The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1871.

Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2614, 4 July 1871, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, JULY 4, 1871.

The civilised world has been so deeply interested in French and German affairs that it has scarcely had time to bestow a thought on what has been passing between other nations. Ihe pretext for war between those countries was exceedingly slight. True or not true, Napoleon wishes the world to believe that he was unwillingly dragged into it. But between Great Britain and America there had been greater provocations than were esteemed sufficient to justify the French Emperor in attacking Germany. The simple difference has been that in the case of the Continental European nations, France, at any rate, had determined to tight, and Great Britain and the United States had resolved not to fight. We need not remind our readers of the untoward events that tended to a breach between the two countries. We are quite inclined to believe that too much is expected of neutral nations. They are required not only to stand by and look on, neither favouring one side nor the other that might be a tolerable position —but they are called to account, if in the regular course of trade and industry a ship is built and paid for and leaves one of their ports, and is afterwards used as a Avar vessel by the purchasers. This, to a certain extent, is saying that trade and manufacturing must be stopped until the belligerents have done fighting. Perhaps good arguments may be used in favour of the practice, but one nation has as much reason to complain of a refusal to build to order, as the other has of the acceptance and fulfilment of a contract —the refusal is so much negatively thrown into the scale of the opposite party. Apart from the right or wrong of the matter, at any rate at present, such is the law, and the victorious Northern States complained that England not only favoured the Southern states in the Civil War by acknowledging them as entitled to be treated as belligerents instead of rebels, but allowed the Alabama to leave a British Port, to be equipped and manned as a cruiser, by which means damage was done to so great an extent to American shipping, that it has not yet recovered. This of itself was a far more grievous cause of complaint than existed between France and Germany, In the year 1812 the two countries, Great Britain and America, engaged in Avar on a far less important question—the right of search as it was called : a claim to search American vessels for British seamen. But this Alabama case is only one difficulty : there are in addition the Fisheries question, the navigation of the St. Lawrence, arrangements respecting duties on imports, and the San Juan boundary. In all of those the United States consider themselves more or less aggrieved. On the otlur side Ave have the harboring of Fenians : allowing them to obtain money, to pur- , chase and equip ships, to drill bodies of men for the express purpose of invading a British Colony, and finally, three invasions of British territory, by expeditions leaving American ports, viz. ; tAVO attacks upon Canada and one upon Ireland. No doubt the world would have held either nation justified in the light of the past, in resenting the outrages of which both complain. But strangely enough, notwithstanding that popular feeling ran high on both sides of the Atlantic, very few seemed seriously to entertain the idea that there would be Avar between them. They have too much at stake to trust to such a runious mode of arbitration as war. They have too much in common to risk the effect of mutual destruction. Different as are their forms of government, they are ruled by similar laAvs ; their religion is identical, their language common, their institutions similar, their thoughts, feelings, and love of liberty mutually sympathetic. They are blood of our blood, bone of our bone. The world's experience has shown that this tribal relationship is no guarantee against strife unless its influence bo strengthened by other motives. The States fought against each other •, France fights against France ; and at one time England Avas divided against itself. But in none of those instances Avas there such a heavy bond for keeping the peace as between England and America. Some fivc-and-twenfy years ago there was very tall talk both in England and America about going to war on the North West Boundary question. It Avas during the Corn Law agitation, and on one occasion the late Richard Cobden, in addressing a large meeting, took occasion to calm their fears. Ilis Avords, delivered in his customary quiet earnest style, Avere, “ Talk of Avar Avith America 1 I tell “ you there will be no war ; and simply “ because it is not the fashion for “ people to cut the throats of their best “ customers.” We believe we b ave quoted this before, but it is too good to

be forgotten. The result proved the shrewdness of his observation. There was no war. The trade between the two countries was at that time somewhere about sixty millions annually : but that was sufficient to lead to an amicable settlement of the dispute. Great Britain could not afford to have looms and workshops stand still, and America could not afford to lose its best market for coltdu, and agricultural produce ; for though the Corn Laws were unrepealed, there were occasionally vast importations of American flour. But since that time the trade between the two nations has increased to one hundred and sixty millions on each side, so that the commercial bond to keep the peace is now nearly three times as heavy as it was at that time. Accepting this as one of the meaner national motives, as many no doubt term it, the point is demonstrated that it is quite possible for national quarrels to be settled without bloodshed. No doubt it is very chivalrous to assume mercenary motives to be contemptible in a great nation, but the records of the follies of knight-errantry abundantly prove that it is very easy to adopt a wrong way of attaining a right end. Negotiation must follow war, and is then usually rendeied difficult by passion blinding the reason. Between England and the United States, with the exception of the four years between 1812 and 1816, it has always prevented hostilities ; and we are glad to find it once more resorted to as a means of settling the difficult questions at issue between the two countries. It is the triumph of reason over brute force. The contrast between the condition of the two countries as compared with Franco and Germany, should bo decisive as to which is the best course : though the dispute is still unsettled, the two nations mutually enrich each other, but Germany is in mourning and impoverished, and France is nearly ruined.