The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1872.

Evening Star, Issue 2822, 5 March 1872, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, MARCH 5, 1872.

The severe weather in the Northern hemisphere has stopped the mails, the Pacific Railway being impassable. Each route, therefore has its occasional difficulties: by Suez a vessel sinks in the Red Sea or off Point de Galle, and when the snow falls heavily the railway cannot be travelled upon. The difference in favor of the American route is that on it there is only delay, while by Suez, when mails go to the bottom they are mostly lost even if fished up again. The important news by the Nebraska has been received by Atlantic cable. It looks ugly-very ugly: but we do not regard it with so much apprehension as at first sight it is calculated to excite. The American claims seem excessive. In fact they appear to include many expenses altogether outside compensation for injury sustained by the immediate action of the vessels fitted out as privateers for the Southern States. These, we suppose, are contingent expenses, -which may or may not be traceable to the laxity of England in allowing those vessels to be built and fitted out there. It is impossible to confine the damage and cost to a particular point. If an armed ship goes forth to capture or destroy, another must be sent after her, and where this consequent action in a chain of events ends it is difficult to determine. Once admit the principle that England ought to pay for the acta of her subjects done, either permissively or through the negligence of her Government, and there is no saying to what extent a claim for damages may be made. It augurs badly for the principle of national arbitration, however, if after it has been agreed to refer a dispute to an accepted tribunal, the people are allowed to step in and say we only admit such and such items to be subjects for decision. Yet such seems to be the course insisted upon by the popular leaders of England. The chief danger lies in popular excitement. This is altogether inconsistent with the calmness and deliberation of a judicial inquiry. No doubt, in England there is, as in New Zealand, an unscrupulous party, who do not care what damage they inflict upon society so long as their own political ends are secured. To this party the very name of Mr Gladstone is as obnoxious as Mr Vogel’s is here. If discredit can be thrown upon his Ministry and the constitutional school of which he is an advocate, war with America, however ruinous to the interests of both countries and destructive to the prosperity of the world, would be entered upon with avidity. Judging by the reported action of the Times , it is vacillating ; now fanning disaffection—now throwing a little oil on the troubled waters. Had the Anglo-American arbitration been a case pending before a Court of Law, the very proper rule would have been observed, not to have uttered a word of comment, lest the opinions of the Court might be influenced for or against either belligerent. In the much more momentous question involving the lives and property of tens or hundreds of thousands this healthy rule is ignored. But if the Geneva commission is equal to the equitable decision of the case remitted to it, any extravagant claims will be disallowed. The course taken is something new : it may appear somewhat costly if England should be mulcted in heavy damages, and no doubt it is very bard that a nation should have to pay because some few of its people reaped a profit by very wrong practices. But one week’s war between the two countries would, directly or indirectly, cost the world a thousand times the largest amount the States could have the barefacedncss to claim. We should therefore be sorry to see an end put rashly to the arbitration. One favorable feature in this nasty-looking quarrel leads to the expectation that the row will have a favorable end—the monetary and commercial news is good. The Stock Exchange, always sensitive to the slightest prospect of war, has not shewn signs of alarm, and the markets are active : wool maintains its price, so do tallow, flax, and leather. So long as we have these indications of the state of affairs, they point out that there is no serious apprehension of war. In fact, whatever bluster and tall talking there may be, the interests at stake

are too gigantic to he imperilled by either country. In America the coming Presidential election has no doubt some influence on General Grant’s conduct. If the people of the two countries do not get the upper hand, and force the Governments into war, we have no doubt the difficulty will be tided over. The other news is on the whole unimportant.