The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-28

marked the opening of the century, the first
Napoleon found in the expedient OF PRIV ateer7
ing an agency Invaluable in view OF the un-
equal naval strength of the two great oellge-
rents. And that agency was employed with
destructive energy to which there was probably
no parallel in the history OF war. Ihe long
peace which succeeded, down to the outbreak
of the Russian war, had accustomed people to
the notion that no such International conflict
as that which closed in 1915 was again pro-
bable, OF, peradventure, even possible. De-
lusve hopes were founded on the Indus
trial Exhibitions; and when the first of these
turned out so unbounded success, there
were not many-even of those endowed
with fair share of political sagacty-who
would have been bold enough to forecast an
outbreak such as followed three years later.
That struggle came; and at the end of many
months OF desperate warfare, with little poll
tical result with no settlement of perma-
nent character established, the bellgerents
sat down to consider in what way-when the
war should break out anew-they could carry
it on with the least damage to private pro-
perty. The object may have been laudable
and it may have been that we should have
profted, five years later, when the Rebellion
broke out, if we had accepted the invitation to
become parties to the declaration And yet
in view of the ''neutral' enterprise which
sent the privateer "290'' forth to the high seas
before the Rebels had fairly organized for the
fight, it is doubtful whether the Declaration of
Paris, or any similar agreement of an interna-
tional character, would have been respected in
our case. If what might be assumed to be
the spirit of that Declaration had been fairly
interpreted, the mere comfy of nations would
have prevented the leading States of Western
Europe from extending the patronage and pro-
lection to privateering which they did extend
for nearly four years.
Mr.. Mills examination of the Declaration of
Paris, in the abstract, is close and pointed.
He asks how war is to be made more humane
by shooting at peoples bodies instead oftaking
their property If cargoes are safe in neutral
vessels and not in those of the belligerents, the
whole import and export trade of the latter,
In protracted struggle, would pass into the
hands of the neutral carrier. The sailors
would go where the ships went, and their re-
covery on the return of peace would be slow
and doubtful He asks, then, where there
would be a naval reserve such as England
deems it essential to main tain? The necessi-
ties of the case would, he contends, lead to a
demand for an enlargement of the scope of the
Declaration, as it now stands, so as to obtain
the total exemption of the beliigerent's pro-
perty at sea from the contingency of seizure
during war. Then the spectacle would be
witnessed of nations at war with nations, while
their merchants and shipowners were at peace.
The result would be that merchants, manu-
nothing to lose by state of war, and would
have no motive to abstain from it except an
increase of taXaton-a burden which people
are often only too ready to infiict upon them
selves from the smallest motive of national
self-assertion.
The reasoning is plausible enough, and
while Lord Stanley replies specifically and
with great force on points bearing upon the
history of the Declaration of Paris; upon
the question of England's withdrawing from
that agreement; and upon practical matters of
international concern, he is brought by Mr..
Mills keen analysis to the admission that it
will not do to continue Ostensibly party to
| the Declaration, unless it is intended to act
upon it in the letter and spirit under all
circumstances. Still, says the Foreign Secre-
tary, "We must not forget that the rules ap-
! plicable to ordinary wars will all be disre-
! garded in the extreme struggle for life and
! DEATH This, it seems to u.s. is giving up the
principle upon which the Paris agreement was
| based. A war for the maintenance of the ma
tional honor must be essentially struggle for
life and death. How is the distinction to be
drawn between the two kinds of conflict
! There is in some sense difference between
them. But if in any extremity the rules Of
belligerency contained in the Declaration may
be violated, the violation would surely be JUS
titled in a struggle for the maintenance of the
national honor.
MIR. Mills argument was doubtless assallable
in several of its separate parts but taken as q
whole, it will be regarded as mastery elabo
ration of General Sherman's sententiouE
remark that "war is cruelty, and you canno
make it anything else" Its horrors may have
been mitigated in later times where the bellige
rents were highly civilized, but it is cruelty
after all. The only real mitigation is in seeing
that it has become a necessity before it il
undertaken. The Declaration of Paris, a
Lord Stanley admits, would be worthless il
an extreme struggle for existence. And tn
same is true of every international agreemen
which is not based on keen perception G
international obligations and a constant regar
for international friendship.
The Chicago Labor Congress.
, From The NJ Y. Tribune