ENGLAND AND AMERICA.
THE letter from the sober and thoughtful New York correspondent of the Daily News, printed last Tuesday, gives a complexion to the character of Mr. Sumner's speech which renders it imperative on the friends of the North in England to make it quite clear in America what must be the inevitable result of any kind of demand based on Mr. Sumner 's principle. In discussing his speech last week we were anxious to do full justice to the American no less than to the English side of the question, and gave our own view of the equity of the controversy. But we did not then seriously contemplate even the possibility that America would take up practically the attitude which Mr. Sumner indicated as the only one she ought to take up, if the question were to be reopened at all. We had then no real fear that it ever would be reopened by America, if it could only be reopened in such a tone As that. But the New York correspondent of the Daily News, who is about the soberest as well as the most instructed and intelligent Englishman in America, evidently entertains a different impression. He expressly states that in his opinion Mr.
conveys General Grant's view as to Sumner's speech certainly
-" what ought to be done," which of course means a great deal more than as to the ideal attitude which ought to be assumed. 4' After sifting the whole matter as much as one can, one may say that what will have to be done to effect a settlement is to offer an apology or some expression of regret for what has happened, as Canning did when the Leopard fired on the Chesapeake, and then boarded her and took away part of her
crew It may not seem that the Alabama grief can be compared for a moment with the Chesapeake grief, but then you must remember that Americans being now very much stronger than they were then, will not stand as much, are, in short, much touchier." "Then, as to the amount of damages, it is evident that something is expected and will be insisted on over and above payment for the ships actually destroyed, something, in short, by way of compensation for the ships driven from the sea. Grant is reported to have said that he would consider the cost of carrying on the war for one year about the right amount for England to pay, and one hears the same thing in private conversations." Now, such statements as these coming from such a quarter are about the most serious facts that we have had to consider in England since the Trent affair. Let us, at all events, make it perfectly clear to the United States what is the maximum concession which the heartiest English friends of the North would ever think for a moment of advising,—and what part of such demands as these would be resisted with the full, unanimous, and even indignant energy of the whole English nation.
We, for our parts,—and there is, we imagine, a considerable number of Englishmen who would go with us in this, though we can hardly venture to assert that Parliament would give a majority to such a proposal even if made by the Government,— should not feel the slightest hesitation in expressing the most emphatic and frank regret for that miscarriage of our own law which led to the escape of the Alabama, and for any languor or failure of legal judgment which may have been shown (if any such languor or failure of legal judgment can be established), in not afterwards stopping her on the coast of Wales, or arresting her in our colonial ports. That was a miscarriage of law, and it was a miscarriage doubtless more or less due to an unfortunate bias of feeling, an unfortunate partiality, on the part of the ruling classes of England, and it is on quite other grounds, grounds of general international policy (we say nothing about law, which is very doubtful), a precedent of evil omen, the repetition of which we ought heartily to deprecate and prevent. And having admitted thus much, we should feel, of course, that we were bound to accept the logic of the situation, and pay for such part of the losses caused by this act of negligence (that is, as regards the individual depredations of the Alabama herself) as could not be fairly ascribed to the negligence of the American Navy in watching for the Alabama,— Or even, to stretch a point, for all the losses caused by that ship, but not for those of any of her consorts. With regard to the Alabama herself, the circumstances are notorious ; that there is a strong case towards establishing negligence on our part, is patent to the whole country. That is not so with regard to any of her consorts, but we should be quite willing to refer to equitable arbitration, whether in any or all of those cases the executive government had been guilty of clear negligence, and to pay for the losses caused by them if that should be decided against us. We by no means say that the English Parliament Would go so far as this. We are far from asserting as much as that. But we do say that there would be a very strong English party to oppose war, if peace or war depended only on our conceding as much as we have now spoken of, and that we should feel bound to protest against that terrible and immeasurable calamity with all our strength, if we could satisfy America by what seems to us, though a generous, still not an unreasonable concession.
But this we will say, that there is not a party or the zaterials for a party,—barely, we should think, even a group ,
43f individu °is—prepare d to io beyond this. There is not the party or the ghost of a party that would as much as consider the question of apologizing for our recognition of the belligerent rights of the South. There is not in all probability in any society of Englishmen, however Northern in feeling, even a roan here and there who would hear of such a proposition as our
paying as general damages any proportion, however small, of the cost of the American War, on the ground that by recognizing the South we gave substance and hope to the rebellion, or on any other ground which ingenious Senators may hereafter devise, without indignation ; or who would not at once advise war, with all its horrors, rather than submit to dictation so preposterous. We do not doubt,—we speak, as we need hardly say, without any private communication with Mr. Bright,—that Mr. Bright himself would resist such terms as Mr. Sumner proposes and General Grant is said to approve, with positive scorn,—that even he, a Quaker statesman, would rather keep silent than propose to avert war by any compromise so disgraceful. We believe that the people of the United States ought to know our true minds on this matter. We are sure that they can trust us at least for honesty, moderation, and a hearty sympathy with their great cause in the late civil war. And we tell them emphatically that no war ever entered upon by England would be more popular, more heartily waged, more tenaciously prolonged, than a war to resist what we should regard as a piece of pure dictatorial arrogance on the part of the Union, adapted and intended either to humiliate England, or to acquire Canada, or for
both purposes in one. If the United States wish for such a war,—which we sincerely and heartily disbelieve,— they have only to demand reparation on the general principles of Mr. Sumner's speech, and they would meet with a blank refusal, which they could not with dignity accept ; and the end could hardly be anything but war, and a war, moreover, in which England would be united as one man,—in which there would not be a dissentient party, hardly a dissentient voice. The United States ought at least to know this. Their statesmen, misled by the undoubted sympathy of a large majority of our people with the North, and by the disgust which the Southern proclivities of the middle and upper class excited in the masses of the English people, may vainly imagine that rather than go to war England would submit to a great humiliation. That would be a perilous mistake. Many of us would think it no humiliation to admit frankly and deplore publicly the negligence of which the Government had been guilty, and to make any reparation in our power. But anything beyond this would be a public humiliation of ourselves where we feel no humility. We are responsible for the sins of our Government,—of which, however, no section of our people believes the early and not premature acknowledgment of the belligerent rights of the South to have been one. We are no more responsible for the sins of individuals amongst our people than are the United States for those who have sympathized with and egged on the Fenian movement. And before we could be compelled to admit what no fragment of the people believes to be true, and to act upon the admission, the resources of an empire, probably now as rich as America because unexhausted by any recent conflict, much more concentrated, far readier for a great struggle than the United States, nearly if not quite as populous, and containing a much larger class available for the Army and Navy without draining away the springs of wealth than the United States, would have to be used and exhausted,—with what result neither party would be wise in attempting to predict. A huger and more fearful calamity to the world at large it is impossible to conceive than such a war,—except the calamity, which would be greater still, of the loss of sell-respect and the respect of other nations which would be involved in such an event as any mean submission on the part of England to an act of vulgar and ostentatious intimidation by another power. We do not write this because we in the least believe that the United States mean war, but only because we do believe that there is as false an opinion prevalent in America as to what might be extorted from us by a threatening diplomacy, as there was in England nine years ago as to what Southern diplomacy of very much the mine kind could extort from the North. It is important that this error of American opinion should be rectified, or it may lead the President into steps from which he cannot draw back without a loss of self-respect to America, and the inevitable issue of which therefore would be the most fearful event of our century,—a fierce and prolonged war, waged not for a principle, between races of equal power, and of the same blood, language, and religion.
SUPPOSE THE UPPER HOUSE WERE ABOLISHED?
WE have been a little surprised that amidst all the recent discussions in the Upper House upon its own constitution no Peer has been found to suggest its total abolition. Them must be a good many Peers to whom such a proposal, if made from within instead of from without, would be highly acceptable, and who would if it were carried instantly become very much greater personages in the Empire, and we rather wonder that no one of them has ventured to make the proposal. Many of them must be well aware that the popular theory on the subject is a pure delusion, based upon a party tradition, wholly inapplicable to existing circumstances. Up to 1833, no doubt, a willingness to "abolish the Lords" was the sign of an extreme Radical, because those who professed it implied in that short phrase a great many further steps, some of which were decidedly revolutionary. They proposed to abolish the Peerage as well as the House of Lords, thus producing at once a nominal equality, and intended, if that proved insufficient, to force a subdivision of property, after the system now almost universal on the Continent. The experience of the half-century has, however, greatly modified those views, which have again been softened by the slow but visible decay of privilege in all its more offensive forms. It has been found impossible, for example, to abolish titles on the Continent, " society " conceding what the law refuses to acknowledge, as, indeed, society does also in Great Britain. Nothing protects the title of, say, the Marquis of Hartington, except a general sense that it would be slightly snobbish to call him Mr. Cavendish, and the inferior titles are entirely unprotected by law. If Mr. John Smith chooses to call himself Sir John Smith, and can make other people address him as such, he is beyond all penalties, and the extreme rarity of the attempt shows how completely independent these labels are of law. No Act would, we are convinced, extinguish titles, and we doubt whether, except among a few a priori thinkers, there is now much wish to abolish them. The masses of Englishmen rather like to maintain many " orders " of society, the cultivated are beginning to dread the plutocracy rather than the aristocrats, and the dislike to titles, where it exists, tends rather towards a slightly contemptuous indifference than towards either hatred or envy. The Peerage might exist as an order years, perhaps centuries, after it had ceased to posseas legislative power ; and if it did so contrive, there can be no doubt that the extinction of the Upper House would greatly Increase its power. It would gain in great measure what it Is so rapidly losing, a direct and important ehare in the control of great affairs. At present the Peers, being shut up in Ilouse of their own, and having no representative character, are perfectly powerless to resist, or even seriously to modify, the declared will of the nation, A. Tory majority of something like three to one is still compelled to pass household-suffrage Bills, because if it did not, they would in the long run be passed in its despite. If it resists, it has to resist all by itself, with its own strength alone, and the Order has not now strength sufficient for that. The chain between itself and that section of the community which agrees in opinion with it wants a link, and the Peers and County Members are separately defeated. If, on the other hand, the House of Lords were extinct, its prominent members would instantly reappear in the Commons, with all the strength of a representative character added to all the strength derivable from social position. The great landlords, in fact, would be selected to represent the land instead of the lesser landlords, or of their own nephews, and would do it, if not better, at all events with much more direct effect. At least fifty peers could be named who, if they were eligible, would be certain of election by counties ; and the fifty would affect legislation on great subjects far more than the whole body of Lords can at present, because they would supply leaders, nerve, and consistency to the fluid but still powerful mass of opinion, on both sides, which now lacks all three. The link would be repaired, and the Peers would for many years, at all events, resume their old leadership in the politics of the Empire. The gain to the political Peers would be very great, while the non-political Peers would remain what they are now, social magnates of greater or less importance in the " world," in county politics, and in the general hurly-burly of English daily life. They would lose nothing except the right to attend debates, which, now that they have it, they decline to use. For debating purposes the Upper Howe is already reduced to a knot of about thirty men, who reappear for years in every discussion, whatever may be its point. The Peers would gain, decidedly ; but the country? We declare ourselves, as Radicals, very doubtful whether it would gain or lose. Legislation, for one thing, would be very much swifter, more daring, and more strong, the opposition within the Commons being, what it scarcely is now, a full measure of the opposition within the country, perhaps even a little more. The House, representing every class, would be stronger, more dignified, better fitted to exercise that vast, that almost excessive power, as Sovereign Senate, which is day by day accreting to it more rapidly, till its resolutions have almost.
the validity of laws, and its unexpressed feelings the effect of votes. Moreover, representation, besides being wider, would be very much more true. It is a remarkable though explicable fact that the great Peers, particularly those great Peers wigs would have pretty safe seats, are nearer the actual (beservatism of the country than the squires who now assume their place. Lord Derby himself, for example, though not a. precise representative of English Conservatism — his mind being "shot," as it were, with threads, which give a. different and more peculiar impression, threads of aris tocratic and even of gladiator feeling,—is nearer to Conservatism than the gentleman to whom he deputed the task of defeating Mr. Gladstone in South Lancashire, and Lord Salisbury indefinitely more in sympathy with it than Mr. Disraeli. The great Whig element, too, in English Liberalism is now compelled to seek its representatives in the and consequently fails to tell in the true place of power,. —a great loss, if not to the Executive, at least to the representative character of the House. The Cabinet, for example, does. not contain a Whig commoner,—for Mr. Cardwell, though nearly a Whig in politics, is historically like his chief a liberalized Peelite, and Mr. Austin Bruce, though moderate, is still on the whole a Radical. Moreover, be the cause what it may, whether pedigree as they would half believe, or early training as we should think, or the habit of superiority as De Tonguevine would have said, the political Peers are indubitably abler than the average of county members, would in superseding them add most distinctly to the intellectual force of the House. Strike off perhaps five names, and there are not in the Commons thirty county members who are intellectually the equals of the thirty men who constitute for all practical purposes of legislation the House of Lords,—that is to say, theDukes of Argyll, Richmond, Marlborough, Somerset, and Buccleugh; and Lords Derby, Salislrury, Carnarvon, Grey,. Halifax, Cairns, Russell, Granville, Hatherley, Westbury,. Chelmsford, De Grey, Northbrook, Longford, Bedesdale, Clarendon, Monck, Kimberley, DufThrin, Malmesbury, Dalhousie, Houghton, Lyttelton, Lyveden, and Morley. On the other hand, the Peers, if once admitted into the Commons, might acquire too much power. We are not afraid of their Conservatism, for it is, on the whole, less stupid than that of the squires and the cadets whom they would displace, and would be further moderated by actual contact with constituencies; nor are we greatly alarmed by the popular prejudice in favour of a lord. That extends quite as much to the honorary titles, and has seldom proved sufficient to overcome party differences,—witness, for example, as a crucial instance, the defeat of Lord Hartington by Colonel Patten,—but we are afraid of the sort of preferential claim they would put forward to the great offices of the State. They would come in younger than other men ; politics are to them a business ; and partly from those two causes, partly from indifference to official position, they are singularly ready to accept subordinate posts, if only these are rungs in the great ladder. We fear they would take the wind out of the sails of the Commoners a little too much, to the immense injury of a country already injured by the necessity of confining high office theoretically to leas than a thousand persons, and practically to less. than three hundred. The tendency, unless public opinion underwent some very great change, would be to give them the preference, and thus either to place one restraint more on a healthy ambition which is too much restrained already, or to drive aspirants for great office toward, extreme views, as the only views, their rivals could not with any propriety adopt. In Lord Pahnerston's time it was with the utmost difficulty that the Commons retained any great offices at all, and that state of affairs is one liable to recur. On the whole, we incline to fear this evil would at least equalize the gain but then this evil is not one the Peers themselves fear. But, says some amazed county politician, what becomes of that cardinal doctrine of British politics, the necessity of I+ Second Chamber? Well, it suffers the fate of many another political superstition. The doctrine is dead already on the Continent, and but for tradition, would be dead also in EnglandCan anybody point out one single function of the Upper House. other than that of representing Conservative opinion, whicis would not be better performed by a Standing Committee of Revisal elected by the House of Commons itself?
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