The Sun.
London, England, 1868-01-29 00:00:00

TIIE ALABAMA CLAIMS.

The question of the Alabama claims has again
been prominently brought before the British public
by the Press. Lord HOBART wrote to the Times
strongly urging the Foreign-office to re-open the
subject, and to concede Mr. SEWARD'S demand that
the whole matter as contained in the correspondence
between the Governments should be submitted to
arbitration. Against this liistnricus protests. In
a long and able letter, he supports Lord STANLEY,
and shows from Mr. SEWARD'S own despatches in
the early part of May, 1861, that the position for the
assumption of which that Minister blames Great
Britain in 1867, had, in truth, then been assumed by
himself and the Cabinet of which he was a member.
Mr. JOHN MORLEY on the same evening published
iu the Pall-Mall Gazette a reply to Historicus, and
which was followed next day by another from Lord
HOBART, and most of the daily papers have discussed
the subject in leading articles. No doubt the question
thus ventilated will receive new light, and the public
will be made acquainted with its legal bearings, as
well as with its moral and political aspect. From the
day on which the Alabanza escaped to sea to the
present moment the matter has presented itself in a
very simple guise to our mind. It matters little
what may have been Mr. SEWARD'S contradictions,
nor is the course of the then PRESIDENT and his
Cabinet of material importance, further than
pegs on which to hang diplomatic despatches.
The essence of the Alabama question lies in
the animus of which it was the most prominent
example, and the precedent which it has so in-
juriously established. Those who wish well to
England and to the United States desire to coun-
teract the feeling and to remove the precedent.
The only way in which this can be done is, by a
frank acknowledgment of error and reparation for
the damage. It is in vain for clever writers to pull
Mr. SEWARD'S despatches to pieces—to show that
what he wrote at one date, contradicts what he
wrote at another—for this does not touch the real
point at issue, and is therefore more or less beside
the mark. America, while engaged in a war that
threatened the existence of the Union, is indignant
that England, where she looked for sympathy, met
her with hostility, prematurely recognizing the bel-
ligerent rights of rebels, and allowing armed vessels
constructed in British ports to escape to sea to cruise
as privateers against her commerce, that of a friendly
nation. England freely tendered the rebels the
1 sympathy, the moral force and the material aid she
I could bestow, without openly infringing her neu-
trality and joining in the war as a belligerent. her
object was to split up a rival power, and to drive
from the seas a commerce then greater than her
own. It is thus the question is regarded iu America ;
and we have only to suppose England placed iu
I similar circumstances,and the United States acting the
same part, to understand the deep indignation Ameri-
cans feel. Imagine the late insurrection in Ireland
momentarily successful, and we may easily realise
the anger of Englishmen if the PRESIDENT hastened
to recognize the belligerents—to proclaim the neu-
trality of the United States—and to permit cruisers
built and armed, by her, bearing the commis-
sion of a sham President of a sham Irish Re-
public, to proceed to sea against the commerce
Of England. The more desperate the struggle the
greater would be British annoyance. We may
further imagine the commanders of these vessels
elevated into heroes for burning defenceless Eng-
lish merchant ships, and feted at American ports ;
statesmen predicting the establishment of an Irish
nationality hypocritically imploring England to
cease a brutal as well as useless effusion of blood,
and to leave the stricken and oppressed island free ;
actions distorted, victories turned to defeats, atro-
cious measures taken by the rebels represented as
deeds of heroism, while retaliation was denounced as
black crimes of barbarism, and these spread abroad
as true accounts of the conflict. When England
—with her National Debt doubled, with her trade
swept from the seas, with Ireland ruined, and
mourning carried into every home of Great Britain
—had in this desolation maintained the Union, she
would very naturally turn with indignation to de-
mand some satisfaction from the nation at whose
hands she had suffered so much. Would it be any
answer to compare what Lord RUSSELL wrote at
one time and at another ? or what Lord STANLEY

said or did on different occasions? The indisput-
able facts would remain, and England would be jus-
tified in declaring that the United States had esta-
blished a precedent which could be used fatally
against herself, when the inevitable day of her trial
arrived. Americans are willing to admit that it
was the smaller but more influential portion of

Great Britain that favoured their enemies, the
hearty sympathy of the mass of the English people
being with them. They allow that the hostile
portion was grossly ignorant of the United States,
and of the objects contended for ; that the
war itself let into the British mind a flood of light
on American affairs, which enabled the public more
justly, after the mischief was done, to appreciate
their folly. They are willing to say, " You knew
not what you did, and, though culpably wrong, we
are ready to forgive you, provided you make this
acknowledgment, and, as far as money reparation
to those who suffered can repair the damage, to ac-
cept that reparation." Hitherto England has ob-
jected on a point of honour, asserting at the same time
that the nation was blameless. Where nations differ,
and the dispute is pressed to a settlement, they
must arbitrate or fight. It is admitted throughout
England that the friendship of the United States is
of more importance than that of all Europe com
bined. It is admitted that the precedent of the
Alabama is the most fatal that could be established
against England herself. To secure the one and
wipe out the other rests with the British Govern-
ment, and it is a folly second only to that which has
brought the nation into the present trouble, to ne-
glect the opportunity. Iu private conversation all
intelligent Englishmen admit that they have made
a series of frightful mistakes—that they were alike
wrong in their support of the Southern rebellion
and in permitting such vessels as the Alabama to
proceed to sea, whatever may be their municipal
laws. Where individuals frankly acknowledge this,
why should the nation, composed of these indivi-
duals, refuse to do so? Every dictate of policy and
expediency prompts to this course, and it is simply
another great blunder added to the many, if any
stupid punctilio be permitted to interfere.
America wants Peace. She has to repair the de-
vastating effects of a fearful contest, which requires
time and repose. England admits that a war be..

tween the kindred nations would be one of the greatest
calamities that could befal mankind. Then why
not repair, in a spirit of generosity and candour,
her own grievous errors, and thus disarm her ene-
mies, and strengthen the great body of her well-
wishers throughout the United States. America has
reduced her army and navy to the lowest limit, and
even this fact adds to the reasons why the present

is the time for this settlement. Had the demand
been made with an overwhelming force threatening
Canada, there would have been grounds for Eng-
land's punctilio. It is not an armed man who
presses for satisfaction at the sword's point, but a
people who know, from facts too patent to be argued
away, that they have been injured—who ask to
have the injuries of which they complain, submitted
to arbitration.—Auglo-Anzerican Times.

THEATRICAL AND MUSICAL GOSSIP.

Madlle. Schneider .has returned to the Varietee.

The Waits is shortly to b 3 produced at the Standard.

Verdi's poet, Prave, is not dead, as was reported, but
convalescing. Tant mieux. More Trovatores and Tra
viatas.

Our readers will be glad to learn that Madame Arabella
Goddard is recovering from her indisposition.
L'Eil Greve has reached one hundred nights at the Folies
Dramatiques.
The Paris papers give the news of Sivori's return to
Paris after his long ramblings through foreign parts.
A new comedy by M. Dumas fils is in preparation for
the Gymnase. It will be in four acts.
A new drama, entitled The Peep-show Man, by Mr. J. T.
Williams, will shortly be produced at the Surrey.
Madlle. d'Hautloup, an actress who has attracted some
attention by her performances at the Luxembourg, has
been engaged for the Varietes.
Astley's Theatre has been taken by a French circus
company, which will shortly open. The pantomime will
be retained as a portion of the entertainment.
A new theatre will shortly be opened in Paris. It will
bo `,,called Le Theatre Villebichot, after the notorious
author of the music to Rien n'est save pour un sapeur.
The younger Goquelin, whose engagement at the Odeon
terminates in about four months, will then go to the
Comedic, whereat he and his brother will appear iu
Amphytrion.
Le Behrnais of M. Rations is to be produced at the
Theatre do la Mounaie, Brussels. Madame Sallard, of the
Lyrique, will play La )3elle Gabrielle.

A new jeune premier, sl. E. Abel, has made a succossfu
debut at the Vaudeville as Armand Duval in La Dame aux
Cornelius.

Les Tribulations d'un Tcimin, a three-act piece of absur-
dity, by M. A. Decourcolles, is the latest novelty at the
Bouffes. It is followed by Une Jolie Bete, a very clover
little vaudeville, in which Madame Dupont is excellent.
La I?eine Margot, of MM. Alexandre Dumas and Auguste
Maquot, will follow Arralt-na-Pogue at the Gaite. Du-
maine will play Coconas, Laferriere La Mole, Latoueho
Caboche, Madame Duverger Margot.
Yorkshire is looking up in musical matters. It has been
determined to revive the Bradford Festivals, and a move-
ment is on foot to do the same for those formerly held in
the capital of the county.
Roger, the celebrated tenor, has received from the Em-
peror of Austria the medal des Arts et des Sciences for his
artistic excellence, and in particular for his rendering of,
Haydn's Seasons.

M. Lafargue, the secretary of the Porte St. Martin
Theatre, has obtained a silver medal for bravery, in stop-
ping a runaway horse, which had placed the lives of
several people in imminent peril.
An attempt has been made to deny that the perfor-
mances of Hernani were interrupted in consequence of
Government interference. Diminishing receipts and the
illness of Madlle. Favart were, it is now said, sufficient to
account for its withdrawal. Credet Judzeus Apella.
A one-act vaudeville of M. Lange, Un Tempete dans un
Arrosoir, has been successfully produced at the Dejazet. Its
plot turns upon an old hinge. It represents the attempt
of a deserted wife to bring back her faithless husband by
exciting his jealousy.

Masqued dancers, singers, &c., are all the rage in Paris.
A. masked singer has made her debut at the Dejazet. Re-
port says she is a lady of high rank. Her excessive ner-
vousness on her first appearance bears out such a suppo-
sition. She has a fine mezzo soprano voice, which those
who have once heard it are little likely to forget. It
might easily, therefore, lead to her identification.
M. Jules Beer, nephew to the late renowned composer
of the Huguenots (whose real names wore Jacob Meyer
Beer) is about to produce an opera called Le Roi des Non-
tagne (libretto by the veteran St. Georges, the Fitzball of
France) at the Theatre Lyrique in Paris.—Musical World.
We hear that arrangements have been made with Mr.
Charles Halle to undertake the chief direction of the musi-
cal performances at the forthcoming National Exhibition
of Art Works to be held in Leeds. His band will no doubt
give daily performances, and Mr. Halle himself will per-
sonally conduct special concerts.

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