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

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIu JOURNALS,

The Times discusses the que-tion of the Alabama
claims, with reference to the letit.rs of Lord Hobart and
" Historicus " which have appeared on the subject. It
argues that if unconditional arbitration be reasonable at
all, it must include far more than Mr. Seward contem-
plates. The policy of the United States, as well as the
policy of Great Britain, must come under review from the
first outbreak of the rebellion, and the validity of all the
captures made during the war must be judicially recon-
sidered. It is the strangest of delusions to suppose that
Great Britain did not suffer as much as the United States
from the effect of the Queen's proclamation. But for that
proclamation British subjects would have deemed them-
selves entitled to trade freely with the South, and, it
molested by United States cruisers, would have justly
looked to their own Government for redress. Admitting
the existence of war, England has no claim against the
United States except for any wrongful transgression
of belligerent rights, just as the United States have no
claim against England except for wrongful transgressions
of neutral rights. Upon any other assumption England
has been quite as much aggrieved as the United States.
Let us, therefore, dismiss all considerations of this kind,
and ask ourselves whether an unconditional resort to arbi-
tration should be accepted by Great Britain. There are
two classes of motives which must be resolutely put aside
before we can arrive at any sound conclusion on a question
of national responsibility. On the one hand, we must rise
above the blind instincts of pride and jealousy. Because
the sentiment of large classes in this country was enlisted
on the side of the South, because the claims of the United
States have been preferred in too peremptory a tone, or
because they have not been preferred, on like grounds,
against France also, it does not follow that we should turn
a deaf ear to complaints—even to unreasonable complaints
—of our conduct in recognising the Confederate States.
On the other hand, we must banish with no less firm-
ness, not unmixed with indignation, those motives to
which Lord Hobart appeals when he reminds us that
it is plainly intimated in the Alabama correspondence
that the United States Government " may now
be obliged t) 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." The answer of " Historicus " is
here absolutely conclusive, supposing the demand of Mr.
Seward to be palpably groundless :—" If the Government
of the United States quarrel with us on the question of
the recognition of belligerent rights, it can only be because
they are determined in any event to quarrel with us."
Happily, this conclusion is doubly hypothetical, and we
are by no means prepared to adopt one of the hypotheses
which can alone render it inevitable. We do regard Mr.
Seward's demand as palpably groundless, but are unwilling
to believe that the Government, and unable to believe that

the people, of the United States are so far committed to
it as to harbour the desig,na. which Lord Hobart imputes to
them. It is natural that Mr. Seward, having once taken

his stand on an untenable position, should adhere to it
with more tenacity than Lord Stanley did to that of his
predecessor. We can make allowances, too, for the pres-
sure of political exigencies, especially at the present crisis
of American politics. Considering these circumstances,
we venture to counsel the utmost patience and forbear-
ance on the part of our Government, but we are not pre-
pared to counsel submission where submission, instead of
promoting reconciliation, could only lower us in the eyes
of the American nation.

The Standard is of opinion that the Alabama claims are
not such as we could submit to arbitration. To submit a
question to arbitration is to admit that it is one upon
which we may rightly be asked to justify our conduct
towards a foreign Power. Suppose the American Govern-
ment were to call us to account for hanging or imprisoning
Fenian who claimed American citizenship. If Lord Ho-
bart's argument were worth anything, we ought to submit
to arbitration our right to hang traitors and filibusters.
And, again, it would be impossible to carry on the govern-
ment of the Queen with honour and independence, if we
were not resolute in asserting our immunity from any
foreign complaint or interference in respect of acts of policy.
Take the case in question—the American war. If the
North may hold us liable for recognising the belligerency
of the South, the South might (and as we think Edith more
reason) have called us to account for not according her
complete diplomatic recognition. And so, in every civil
war, England would be liable to answer for any course she
might adopt—to the original Government, if she recog-
nised the rebels ; to the rebels (should they succeed) if she
did not. Lord Hobart ought to see that a proposition en-
tailing such consequences is not only wrong, but ridiculous.
The preparations for the campaign in Abyssinia have,
according to the Post, been made upon so large a scale that
they embarrass us from their magnitude, and we find that
most of our calculations respecting them have been
hastily made. The admirable behaviour, courage, and
endurance of the 3rd Cavalry upon a march every step of
which was a new difficulty is beyond all praise. Their
sufferings from intense heat by day, and intense cold by
night, rocks, deep sand, and thorns, may be better
imagined than described. With provisions at war prices,
and even water costing the Government a shilling to
eighteenpence a gallon, there was nothing but sheer
pluck and spirit to sustain either officers or men.
Much that we now know of Abyssinia inevitably
leads to the conclusion that our previous information
is untrustworthy, an 1 we seem in almost every respect to
have systematically magnified our resources and diminished
the impediments before us. The extraordinary variations
in the temperature, the extremes of heat and cold, the
want of food and water, and the total absence of guides or
maps, will embarrass and delay our operations greatly. Sir
Robert Napier is declared to have no idea of advancing
without six months' provisions, and he cannot properly be
blamed for exercising caution when placed in a position of
such responsbility. When a summary is made of all the
facts which have come to our knowledge, it will be found
that the war budget for 1869 must exhibit an expenditure
much in excess of the sum which was modestly anticipated
by the Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and as a necessary
result, we must prepare for a heavier taxation than we
have been accustomed to for some time past.

A load is lifted from the national mind. Dr. Living-
stone is safe. While geographers have been discussing the
chances A his life and death he has been steadily pursuing
his way in completion of his great work of African dis-
covery. The Daily News thinks it possible that we may
next hear of him from Egypt, and that, if no unforeseen
obstacle interpose, he will return to England b 3 the Medi-
terranean, having worked his way from one end of the
African continent to another from the Cape to Alexandria.
The intelligence which has from time to time been re-
ceived through traders and natives has prepared the popu-
lar mind for this happy solution of its doubts Their nar
ratives have given us strange and distant glimpses, as in a
panorama or a magic glass, of the white-clad and black-
capped figure, solitary but for a handful of barbarous at-
tendants, making its way through jungles, and across
sands, and over the streams of a country untrodden before,
amid perils of savage men and savage beasts, deserted by
timid or faithless comrades, but still toiling onward with-
out abatement of heart or hope. The report of the Search
Expedition which has just returned to England has esta-
blished beyond all question that Dr. Livingstone was not
slain at Lake Nyassa, but had pressed on into the interior.
It justifies the incredulity which disbelieved the story of
Moussa and the Johanna men.' They appear to have
feared that they themselves would be slain by the inland
tribes ; and to excuse their cowardice and abandonment
they gave out that the fate which they dreaded had actually
befallen Livingstone. The Cretan reputation of these
worthies always warranted and half compelled scepticism ;
bit even apart from this ground of distrust, their point-
blank and cleverly dovetailed statements had less aspect of
truth than the casiud information gathered front traders
and caravan servants, which was not shaped to any con-
clusion, or fitted into any connected tale.
The Morning herald does not think that either tne
Servians or Montenegrins arc now disposed to light up the
flame of war. They will. still do -it, of course, if Russia
urges them and promises them their support, but there are
very goof grounds for believing that Russia will do nothing
of the kind, and, on the contrary, repudiate, with all the
solemnity she can; the mischievous intentions which are
generally attributed to her. Too much importance must
not be attached to her pecuniary difficulties. The
army, let people say wliat they will, is quite ready for a
campaign ; and the authoritative denial that the Russiam
Government has made any preparations on the Pruth,
and has massed hit army there, is worth nothing at all.
Nobody who knows a,nything about the matter has
ever alleged that troops had been concentrated in Bes-
sarabia, but there is no doubt that for many months the
Russian army has gradually been gathering on the fron-
tier 'of Galicia ; that Poland is full of soldiers, stationed
there not to keep in subjection the miserable
remains of
insurrectionary aspirations, but to be ready for employ-
ment further south. If the Russian. Government should
decide to go to war against Turkey it could carry out that
original and necessary part of its plan, a demonstration to
compel the neutrality of .Austria, to-morrow, and
still
have a large force on the Danube before the Turkish array
was But Russia will not go to war now, becauseaa
she is disappointed of the ally upon whom, she had
reckoned. Prussia is not at all disposed to risk the great
acquisition of the last eighteen months in a war which
could give her, however successful, no other advantage
than that complete destruction of the Austrian Empire
which she has now no reason to desire.

We have yet to learn the grounds on which George
Francis Train was arrested, and even the offence with
which the prisoner stands charged ; but whatever may be
the state of the case, it opens up some interesting ques-
tion .; of public law, with which the Fenians are likely to
it.; better acquainted than people in general cared to
be a short time ago. This gives an opportunity to the
Telegraph to state what the international law really
is. By the law ;if nations, as understood in
England and the tinit•Al States, its true that a country
cannot punish ciinie:; committed againA its own mimic/pa/
law.; I.y a ft,r,..i:;n-r in a foreign country. If an American
were, to forgo in New York a counterfeit note of the
Bank of England, he could not be punished for it here,
liecause the law of nations, as we understand it, has
nothing to do with counterfeits on the Bank of England.
But if ;in American in New York aids and assists in any
way to get up a private war for. the overthrow of the
ivernment of a foreign country, he commits an offence
both against the municipal law of that country and the
law
of nations. We have stated these propositions as
strongly in favour of the foreigner as possible ; since it is
a
not everywhere admitted that a foreigner cannot be
punished for eVt'll municipal offences against a Govern-
went, if he “Atultarily soles Vi its jurisdiction.