TOPICS OF THE DAY.
MINISTERS AND THE NEGOTIATION. much more than a pretext for breaking off negotiations. But we may be mistaken. The American faith in our dupeability seems to be large.
We confess that we look with very little hope and some impatience, not to use a stronger term, at all this importunity on the part of England. So long as we believed that the Sup- plemental Article was a genuine concession on the part of the United States to save the Treaty, there was fair ground for considerable concession on our part, but since we have heard, we suppose authentically, what an illusory and even " smart " kind of concession that really was, we confess that we think the Government ought to have taken warning, and shown the United States that it was not for us to lament over the failure of a Treaty in which almost all the gain was on their side. The United States' Government is not one which be- comes easier to deal with, the more affectionately it is treated. As far as we can see, excepting only the letter of General Schenck written last week on Mr. Fish's authority, all the rebuffs received have been received by us, and some of them very sharp rebuffs ; and even that letter was due to the high spirit betrayed by the House of Lords. We cannot think that a Presidential campaign in which all these things will be the more minutely canvassed that the settlement is still in the future, will in any degree conduce to the good feeling between the two countries,—especially if, as is not impossible, a general election in England should be contemporaneous with the Presidential election, and these negotiations should there- fore be discussed in popular and not very refined language, but in opposite senses, on two sets of hustings at the same time. We wait for further light, but in the meantime it is not easy to avoid an impression that our Government has mistaken the temper of the Government with which it has been dealing, and has laid itself open to needless rebuffs by expressing too effusive a desire for the opportunity of paying the "Direct Claims."
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