The Dunstan Times. FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1872.

Dunstan Times, Issue 517, 15 March 1872, Page 2

The Dunstan Times.

FRIDAY, MARCH 15, 1872.

Beneath the Rale of Men entirely just the pen is mightier than the awonn

The telegraphic news, via San Francisco, referring to the Alabama question, is of a striking character—sensational, in fact, in the extreme use of the word That intense excitement prevails in London, and that the Ultra-Radical section of the Hew York press already daringly hint at the A'abama claims being enforced at the point of the bayonet may be easily credited ; but that new and unexpected demands for indirect damages will ultimate in open rupture between the two nations, can be only deemed an emanation of mischief, fomented by political recreants for their own purposes, by all who have any faith in the desire of the great mass of the people in either country for the settlement of the question upon the wide basis of international justice. Great Britain long since made acknowledgment that due diligence should have been used to prevent the offences complained of by the American Government, and the appointment of the Court of Arbitration was a most popular measure in the minds of the British public. In America, too, the decision that the claims should be left to arbitrators, one to be chosen by the President of the United States, one by Her Britannic Majesty, and one each by the

King of Italy, the President of th« Swiss Confederation, and the Empe or of Brazil, was received with popular demonstrations of approval, except from the extreme political agitators, whose policy is the subvertion and overthrow of all honest government. The Is'ew Yorlc Times, in a recent article upon the Alabama question, said : “ Apart from the interests of “ individual claimants, it is a serioKis “ injury, present and prospective, to “the commerce and international “affairs of both countries that the “ issues between them should continue “ open. What we want is a settle- “ ment—a (settlement giving our “ people that which they have a fair “ right to -demaud. We need not, “ however, seek to disguise the fact “ ihat there are some who do not want “ this result.” It is to this extreme truculent party,and their exasperating threatening manoeuvres, that the present complications may be charged. There is doubtless among American citizens a profound and earnest'feeling that their country was wronged in 'he hour of greatest need and danger by the apathy or culpable indifference of British statesmen - and British subjects in Now Zealand, judging dispassionately thereon, will admit the justice of the plea; but it is hardly probable that President Grant's Govemment is likely to be overborne by any passionate ravings Jbr revenge so far as to encourage an open rupture. It, is within the bounds of probability that the opinion held by the Saturday Review is right: that the Alabama claims will not be settled, but be held as a perpetual menace for political purposes. This, however, by no means signifies war, or rumors of war. The dispute in this matter of the Alabama claims arose, in the first instance, from simple causes, but which, gradually developing in complications as year after year sped, now assume their present threatening aspect. The Southern Confederacy, at the hands of Captain, now Re ir Admiral Soimnes, of the ship Sumpter notoriety, made sad havoc among the United States Merchant Marine, and emboldened by success, negotiated, through the Con federate agents in Eng'and, for the building p£ the hull of a more swift and powerful cruiser. In thus stipulating for the hull of the vessel, they kept within the letter, if not the spirit of the English law, which, somewhat remarkably, makes it unlawful to fit out and equip a man of war in Fiitish ports for belligerents, with whom the British nation maybe at peace, but does not prevent the sale of the mere hull of a man of war. The contract was taken and completed with all expedition, and by a successful ruse, the new craft sailed out from the Liverpool Docks in broad daylight, and as a matter of course never returned. By preconcerted arrangement her outfit and munitions of war were transhipped from another vessel awaiting her in the open ocean, and the Alabama sped exultingly on her mission to sink, burn, and destroy helpless American merchantmen. Prior to her departure, however, the American minister in London, Mr. Adams, had received some hint of her real character, and had applied to the British Government to seize the vessel. The proverbial Jaw’s delay, departmental routine, and the illness of one of the printipal law officers of the Crown, prevented any prompt action being taken , and although an order was ultimately issued to seize the suspicious craft, the confederate, more sharp and vigilant than their adversaries got their vessel safely on the high seas before the order for seizure could be executed. The sub sequent career of the Alabama is too well known to need recital. The mischief she wrought has rarely, if ever, been exceeded by the deeds of airy single privateer, and the United States Government, indignant other exploits, which they were powerless to prevent, were not slow in making claims upon England for compensation, contending that negligence and delay which might have been obviated, prevented her seizure, and that although they, as a matter of expediency, recognised the South as a belligerent, m European power was justified in doing so, and, moreover, that Britain, like every other state, was bound to take care that neither her subjects nor citizens performed any act injurious to States with whom she may be at peace. The reply, in substance, of the British Government was that neither by the law of nations,- or the law of England had any good case been made' out in respect of the Alabama; but, time to the

; policy of conciliation, and rightly in- ! terpreting the general feeling of the | British nation lor fair dealing in the matter, the treaty of Washington was ratified, whereby the settlement of claims for alleged liability for compensation was left to be decided, not by any particular code of International law, but upon certain expressed principles and ratifications, adopted by both Congress and the British Govern ment, as the basis of action for a specially appointed Alabama Award Commission, constituted as above mentioned. So far as human foresight and amicable intention could provide for the settlement of the point at issue, all that was necessarily absolute seems to have been completed, but suddenly the unwelcome nows speeds from shore to shore that America is yet a noncontent. A flaw has been discovered in the agreement, and, 1 -with customary Yankee cnteness,thepolitical agitators to whom the words peace and concord are synonymous with individual political extinction, raise the plea that the claim is not limited to direct losses, but may. by a literal interpretation of the views of the negotiators be made to include an unlimited number of indirect claims of every conceivable form and magnitude, arising as alleged from the depredations of the Alabama. Hence ensues the present misunderstanding, exaggerated a hundred-fold by American party newspapers into a cause of war; but capable, nevertheless, of peaceable solution. Hie news, as before remarked, is startling and sensational to a degree, but really bearsnoeyideiice that any reasons exist to apprehend a suspension of peaceful intercourse between the two great nations, bound together by so many ties of commercial interest and fraternal relations. The next mail will probably .bring the intelligence that every pre sage of impending Uoublehas vanished before the strong common sense of true hearted British and American people, to the confusion and shame of the political riff-raff of either nation.