The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1874.

Evening Star, Issue 3632, 13 October 1874, Page 2

The Evening Star TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1874.

The leading features of the European news by the Mikado has been anticipated by the later items received by telegraph from Sydney or Melbourne, so that to comment upon it would only be to repeat what has already been said. Nor is the case materially altered with regard to America, for we were already made aware that a feeling of antagonism is growing up in certain districts between the white and colored races. This consequence of liberation of the slaves will much disappoint many who sought, by conferring upon them all the privileges of their white fellow-citizens, not only to do an act of justice, but to raise them in the scale of humanity. It was right that slavery should be abolished; but there is an injudicious way of doing even a right thing, that is often as temporarily mischievous as to continue the wrong. Zealous partisans often forget or do not acknowledge this; but natural laws will assert their power, whether men believe it or not, and there are laws of mind as well as of matter that cannot be safely disregarded. No one who considers the relationship that subsisted between the dark and white races prior to the civil war will* feel surprised at what is now taking place. Society in America has sowed the wind, and seems about to reap the whirlwind. For centuries the slaves had been wholly dependent upon the whites for their support. They had not been allowed to think for themselves, nor to hold communion with their fellows outside the planters’ estates. They were kept in nearly abject ignorance, treated as respectable cuttle, and led to hold it honorable to be the instruments of pleasure to their haughty owners. As his goods and chattels, the comfort of the servants depended upon their master’s prosperity, and as his comfort rested upon their profitable labor, he commonly had them so well cared for that, on the whole, they were not very anxious to exchange this animalism for theanxieties and increased exertion of independent life. That new phase of social relationship was, however, forced upon them before either race was prepared for the change. Neither class could at once cast off the habits of thought in which they had been brought up. Just as the Israelites of old wished to go back to slavery and plenty, rather than encounter the freedom of a nomadic life, would the majority of the negroes have returned to the old state of things aftertasting the responsibilities of freedom, had they been permitted. In that story of the liberation of Israel from slavery, there is a political lesson that has been strangely overlooked. By whatever means the exodus was effected, the preparatory discipline for what was hereafter to be done was perfect. It was plain that men who had been accustomed to bow to haughty task masters, would quail before the highly trained and disciplined soldiers of the commercial cities of Phoenicia. To attack them with a nation of . slaves was to ensure defeat, and therefore, through a long course of years the war of aggression was postponed, until a hardy, adventurous, and independent generation had grown jup, who had only such traditional remembrance of the luxuries of civilisation, as to lead them to desire to wrest them from their possessors b f force. But no specific training was given to the American negroes. Their masters and they parted without any change of thought with regard to each other. The white, accustomed to treat the black as his inferior, though compelled by law to regard him as his equal, did not change his opinion. The black, suddenly placed in a social position for which he had not been educated, in some cases suffered privations he was not prepared to endure; and has, in others, assumed an attitude he is unable to support. So slow is the growth of national sentiment, that centuries have passed in Western Europe since the feudal relations were broken up • but to this day the traditional habits of thought consequent upon them ore not eradicated. Even in Great Britain, the model land of freedom and independence of thought, the titled nobleman is regarded as a superior being; and a narrative, true or imaginary, of his loves and fortunes is regarded as more interesting than that of plain John White or Peter Noakes. So it will be in Amex-ica. Blacks and whites will not amalgamate. Nine years have passed since jI he civil wax*, and now the negroes are seeking that equality, if not predominance, which the whites are unwilling to concede. We do not imagine that anything beyond local discontent or disturbance will occur. The nation will have to pay the penalty of its own precipitate rashness in abolishing an institution—bad in itself it may have been, but sanctioned by custom—without due preparation, in the difficulty of maintaining peace between the two races. The healing tie of mutual re? speet has to gi-ow up between them, and this must be a matter for time to achieve. Whether the pex-iod be long .or- short generations must pass before there is perfect cordiality.