ENGLAND'S ANSWER TO MR SUMNER.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 709, 16 August 1869, Page 1 (Supplement)

ENGLAND'S ANSWER TO MR SUMNER.

(English Independent.) The speech in which Mr Charles Sumner argued the rejection of the treaty which Mr Reverdy Johnson, with the full approbation of the United States Government, had for the settlement of the Alabama claims, has been specially released from the secresy in which the Senate chose tu cover its proceedings in this matter, and has been received with extraordinary favor by the American people. "It is not often given to one man," says the New York Independent, "to speak with the united tongues of all his countrymen. Mr Sumner has done it. He has proved himself in doing it to be the chief and master spirit of our foreign affairs. His oration appears to have suddenly aroused anew the feeling of anger towards England, and so to have excited the popular mind that persons unaccustomed to the noisy methods of our American kinsfolk imagine that they are on the very eve of declaring war with Great Britain. In this grave state of affairs we look anxiously into our own newspaper ex changes to ascertain what are the opinions of those with whom we are especially connected in the States, — the religious men, the Congregationaiists, —and by these we find ourselves solemnly adjured to hear this "grand speech as the almost unanimous voice of the Senate and people oi the United States."

The text of this oration has now been before us for a week, and it has been read with eagerness and attention by all classes of Englishmen. If the [people of the United States are unanimous in applauding it, the people of England are quite as unanimous in their astonishment and regret that Mr Sumner should have made such a speech, and that we should have to accept it as a correct representation of American opinion. The universal verdict is that it is either ludicrously weak or very wicked. Mr Sumner rejects the Johnson Treaty because it would leave the real grievance between the two countries untouched, and is merely an arrangeojent for the settlement of individual claims. The " true ground of complaint," according to Mr Sumner, is that "just one month after the bombardment of Fort Sumter the British Government should by proclamation have accorded belligerent rights to the rebels." Such a concession, like war itself, must be at the peril of the nation making it. Then came the building of "pirate ships" in our ports, and the escape of the Alabama, and "the dedication of the ship to the rebel service, and the organisation of her voyages with Englaud as her naval base made her departure as much a hostile expedition as if she had sailed forth from her Majesty's dockyard. The slaveholders were thus taken in hand by Englaud, and " now the day of reckoning has come, but with little apparent sense of what is due on the part of England." We only propose to submit the question ol individual losses to arbitration. " Nothing is admitted, no rule for the future is established, nothing is said of the indignity to the nation, nor of damages to the nation." Mr Sumner insists on an ample and humble apology, and that we should not only make good the losses inflicted by the Alabama, but iay for all the loss of American foreign carrying trade—not merely the actual loss but the supposed further loss caused by the arrest of the trade, altogether reckoned by an intelligent statist at about twenty mil lions. But much more than this; British intervention doubled the duration of the war, and we must therefore pay half its cost, which would at least come to 250 millions. These are Mr Sumner's present views of our liabilities, and possibly they may be enlarged if we do not compl) with his terms at once, for he remiuds us that if these demands are larger now than at the first call it is not the only time in history that such a rise has occurred.

The first impression which this speech produces is that it is a deliberate preparation lor war, uttered with the very purpose of forcing a quarrel, or iutended to make the way tor a demand for the surrender of Canada by the annexation of which General Grant is said to be resoived that his presidency shall be signalised. But we believe this would be a wrong to

;Mr Sumner, who, as we are remiade< by ohr New York namesake, has of al i American statesmen been habituallj the friendliest to England. He seemi to have spoken with temper and dig uity, nor will we allow ourselves t< suppose that he was not sincere in de daring that his object was to make war between the two nations impossi hie; yet his speech makes peace more than ever difficult. It has greatly ex cited the Americans —it has created some exasperation here. The ordi nary Briton who merely hears that Mr Sumner has demanded that we should eat humble pie and pay between two and three hundred millions sterling to the United States by way of a fine for having sympathised with the South and let the Alabama get out of Liverpool, will blaspheme over his cups and demand that we should fight rather than be bullied. The Pall Mall Gazette tells its readers that all this comes of our cowardice, that the Americans are presuming upou our unwillingness to fight and that it behoves us immediately to take some remedies to correct this false impression. And in this temper many of our countrymen are disposed to resent what they re gard as a shameless attempt at extor tion. The best men of both nations may be resolved not to go to war, but if the spirit of provocation be fed by unwise tongues they may some day find themselves powerless to prevent it. The staunchest friends of the North in this country, those who were true to her through all her great fights, declare themselves confounded by the course Mr Sumner has taken. The Daily News says of his arguments that they are *' far worse than puerile," and excuses his whole address on the grounds of Mr Sumner's irresponsibility. The Spectator asks whether " anything so monstrous was ever pro posed on this earth before by any man taking the rank of a statesman ?" We cannot be wrong in regarding the speech as a, grave and most unfortunate mistake.

It would be loss of time to discuss Mr Sumner's specific demands, for when Mr Motley reopens the question —as our statesmen cannot and will not do —and produces his new proposals, we may be quite sure they will not contain any claim for compensation for problematic loss of trade, or for the cost of the war. But we are anxious to see how far Mr Sumner is justified in requiring a moral reparation. " We demand," says the New York Independent, " some honorable acknowledgement and apology, some expression of regret for the great national wrong inflicted upon us." We suppose this means that the English Government should make an official acknowledgement—of what ? The Government can only apologise for some plain and undeniable breach of international law, it cannot apologise for the members of Parliament who cheered Mr Laird, nor for the passengers in the British ship, that are said to have cheered the Alabama, nor for the unseemly exultation expressed in some newspapers and in some circles when the defeat of Bull Bun was told in this country. Not one of our statesmen, Liberal or Conservative honestly believes that we have been guilty of any breach of international law. Certainly not in the recognition of the belligerency of the South—a point which we should confidently submit to any impartial arbitrator, and as to which the Americans themselves can only complain that it is done too hastily. This which Mr Sumner calls the primal and parent wrong was, in fact, only a warning to our own people not to aid or abet the South, and nothing shows the wrong. We only followed the President's example at the earliest possible moment, and we conferred upon the United States an undoubted advantage. To make this a ground of complaint is sheer wrong-headednesa. Of the escape of the Alabama there is, perhaps, more to be said. The Americans have fair ground to argue negligence here, but the case of the English Minister is at least a plausible one, and that any breach of the Foreign Enlistment Act was committed Earl Russel stoutly denies. The subsequent harborage of the ships in our colonial ports was perfectly justified upon the theory of international law neld by our statesmen, and, as far as we can see 8 there was no breach of

I neutrality upon our part from the beI ginning to the end of the transaction. ' In this, however, we are possibly mis j taken, and we are willing to submit • the matter to arbitration. If the ar- » biter says we broke the law, then we will apologise and pay the damages. ; But now for that general cause of complaint which the Americans have against sympathy which some Englishmen manifested for the South, and for any aid which the South derived in consequence of that sympathy. The most emphatic and " scathing" part of Mr Sumner's oration was that in which he accuses us of abetting slavery and slaveholders. England, he says, made a flagrant departure from that anti-slavery principle which had been her avowed creed. Rebel . slaveholders were taken by the hand;, England gave her name, influence, , and resources to their wicked cause, ( and flung a sword into the scale with | slavery. Strange that the land of. Wilberforce, &c, &c, should do this . thing. From this odious and injuri- j ous accusation we are glad to be ex- | pressly freed by Mr William Lloyd | Garrison, who, writing in the same , number of the New York Independent, \ from which we have already quoted, . says: —'It should be remembered, that the matters complained of against - England transpired, then, before there s was any sign or intention on the part t of the American Government to strike r laverytoitsoverthrow,inorderinoreef- s fectually to suppress the rebellion, when Mr Seaward was officially assuring Mr , Adams and other foreign Ministers that t the relative conditou of the slaves r would remain as heretofore, let the [ conflict rage as it might." " Indeed," 8 be adds, "it must be frankly confessed c that Governmental supremacy was the c one supreme object; and a blow was r finally aimed at the slave system only g to crown that object with victory." \ May, Mr Garrison is magnanimous c enough to admit that "it is quite as creditable to British philanthropy as « to our own that from the moment the c lines were drawn between freedom r _ and slavery by the Emancipation Pro- [ clamation in our terrible struggle we < had the sympathy, good-will, and all x hail of the British people as such, and s Confederate emissaries among them i had to hide their heads in obscurity." , Of what, then, is it that the Ameri- 1 cans complain ? They cannot be so < unreasonable as to make the whole ( nation answerable for the sympathies t of the Lairds and Wharncliffes. < Against these the patient sufferings of . the Lancashire operatives, and the , consistent refusal of the Government . ro listen to the temptations of the ' Emperor of the French to join with { him in breaking the blockade, are a , set-off which the Americans ought to be ashamed to overlook as they do j when piling up their charges against j England. The depredations commit- ( ted by the Alabama upon American ( commerce were always deplored by , us, and it is with deep regret we re- | member that that pirate ship had ever j any connection with England, or found ( shelter and succour in English ports. We believed that our Government had , no power by law to do other than - they did; but it was none the less a , sorrow. Whatever compensation an ( impartial arbiter shall award them, j we shall only too gladly pay, and with , that our cousins, unless they intend to J be " a little more than kin and less than kind," must be content. If as- , sured of our hearty adhesion and de- , sire for friendship now. of what avail is it to be eternally re-opening past sores ? That way madness lies. By all means let the practice for the future be settled. In that particular we entirely agree with Mr Sumner, and should think any treaty that did not do this worse than useless. We end with the words of Mr Garrison:— " Leave war to madmen or worse than madmen. Let us have peace —peace through justice, peace through patience and forbearance, peace through friendly arbitration, peace through a fair and manly adjustment of all the difficulties existing between the two countries^ —a peace never to be broken, but made stronger and stronger by the most endearing ties and the closest blood relations." And to this end let us have no more Sumner orations.