The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-05-19

|
sent laws gave them
ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES.
From the ~ y. World.
The London Spectator approaches Mr.. Sumner
| very closely in political bias. Its intense anti
slavery feeling, among other things, kept il
| during the Southern Rebellion in an attitude of
friendliness towards the North and unfriendli-
ness towards the South. What it says of Mr..
Summers speech has therefore, especial interest.
The point and purpose of n long article thereon,
in its issue of May ], are to enforce the dstinc-
tion it draws between the moral culpability and
the legal culpability of England towards the
United States.
First, as to moral cupabty. The Spectator
admits that the tone of Parliament and of the
uppermost stratum of the English people was,
at the beginning of our civil war; in the highest
degree unfriendly to us of the North; that the
furnishing, fitting out and escaping of the
Alabama and other cruisers constituted symp-
tom of this deliberate unfrendliness; that
another symptom was the confidence with which
the South applied for a loan in London, and for
the ships and munitions of war in which they
invested the loan which they obtained; that this
unfriendlness of the arstocracy and middle
classes towards the North daunted the Ministry
''in its rather hesitating and tremulous attempt
to preserve friendly attitude towards the Gov
ernment of the United States;" and finally, that
had our case been thers-had the upper crust of
the United States expressed its hearty sympathy
with an Irish rebellion, raised n loan for it, and
sent out privateers under an Irish flag to scour
the seas in search of British commerce-they
should in all probability have either declared
war with the United States, or, if deferred from
that course by mere prudent calculation of
consequences, still have been thoroughly dis
inclined to condone the offense and resume cor
dial international relations with the United
States without extracting from our Government
something more than dry contract to refe
the legal claims OF injured individuals to arbi-
tration.
All this, says the Spectator, is moral culpabi-
t1pi iioti, ,,f,
treated in anysense as a question of pecuniary
damage. For this moral wrong we are entitled
to an apology and expression of regret but not
to additional reparatlon in money.
Secondly, as to legal culpabiity. OF such was
the case of the Leopard boarding the Chesapeake,
which was monstrous breach by England of in
ternationallaw; and ofsuch, too, was the ncursion
into our territory across the Canadian border in
1887 But the Spectator denies that England,
from beginning to end of the Rebellion, com
mitted, as to us, a clear breach of neutral obli-
CATION. We however, think differently, and,
IN consideration thereof, England consents to
equitable arbitration to decide if that power did
violate the rules of international law in the
Alabama case or that of her consorts. If the
arbitrator decides against England, then let Il
commission assess the damage. But, till that
decision is made, England cannot and will not,
confess her legal culpability.
This, since Summers speech, is the tone of one
OF the most friendly journals we have had in
London.
In respect to the general character of the
speech, the former admirer and champion of
Sumner in England speaks thus:-
'What astonishes us is not the sentiment of his
Speech which Is manly, natural, and patriotic, nor
in any considerable degree its practical counsel (o
reject the onventon), which we can at least fully
understand; but the extraordinary mixture of
strictly sentimental with strictly legal considerations
which pervades it throughout. Now, what is
it, then which Mr.. Sumner calmly proposes to all
even those who like ourselves, approach him most
closely in political bias? Simply this: to submit our
political and legal conseiences in the most abject
manner to a dogma which not single man amongst
us worth moments consideration holds to be true
to confess legal guilt of which are entirely un-
conscious and this as condition sine qua of
Cancellation with the United States. Was anything
so monstrous ever proposed this earth before by
any man taking the rank of q statesman? In
Short Mr. summers legal argument is very poor
pdTte statement of the United States case, without
even pretense of judicial discussion. Mr. Sumner
has nothing to say which has not been heard hun
dred times before though he suppresses great deal
which has also been heard hundred times before,
and which seems to us of much greater weight. But
what he does say, instead of being put forward as
proof that there is something to dsCuss-fOr which
only it would serve-s unfortunately put forward as
proof that there is nothing to discusswhich it not
only does not prove, but disproves."