The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1861-06-05

lower prices with sales OF mess at SIC 50 ST. and
prime at $l2 rs . SIS Co. Sugars were eteady, with
sales OF SEQ hhts. and 40 boxes. terms given Ia
another place. Coffee was firm with KNITTED ssles there
freight Offering yesterday 10 American vessels
though at low rates Grain Was taken for Liverpool, In
bags and bulk at ID 7Kd, and flour at Ia. 3d., AID
wheat to London 1t ID. in bulk For Glasgow wheat
engaged at 9hd In ships bags and flour at 2s 3d.
H. 7kd.
Cotton and Conscience In England.
We learn by telegraph that Lord john Rus
sell had received Mr.. Stewards ultimatum
What effect it may have on the policy
of the British government is not yet apparent
But we have little hope that she will prove a
friend. Heretofore, it is but too evident, her
diplomacy was against the United States
and in favor of the Southern rebels. In
times of great peril it is important to
know how we stand; to determine our relations
and find out with accuracy who are for and
who are against us. Better to know the worst
at once than to be filed with false
confidence and depend on a broken reed,
| In the late debate in the British Par
lament there was not one word of
generous sympathy for a powerful, friendly
and kindred government, thongh struggling,
as the speakers believed, in the throes of dis
solution. Indeed there was evidently secret
satisfaction betrayed. 1t was no longer
possible for British duplioiy to cloak itself
under the veil of diplomacy. 1t was
compelled to show its hand and its
cloven foot too. Not word from the
| great British statesmen no! even freQ Lord
/ kbA 1ooJ &c A.oI.
movement in England-not word against the
| peculiar institution of the South, which only
short time since caused each particular heir of
their heads to stand erect with holy horror 1t
is no longer conscience, but cotton that rules
the hour. The cotton lords and the feudal
lords are for once en- rapport Yet among tie
people there is "a still small vOics" of con-
science which will soon be heard in a voice of
thunder. Theirsympathies are with democracy
and free Institutions, and their instincts and
prejudices are strong against slavery, black or
white. Hence the struggle here will result in an
irrepressible conflict there, unparalleled since
the days Of Cromwell and his Roundheads,
Charles the First anu his Cavaliers.
The sophistry with which the ruling classes
racteristic of their order. International law is
the shuttlecock with which they play. In itself
vague and unsatisfactory, they render it ten
times more 80 to suit their own convenience: at
one time declaring in favor of paper blockades,
at another repudiating them and recognizing
effective blockades alone; now denouncing
privateering as a piratical practice, and then
;y;p no ot;o orv 1ao mi
now denouncing revolution and rebellion, and
again encouraging and fomenting it; now in
favor Of the divine rights Of kings and de jure
governments, the next moment 10 favor Of de
taoto governments. Lord Palmerston hes thus
played fast and loose with almost every
government in Europe.
Some Of the speakers in Parliament aud
some If the public journals take cre6it for
their government in issuing q proclamation
against Epglishmen fitting out privateers 10
England, because it has the appearance Of
favoring the United States, seeing that those
armed ships would be chiefly commissioned 6y
the Confederate States, who have no YES
cells of war. But in this there is nc
favor. 1t was already the law Of the
land. The Foreign Enlistment act in Eng
land, the same as our neutrality laws,
forbids the fitting out of privateers, 80 that
we need not thank the British government for
the prohibition in the Queens proclamation.
Vattel says that the impartiality which neu-
trail nation ought to observe between ths bel
ligereut parties consists chiefly in this To
give no assistance where there is no previous
stipulation to give it; nor voluntarily to fur
nish troops, arms, ammunition, or anything of
direct use in war:-"I do not say to give assist
anee equally, but 70 give no assistaHce; for it
would be absurd that State should assist q,
the came time two enemies. Aud besides il
would be impossible to Go it with equ Atty
the same things, the Like number Of troops the
like quantity of arms, of munitions, &C., fur
nished under different circumstances, are no
longer equivalent sucoors." Now to give the
United States the same right Of privateering a.
the Confederate States, is giving them less thao
nothing, for they do not desire to issue letters
| Of marque in the present war-the South
has 10 commercial marine upon which pri-
| vateers eau prey. The rule, therefore, does
not work equally. In the year 1912 we dud
England belping the Spanish American CO.
lonies, whose independence she had scknow-
lodged, by passing law prohibiting the iu-
portation of arms to the mother country, By
way of placing both on the same footing io-
aamuch az by treaty with Spain England bad
previously bound herself not to export arms
to the colonies. But again in 1928, when
France and Spain were at war, England re-
pealed the law Of prohibition, in order to
favor Spain, because it did not operate equally,
seeing that France could obtain the srGs in.
directly over the Belgian frontier, whereas
| z, 4a1 had uch foo,