The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-03-22 00:00:00

CONTEMPORARY PRESS.

THE AMERICAN BOUNDARY LINE.
(From the Times.)
Lord Palmerston has been interrogated more than
once, or twice, or a dozen times, within the course of
as many years, touching the state of the New Bruns-
wick boundary quarrel, and as often, with that smirk
which is peculiar to his lordship, and which conveys a
sneer more plainly than a reply, has left the questioner
to his own imaginings from utter despair of getting
anything out of his lordship more satisfactory than
" I don't choose to tell you—ask some other time."
That other time has often come, and has now gone,
we are apprehensive, not to come again.
When Lord Palmerston stupidly, or flippantly and
carelessly, acquiesced in the rejection by the United
States' government of the judgment pronounced by
the King of Holland, to whose arbitrament the whole
question had been absolutely and finally referred on
the part as well of the republic as of Great Britain, the
result might easily have been foreseen. The duty of
Lord Palmerston was to have urged the finality of
that adjudication, which the litigating powers had re-
served to themselves no right or power to repudiate,
and which, although it actually stripped Great Britain
of more than one-half of the disputed land, was at
least an intelligible settlement, assigning for a large
portion of the boundary line the course of the St.
John's River, and leaving in the-hands of Great Bri-

tarn that which has been throughout the object of
highest consideration with her government—namely,
the most practicable and convenient route between
Fredericton and the St. Lawrence.
The haste, however, with which the senate of the
United States, and, in imitation of their eagerness, the
government of Washington, declared the decision of
the King of Holland to be " inadmissible," must have
opened the eyes of any Englishman who was not de-
termined to keep them shut to the real, though unac-
knowledged, views of the republicans, and have satis-
fied Lord Palmerston that he must proceed with all
despatch to a formal and irrevocable arrangement of
the question, by amicable, but active and diligent, ne-
gotiation; or provide for the other and moredistress-
ing, but, in such circumstances, unavoidable alterna-
tive, of maintaining the just pretensions of his country
by her armed power.
Lord Palmerston appears to have demeaned himself
as if no such contingencies lay before him. He gave
in to the rejection of the arrangement made by the
King of Holland without betraying the slightest con-
sciousness that any other adjustment of a difference in
itself so serious would be required by the United States
from this country, or by England at the hands of her
foreign minister. He did not merely fall asleep at his
post, but never dreamed of splicing by a renewed ne-
gotiation the settlement which his own folly had suf-
fered the United States to break off. So far as our
recollection carries us, his cool and easy treatment of
the question was equivalent to this :—" The United
States have flung back the King of Holland's propo-
sition; it is now for them to make theirs." Why,
theirs was from the beginning precisely this :—" We
want the whole of the disputed territory, and we will
have i too."
• , Out, as Lord Palmerston made no movement to-
„wank st- peaceful issue of this misunderstanding, so
iviorlie equally careful that for an opposite issue Eng-
land 'should be totally unprepared.
The Americans took care that the success of their
own, policy should depend on their own will, not on the
mercy of their rivals.
The rebellion in Canada, and the war of " sympa-
thy," have been godsends to Gov. Fairfield and his
" lumberers," who will thus have powerful diversions
in their favour. Large lots of the soil of Upper Cana-
da were long since said to have been sold by that ex-
emplary patriot, Makenzie, as payment in advance for
the personal exploits of all sympathizing riflemen who,
in the cause of freedom, should cross the frontier and
liberate the Queen of England's Canadian subjects from
the yoke of cultivating their own lands and reaping
their own harvests.
Lord :Palmerston told Sir Stratford Canning, the
other night, that he could not say whether or not the
negotiation respecting the boundary would have a suc-
cessful issue ! Vastly consoling this : but he was "jus-
tifiAd in stating that the cabinet of Washington had
the most friendly sentiments towards this country."
Vastly encouraging indeed ! But if the cabinet of
Wallington should either willingly or by compulsion
hatipen to support the State of Maine in its armed ag-
=ton upon the crown and people .of England, will
Palmerston please to inform us how much Mr.
Via Buren's "friendly sentiments" are worth in the
public market ?
We deprecate war. We dread it for the sake of hu-
manity, for the sake of North America, beyond all, for
the sake of England which must dearly suffer. But
there is such a thing as driving a great country, how-
ever temperate, and tolerant, and pacific, into war, just
as it is possible for the best matured and benevolent

man in the world to be forced by indignity into a pri-
vate quarrel. England can do no more towards avoid-
ing war than to abstain from offering injustice. If
she suffers wrong tamely, then is she unjust to herself
and to posterity; for she invites thereby, and will in-
evitably have to endure, a repitition and a variety of
insults. If both governments be wise, they cannot go
on to bloodshed. But the wise and just may, by the
foolish and unprincipled, be compelled, and dragged,
and trampled, and spurned into a conflict. In that
case the responsibility is not divided, because the crime
is altogether unilateral. It is the simple case of a wan-
ton oppressor, and an unwilling and unoffending

If England be kicked into a war unprepartd, the
responsibility for so terrible a disaster though not
shared between her and the United States, inasmuch
as she, as a nation, must be exonerated, will fall heavi-
ly between the United States and the British govern=
meat, which has left its country unprotected. For
such a government there can be no forgiveness, nor
any punishment severe enough for its enormous treason.