The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-12-28
The Alabama CiaIms-A Proper Subjoc
for General Grants Administration.

The Alabama Cinims-A Proper Subject
for General Grants Administration.
A vast amount of unfinished business in
the way of reforms will be turned over from
the administration of Mr.. Johnson to that Of
General Grant. The schedule viii include
the whiskey rings and the whiskey frauds, all
the other frauds upon and leakages of the Trea-
sury, and lavish expenditures, the restoration
of law, order, confidence and prosperous
industry down South, general reconstruc-
ton of our financial affairs, debt, bonds, cur
rency, banks, internal taxes and tariff laws
and general overhauling and rebuilding of
our policy with foreign nations, including the
settlement of the Alabama claims.
The Alabama claims, we say, must 60 over
to President Grant; for it is morally certain
now that they will not be settled under Presi-
dent johnson. The latest ideas ventilated in
England on this subject are that Secretary
Seward is an obstruction; that all the ques-
tons involved will be amicably adjusted under
the incoming administrations that Reverdy
johnson will be retained in his present posi-
ton, and that the bases of the protocol
already agreed upon between him and Lord
Stanley must remain fixed, and will sooner or
later command the consent of both countries.
This we consider very absurd summing up,
except in reference to the turning over of the
whole subject to President Grant.
7. On the other hand, it is given out from
Washington that the ultimatum of the Senate
will embrace the following points First, that
England must admit her pecuniary liability for
the depredations on the high seas of those
Anglo-rebel cruisers, the Alabama, Shenan-
doah, Florida and Sumter, and agree to pay
the bill Of damages; second, commission Of
four members, two from each side, who shall
select fifth as umpire; third, detailed
investigation Of all these aforesaid depreda-
tions; fourth, an investigation Of other claims
arising in each country against the other back
to the year 1853. This is the protocol limited
at in the Presidents Message at the opening
ofthe present session of Congress; but as it is
protocol which may consume ten years in
side and offsets on the other, it is not the
protocol for General Grant.
The endless complications, bubbles and
pettifogging pretences thus suggested on the
part of England must be rejected if our
government would have the honest reparation
demanded by the American people in conse-
quence of Englands dishonest neutrality
during our late civil war. This question
should be settled by itself, ''unmixed with
baser matter" 1t should be settled as
General Jackson settled those claims against
France with Louis Philippe arising from
certain French spoliations on American COM
merce prior to 1S00-indemnity or reprisals.
We cannot doubt that, as the leader of the
Union armies in the field, General Grant
has q very clear perception of the ''ma-
terial and financial aid" given to JEFF
Davis through England's peculiar neutrality.
1t was this encouraging neutrality which sent
out, not only the Anglo rebel cruisers such as
the Alabama the Shenandoah, tn Florida and
the Sumter, but hundreds of English blockade
runners, which made the West India port Of
Nassau a Confederate naval and blockade rum
ming, coaling station and rendezvous, and
which supplied the Anglo-rebel cotton loan Of
fifteen millions of money. The captures and
Of English blockade runners by our |
vessels and detective cruisers |
amounted in value to q sum exceeding thirty |
millions Of money, but perhaps four times this
amount in supplies to the rebellion were run |
in. These, to be sure, were private ventures
upon their own risk but they were mainly
due to Englands encouraging neutrality and
the predominant English sympathy with the
cause Of JEFF Davis. Much was said from time
to time during the war Of the breaking Of the
backbone Of the rebellion; but it was not
really broken till the capture Of Wilmington,
which cut off its supplies from England.
But we are dealing with the Alabama claims.
Our losses from the vessels destroyed by the
Alabama and her piratical confederates during
the war were hardly less in the aggregate than
fifty millions of dollars; but the effect in the
suspension of our commercial ventures on the
high seas was equal to hundreds of millions.
The payment of the bill for the American ships
actually burned, scuttled and plundered by
those Anglo-rebel cruisers does not, there
fore, cover the reparation demanded. The
main question, that perhdious neutrality
proclamation Of Lord John Russell, still re-
mains untouched. This is the part Of Hamlet
which cannot be omitted from the play. By
that offensive proclamation the government Of
the United States and the insurgent Southern
conspiracy assuming the style and title Of the
Confederate States were placed upon an equal
footing in the matter of belligerent rights, and
the act was justified upon the convenient
bubble Of President Lincoln's blockade. This
blockade was q serious technical blunder on
the part Of Mr.. Seward, but Il does not ex-
onerate England. We apprehend that General
Grant, plain, honest, practical soldier, viii
not admit this bubble Of the blockade as a