation. Mr. Adams has been
obliged to pursue a course often most distasteful to us, but
when he leaves this country it will be with the esteem and
good wishes of all classes of the people.

It would not be very surprising, the Post remarks, if
Prince Charles of Roumania should now and then wish
himself back again in his cavalry saddle. A lieutenant in
the 2d Regiment of Prussian Dragoons is not, indeed, a
very august personage ; but it is his own fault if he is not a
very happy one. His pay is as slender as that of the
Austrian soldier described in a gay old French song ; but
his social position is not only respectable but respected. If
a lieutenant can only manage to keep on smoking terms
with his colonel, which he may very easily do, always pro-
viding he is a Serene Highness and a Hohenzollern, the
young man may lead a merry life enough ; and Prince
Charles is not yet 30. Of course it looks like a mighty fine
thing to be the people's elected, to be recognised by a live
Sultan, and to have a niche in the temple of history carved
out all ready for one. To the serious German intellect,
which can so seldom be brought to entertain the faintest
idea of a joke, such a prospect must have presented itself
in a very imposing light. But it is very doubtful if this
princely young plunger has had much real enjoyment of
his shadowy dignity. No two types of men can differ
more widely than the Teuton and the Wallach. It is
almost a marvel that such a prince and such a people
should have been able to get on together amicably for
longer than the space of a carnival.
The Daily News argues against closing capital accounts.
The railway shareholding public is composed as a rule of
annuitants rather than great capitalists, and railway
directors are not permitted to ignore this fact. The
directors of a railway which has not forfeited the control of
its own affairs by previous excesses will neither sacrifice
the future to the present, nor the present to the future ;
but where the habits of a company, so to speak, have
been debauched, only extreme measures will avail to
keep it in decent health. The capital account should
then be absolutely closed as a matter of life and death.
He is a fortunate shareholder who knows nothing of.
such lines. But if capital accounts are to remain open,
it is of vital importance that only that expenditure should
be charged to them which really increases the per-
manent value, that is, the permanent earning power
of the line. A discussion took place at the Great
Northern meeting respecting a charge for laying
down steel rails in place of others of iron. The directors
had charged two-thirds of the difference between the cost
of the old and the new rails to capital, to which one share-
holder objected, contending that revenue should bear the
burden of the whole, while another maintained that as
the line was benefited by the extra expense, capital should
bear the charge as the directors had apportioned it. The
first shareholder was certainly right. It is not "the line"
that is benefited by the substitution, but only the revenue
of the next ten years. A steel rail earns year by year no
more than an iron one ; it only prevents a periodical
charge from recurring quite so soon as it otherwise would
have done. There is, therefore, no reason whatever for
charging any portion of its cost to capital, and, as far as
the company is concerned, the money which is so charged
is lost.

In the House of Commons, on Friday night, in the
course of his reply to some questions put by Captain
Vivian about the Indian telegraph, Sir Stafford Northcote
stated that he had received a letter from Sir R. Napier, in
which, among other things, he expressed his confident
belief that the expedition would be terminated during the
present season. This news, observes the Herald, will be
a great relief to the British taxpayer, who has lately been
in sad doubt as to how many years the Abyssinian war
might last ; how many millions of money it might cost ;
how many additional pence might be put on his income
tax ? It is a reply from one, who ought to be best informed
on the subject, to the confident statements of omniscient
critics in this country, who have been assuring. every one
that the conclusion of the enterprise during the present
season was an absolute impossibility. Sir R. -Napier
must know much more about the matter than we do.

The army is said to have the most unbounded confidence
in his ability and judgment. Sir Robert Napier tells
Sir Stafford Northcote that he has every hope of con-
cluding the campaign during the present season. Our con-
temporary trusts, then, that he has so matured his plans,
is so persuaded of the sufficiency of his resources, that
neither deserts, nor mountains, nor savages, nor muleteers,
nor danger of drought, nor threatened starvation, will be
obstacles sufficient to deter him from the completion of an
enterprise which, if speedily and triumphantly concluded,
will place him in the foremost rank of the great captains
of this nation and age.

In the many speculations concerning the new Conser-
vative Premier, the principle has been enunciated that the
First Lord of the Treasury ought to be in the Lower
House. Against this the Standard forcibly contends.
Conceive, says our contemporary, of the absurdity of a
rule which, if Mr. Disraeli were lost to us, would call on
the Queen to form a Conservative Government of which
meither Lord Stanley nor Lord Cranborne could be the
chief. For whom would her Majesty send? The Liberals
would feel the same difficulty, though in another form.
They have two or three able Commoners who may develope
into possible successors to Mr. Gladstone. But it is very
likely
that no one of these would be so pre-eminent as to
oblige
the others to serve under him ; and then would be
felt one of the peculiar advantages of the present power
of selecting a Premier from the Upper House, namely, the
willingness
they of able men to yield to superior rank where
refuse to acknowledge superior ability, and to
accept as their chief one who is not and cannot be
their daily rival. We
better to have the First are far from saying that it is
Minister in the House of Lords.
Oeteris paribus, we incline to the opposite opinion. But
of two things we are quiter sure : first, that it is better to
nave as Premier the first man of his party, though a Peer,
than the second, though a Commoner ; secondly, that it
is often possible to forma
Governmentoo under a Peer—just
because he is a Peer—which
House of Commons. We
not be formed by any
member of the same party in the could
u
are sure that it would be the height unwisdom to adopt
an arbitrary rule by which her Majesty would be limited
in the choice of her First Minister tone branch only of
the Legislature, and would be forced to forego,or to part
Parliament, with, the services of the ablest man
cause the death of a father or elder brother devolved n
be-
him the dignity and the disabilities of a peerage.
There is every likelihood, says- the Telegraph, that 11'
will be an " Irish week" in the House. We shall probablyt
have a discussion on the motion of Mr. Maguire, extending
oversev eral nights. It would he difficult to exaggerate the
portance of the occasion. The leaders of the two great parties
in the State will be expected to indicate the opinions,
if not the measures, which the crisis suggests ; and,
since the subjects are grave enough to involve the
fate of Ministries, the course of our home politics
for a generation may be affected by the utterances
of' our leading men in the ensuing debate. The is.mes
raised on Ireland also are not merely provincial.
F.-nianism, considered as the wild des:re of a mad
very small minority to attain Irish nationality,
is exclusively Irish ; but the Church and the land
cluesti,ms cannot be kept entirely at the other side of the
CliaTmel. They provoke passions and thoughts that centre
round purely English institutions. We tread on hot
ashes. with fire beneath, when we touch on all the points
raised up by the suggestions for the settlement of the
Irish Church. Whoever proposes the endowment of the
Romanist creed excites the "No Popery" cry and pro-
vokes the wrath of voluntaryism ' • while ideas of thorough
disendowment arouse the alarm of those who fear for the
funds of the English Establishment. Every word let fall
on the Irish land question is followed by a shower of quo-
tations from political economists from every school ; while
all the squirearchy of England are equally excited at the
proposed application to Irish landlords of measures that
may one day come home to themselves.