The Sun. — 1870-06-04 (London, England)

THE RED RIVER EXPEDITION.  We may perhaps be permitted to doubt whether the Red *River difficulty has been so happily and entirely settled as the British Ministry seems to assume, though the expedition which has just been brought to a halt at the Sault Ste. Marie Canal is likely to encounter no more dangerous enemies than the bogs and pathless forests of the unbroken wilderness. The insurrection has been quieted by a compremise which may almost be described as an unconditional surrender o; the stronger party. The colonists rebelled because the Hudson's Bay Company sold the settlement to the Dominion of Canada without their consent, just as a Russian noble, before the liberation of the serfs might • have sold his estates with all the people on them. The difficulty is arranged by practically recognising the independence which the insurgents demand, and bringing them into the Confederation as a distinct province, on equal terms with the other provinces, with an assembly elected by the people, and representatives in the Central Parliament. There are some points, however, on which our information is yet meagre, and on these there may be trouble. The fate of Riel, the case of Scott, whose execution was downright murder, and the terms on which the claims of the halfbreeds are to be extinguished—here are difficulties which may be embarrassing if not dangerous. So serious at any rate do they appear in Canada that the Dominion Government refused to pay the Hudson's Bay Company for the territory unless a military force was sent there to preserve order. This is the meaning of the " expedition of peace " which is now on its way to the new province of Manitoba. Moreover, the dread of a Fenian invasion, which is a sort of chronic disorder in Canada, has of late been very lively, and not altogether without reason. Riel has certainly .been coquetting with the brotherhood in the United States, and there are loud whispers of mysterious gatherings on our side of the line, and a sudden emigration of Irishmen to the West. That a movement of this kind would be the height'of folly is no reason for assuming that it has not been planned—en the conttery, is rather an argument for its credibility. Here then is another use for the expedition a peace. Under these circumstances the President's refusal to allow the expedition to pass through our territory' is justifiable, even though to a superficial observer it seems to place us in the ridiculous situation of recognizing Riel's ragged half-breeds as a belligerent power. But in reality the refusal implies nothing of the hind. The passing of a foreign armed force across our territory is a privilege which we are at liberty at all times to grant or withhold at our pleasure. We should have been pleased to see it granted in the present case, for the use of the canal would have saved the British expedition a tedious and expensive march, and spared the soldiers probably much fatigue. We console ourselves, however, for the disappointment by the conviction that the refusal springs from Secretary Fish's recent studies of the neutrality laws. These laws do not, strictly, speaking, apply to a case like the present, but the principle which underlies them is the same which ought to govern the Sault Ste. Marie question. Mr. Fish has probably discovered that the obligations of neutrality are not exclusively for the henefit of recognised belligerents, but we are bound to treat impartially established Governments and revolted " peoples " and " districts " as the Act of 1818 expressly declares. If he had made this discovery before he released the Spanish gunboats, we should have been still better satisfied.—New York Tribune.