The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-08

and his taunts will fall on minds prepared for |
their reception by two very powerful IDEAS |
One is that the present Ministry is always |
submissive in every foreign transaction, and |
the other is that retrospective enactment |
can never be substantially just. They |
require to be told, and told by |
responsible statesmen, as we'll as by journal |
lists, that the Ministry, whatever its attitude
in Europe, has in America always been firm;
that it did not shrink in the dangerous ques-
ton of the claims of the American Irish to
special immunities in Ireland; that it put
down Riels rebellion at the risk of all mau-
ner of complications; that it snubbed Mr..
Fish's own argument, through Lord Claren-
don, with even too much of intellectual gusto;
that it silently defed all Mr.. Summers threats,
and that at this moment and in this trausac-
tion it is acting under no coercion whatever
except the coercion of sound policy and of
the national conscience. Nobody, not even
Mr.. Sumner, Is threatening us. We are
only asked in regular form and with all re-
spect to see if the lawyers on both sides
cannot terminate an extremely dsagreeable
and long standing quarrel by some reasonable
arrangement. If in making that arrange
ment the agents of the country have given
up a little too much-which we deuy-it has
been under no coercion and no menace, but
solely from belief that as the quarrel arose
on a matter of feeling, some concession TO
feeling is needful to re establish permanent
friendship. The particular concession does
not in that point of view matter a straw. A
principle is laid down by agreement, and
whether it is new or old, retrospective or
prospective, taken from Story, or taken from
Blackstone, or invented for the occasion, it
is, if we are content with it, only part of
the bargain frankly accepted by both sides.
1t is an unsigned deed accepted by litigants
to be valid for their mutual convenience.
The prejudice which Earl Russell would fain
excite rests upon false analogy When
Legislature passes penal enactment making
an act to have been crime which when it was
committed was not criminal, it does highly
oppressive thing, because it uses irresistible
power to break a contract without the assent
of the feebler contracting party. Nothing
but the right of self preservation could justi-
fy an act like Strait ord attainder, perhaps in
strict morality not even that. But in this
American affair there is oppression
from above, no submission from be-
low, nothing but contract, good
or bad according to it's policy, freely made
between equals, and subject before ratidca-
tion to rejection by either of the countries to
which their commissioners have suggested it
as basis of conciliatlon. There is no more
reason why new principle, approved by
Parliament, should be objected to as basis
of peace, than why an old one should; no
more humiliation in accepting a law made
! for the nonce as basis of agreement, than
in accepting an unsent letter as if 1t had been
sent. II, indeed, Earl Russell obi Gets to the
new principle itself, then indeed he has
! strong case; but that is not the point of his
motion, nor on that can he hope for any in
fueptjsl support. The country is quite
agreed that it ought in its own interest to dis
courage private declarations of war; and all
the commissioners propose is to declare that
| Rrifa 1nht 70 houn do hat hat,
rule when the Alabama went forth. 81 wish,
Jonathan, bad thought of that before. Sup
pose We make mp the account as if had
thought of it?" What is there humiliating in
such contract as that?
There is another and much moro serious
objection to the treaty which will be raised
IN the debate, but not, as we suspect, by the
mover of the address. 1t is stated on some
authority that the Dominion has a'rig ght to a
voice in the matter 1t is her property which,
under the Fisheries clause, Ia apparently to be
| sold. We trust the statement now in circula-
tion may prove unfounded, and that the Do
mipion, which was fully represented on the
commission, will abstain from any remon-
STRANGE against the treaty; but If unhappily
the Canadian Parliament should decide other
wise, the British Government, as we conceive,
has but one course to pursue. 1t must go
on with the treaty. The incident will reveal
in strong light the necessity which exists
for a revision of the relation between the
great colonies and ourselves, for
some novel arrangement which
shall permit the colonies to interfere more
directly in diplomacy affecting themselves,
but for the past there can be no direct help.
The British Government being bound to
protect the Dominion from attack, claim in
return, as their first prerogative, an ultimate
control over their foreign policy, an ultimate
right of negotiating in the interests of the
Empire, even when they interfere, seem
to interfere, with the interests of the province.
Those interests may be much more directly
represented at home, as, for example, the in
terests of India are; but the voice of the En-.
pire, when uttered, must always be single
and undisputed. Any pressure to be exer
cised must be exercised here and pending ne
gotiations, and not there and after negotia
tions have achieved their beneficial conse
quence. Any other course would involve
either disruption or the submission of th'
policy of the whole Empire to the policy of (
province, and we scarcely know which ca
lamity would entail the more disastrous re
suits.