The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-12-14

The HERALD's special dispatches from Wash
ington this morning bring US information OF
another grand and startling sensation at the
national capital. For some months past the
| people of the United States have been datter-
| ing themselves with the belief that that worn
| out bugbear, the Alabama question, was at last
laid happily at rest and that nothing remained
| to do except to settle in an amicable
manner the amount of damages to be
dations committed on American commerce by
| English-built privateers during the war of our
| Southern rebellion. 1t now appears to
have been discovered by our Washington
wiseacres that the British representatives on
the Joint High Commission have out Yankeed
the Yankee nation; that they have in every
way got the better of US in the construction of
the Board of Arbitrators created under
the Treaty of Washington, and that
decision adverse to the position and interests
of the United States will assuredly be the
result of the Geneva Conference. The grounds
upon which these conclusions are based are
stated by our correspondent to be the astound-
ing revelations, first, that only two Of the five
arbtrators are friends of republican form of
government; secondly, that two of them be-
long to the 'sfallen and degenerate Latin
| race" and, thirdly, that Lord Chief JUS
tice Cockburn, the representative of Eng
land in the Conference, cannot be sup
posed to be friendly to the interests of
the United States in the matter, Influenced
as he will be by the views of his own govern
ment. To be sure it may occur to some per-
sons not SO profound as your Washington poll
tican that as the Conference is composed of
five members, three OF whom are the repre-
sentatives of monarchies-the kingdom of
England, the kingdom of Italy and the empire
Of Brazil-there is nothing SO very startling
after all in the discovery that only the re-
| naming two-the repres entatives of Switzer-
land and the United States-are advocates Of q
republican form of government That two
of the arbitrators are Of the Latin race may
| be fearful fact to contemplate; but what
will our excited Congressman say when they
discover that a third member of the Con-
| ference, the Lord Chief Justice of England, Is
himself, on his mothers side, descended from
that ''fallen and degenerate" stock? Although
we may be willing to set off the presumed hos
tility of Charles Francis Adams, the American
representative in the Conference, to the Eng
lish view of the Alabama question, against the
supposed hostilities of Lord Chief Justice
Cockburn, the English representative, to the
American view, we cannot forgive the British
IF %ho al ;~h Co.
hoodwinking us into the folly of entrusting to
o majority of the Latin race the decision Of
controversy which has hitherto been all Greek
to most of our people, and especially for foist-
ing on to the Conference this same Lord Chief
Justice, the son Of St. Domingo French
woman, thus cunningly heading off President
Grant in his favorite st. Domingo policy.
The upshot of all this, we are told, is to be
the failure of the whole business of the Joint
High Commission, and of its offspring, the
Geneva Conference, and the re-opening of the
Alabama dispute with redoubled bitterness
This is not the whole, or the most wonderful
portion, Of our Washington story. The Spanish
government is found to be at the bottom of
these new complications, and. by some mys-
terious application of logic peculiar to Wash
ington, Spain is supposed to favor England's
non-liability for the escape of the Ala
bama, because she desires to hold the
United States responsible for the escape of
Cuban privateers and for the protection
given to the Hornet and the Flor
ida. Armed with these facts, the gallant
Banks, of Massachusetts,. on the one side, and,
Sunset Cox, of New York, on the other side,
are to lead OF in the House of Representatives
to-day in terrific crusade against President
Grant and Secretary Fish when the question
of the appropriation Of quarter of million
of dollars for the expenses Of the Geneva
Conference comes up In Committee of the
Whole. Herein, we imagine, lies the secret
of all these startling revelations; for we are
assured by our Washington correspond
ent that the administration is GER
tain to be crushed to powder be-
tween the upper and neither mllstones of
Cox and Banks. The recent Presidential i'm
parchment programme of Senator Sumner, on
charges ranging from usurpation of military
powers to the acceptance of bull-pup from
! Sacramento, is said to be but trife as COM
| pared with the ordeal through which the
President will have to pass In the debate over
the blunders of this Geneva Conference bust
ness. He is to be arraigned for suffering the
Joint High Commission to overreach him on
every point, even to the wording of the
Treaty Of Washington, and for leaving
the interests Of the United States In
the hands Of prejudced foreigners.
Even the dinners eaten by Secretary Fish in
the company Of the Joint High Commissioners
are to be made cause Of complaint, after the
fashion of the attacks upon Reverdy Johnson
| for his sociable feasts with the London bons