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SATURDAY, AUGUST 7,1852.
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Bullitt Mnira.
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There is nothing so revolutionary, becau...
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THE NEW AMERICAN "DIFFICULTY." The diffi...
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WHIGGISM IN THE MAIN SEWER. How often do...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Ar01406
Ar01400
Saturday, August 7,1852.
SATURDAY , AUGUST 7 , 1852 .
Bullitt Mnira.
_Bullitt _Mnira .
There Is Nothing So Revolutionary, Becau...
There is nothing so revolutionary , because there ia nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —De . _Aenoid .
The New American "Difficulty." The Diffi...
THE NEW AMERICAN " DIFFICULTY . " The difficulties involved in the controversy between the American and British Governments , respecting the fisheries of ] _Sorfch America , are hy no means limited to the immediate question at _lBSue _, but they lie behind , especially in the circumstances under which the American Government is placed . The question is immediately brought into activity b y a circular from Sir John Pakington , Queen Victoria ' s Secretary of State for the Colonies , addressed to the Governors of the . North American colonies in the month of May last ,
notifying that the colonists will not be forbidden from offering bounties for the extension of the fishery , and that a small naval force of steamers will be sent to protect the British fisheries against the intrusion of foreign vessels , especially the encroachments of the fishing vessels of the United States upon those waters from which they were excluded by the terms of the convention of 1818 . In both these steps , it appears to us , Sir John
Pakington is only acting according to right and duty . Although the allowance of bounty is in itself an absurd plan of maintaining a trade , still it may be rendered necessary by a correlative absurdity in a rival ; and , at all events , it is a subject entirel y within the choice and authority of the colonies _themselvoa . Again , so long as the treaty with the United States is unrevoked , the colonists have a right to call upon this Government for its enforcement . And there is
no doubt that the treaty has been violated by the Americans . At the end of June an American fishing vessel , the Coral , belonging to Machias , in Maine entered the Bay of Fundy , was seized by the Queen ' s cutter Netley , carried into the port of St . John ' s , New Brunswick , and delivered over to the Court of Admiralty . The controversy , therefore , exists both in correspondence and in action .
The specific points upon which tho dispute turns is this : —Tiio _English maintain , and the Americans admit , that American vessels aro excluded from approaching the English limit within three miles ; but the English maintain that the limit is to be reckoned , in respect of bays , from the lino connecting tho headlands ; whereas , the Americans insist that it is to be reckoned from the shore . The American position cannot bo maintained for a single instant by any logical construction of the treaty . Tho first article of the convention between tho United States nnd
Great Britain , concluded on the 20 th October , 1818 , was intended to settle tho very difference now in agitation , and it stipulates mutual concessions between tho inhabitants of the United States and the subjects of his Britannic Majesty . The article of the convention specifically concedes to tho United States permission to fish off the ; Southern coast of Labrador , with certain islands and straits , and to fish , and also to land feir the purpose of curing fish , on tho southern coast of _Newfoundland within specified limits , so long as that part of thc coast should not be ; settled ; the landing to be afterwards unlawful " without
previous agreement for such purpose , with the ; inhabitants , proprietors , or _posscsson _* of the ground . " And "the United States hereby renounce ;) for over any liberty heretofore enjoyed or claimed by tho inhabitants thereof , to take , thy , or cure fish on or within three ; murine miles of any coasts , bays , creeks , or harbours of his Britannic Majesty ' s dominions in America not included within tbe above-mentioned limits . " H is evident , from these terms , that the American proposal to reckon the three miles from the coast or shore is excluded , since " coasts , bays , creeks , or harbours , " must bo taken distinctively and not
The New American "Difficulty." The Diffi...
synonymously ; and it is equally evident that three miles from a bay does not mean three miles from the bottom of a bay , or any part of a bay , but three miles from the whole hay , that is , from the entrance thereof . Indeed , Mr . Webster admits that such is " the strict and rigid construction" of this article , and he treats so large a concession to England as being , undoubtedly , " an oversight" in the convention of 1818 . As an oversight it would be a very fair subject for fresh
negociation , but it cannot be over-ridden by aggressive presumption ; and , notwithstanding the general disposition in the United States to burst with indignation at the conduct of England , there is also a disposition to admit that the American title is by ho means perfect . The New York Herald ridictdes the notion of enforcing the American rights— " We shall have no war yet awhile concerning cod-fish or mackerel . Peace is preferable to fish . "
It is not certain , however , whether American statesmen _^ jill be allowed to take their choice so easil y _between peace and fish , or whether they will be able to follow without difficulty the dictates of their own _intelligence . The case looks simple enough on our side , but it is complex enough in all conscience on the American side . We have but half of it before us , when we have only the letter of the convention , and the claims of the colonial fishermen . The very reason why the colonists complain , is the reason why
American officials have a difficulty in holding back . The men who make the encroachment cannot be disregarded by their own _Government As the oldest state in the Union , Massaehusets enjoys much influence . The interests invested in the fishing trade are not limited to the rough sailors who carry out the aggression , but are mainly embodied in the capitalists of Salem , and the other coast towns—persons of no small influence in their states . Even the fishers have
votes ; and a cod fish , it may be said , presides as a prcesens divus over the State legislature ; a figure of that important fish being suspended above the council in its sittings . Cod and mackerel , therefore , go for something in the state of _Maaaachusets—nay , beyond that state . _Themistocles ruled Athens , but his wife ruled Themistocles , and their little boy ruled her : so it may be said that Massaehusets influences the Union , and that Cod and Mackerel have weight with Massaehusets .
Moreover , the period of the presidential election approaches , and candidates may not only find it necessary to show that they have a due regard to the long-shore men of that extensive coast , but that they do not truckle to monarchical England , when republican interests are at stake . Furthermore , the American navy draws its recruits , in great part , from the coast in question ;
and if there should bo any breach with England , the vessels will probably be manned by the very men who are now making the encroachment , and who will come to avenge the rights of the republic and their own private grudge . Some of them , too , although residents of the Union , are British born . Large sums of American money aro invested in the trade . The vessels engaged it it are of considerable size . Its schooners aro
often as big as little ships , well fitted , and built for Heetneas . Competing with each other and with foreign fishers , they naturally seek the best fields -, and there is something exasperating to the enterprising sailor , as free as tin ; _winels and waves around him , when he is told that he must not go tot ) near thc feeble fisher of the English colonies , because somo lawyer restriction , written on the waves , is to withhold him . Te > him , with a shoal of fish in sight , such technicalities are vexatious nonsense , and in he must go . Tho Yankee will always go a-heael ; but when he is
ruddy with the daily braving of the winds anel waters , when his arm has grown stronger than the current , antl his voice can shout down tho storm , — and when tho black-coated lawyer rises , like some pedantic marine dovil , or the . Neptune of tho line out of his place , anel tells him that lie " cannot go em , " - —the irresistible impulse mast bo , tt ) bear down upon tht ; saiel pedantic devil , and go slick over hint . And where tho republican ge > e : s , his ( _iiovcrniucnt must follow . It will not serve our interests in any degree to blink these difficulties , which press upon tho officials on the other side .
A cast ; , indeed , is conceivable ) , in which tho relation of tho two countries would bo so much altered , that no difficulty would exist in this spe-
The New American "Difficulty." The Diffi...
cific dispute . If the Governments of the two countries understood the wants and the wishes of their respective peoples , —if th ey thoroughly understood the mutual interests of two nations that ought to be champions of libert y in the world , —if thatmutual understanding were frankly and freely expressed in all the relations of diplo . mSacy , So freely that each should have sufficient grounds thoroughly to trust the honest y and good will of the other , —then no particular point of dispute could be a matter of difficulty between
two great nations . If the English Government could persuade the American people that the State of England is as much the friend of America as it is the interest of the English people to be then even the sailors of Massaehusets mi ght _^ without difficulty , be persuaded that it would be * wise and noble on their part to make concessions for a just and generous friend . On the other hand , if the alliance of the great republic had been cultivated b y the English people as it ought to have been in times past , —if England had
always maintained a noble and independent bearing throughout , on questions of the kind , then it might have been possible for England , by arrangements with her own colonists , to make some concession , even against the letter of the law , on behalf of a generous rival . We find , therefore , as the ultimate conclusion , that the real difficulty of the case lies in the want of that thorough understanding between the two Governments of Washington and _Downing-street , which is on every account so essential to the welfare of
the two States whose public affairs are entrusted to those Governments . The want suggests the remedy . If the great Republic be approached by our public servants on the footing of the reciprocal affection due to our consanguinity , our common institutions , our common interests , and our common duty to mankind , then a paltry dispute about fish would merge in the larger questions of alliance , and might safely be left to the spirit of that majestic friendship . But to treat this position , which is only one amongst the wholly new positions of the political world throughout both its hemispheres , we need that great desideratum of the day , —a strong Minister
Whiggism In The Main Sewer. How Often Do...
WHIGGISM IN THE MAIN SEWER . How often does that which seems to us now the most grievous of misfortunes become by time a source of congratulation ! How often do we execrate an obstruction which exasperates our impatience , and afterwards bless it for preventing us from doing that which we ought not to have done , or which we should only have done with imperfect knowledge and skill . In this profound
view , the Metropolitan Commission of Sewers , which is , with respect to its composition and professed objects , so execrable an obstruction , becomes a sort of blessing . Its authors , indeed , are not to havo much credit for any angelic intent or power -. they are like tho vermin which , with the most grovelling appetites , unconsciously perform a useful service for higher species ; but the carrion crow lias its value , and the dog of Cairo ia recognised as a despised benefactor .
Speaking of it collectively , the commission is altogether contemptible . It cannot do what it was appointed to do , but only that which is tho unimportant incident of its existence . It was appointed , on January , 1849 , for the purpose o _^ " accomplishing a system of general drainage ;' but it has not demo that ; it has scarcely broken ground , anel will not be able to accomplish anything of the sort . It was appointed , not " to attend tei mere ordinary routine matters" or detail ; but it has _e-emlineu itself to local efforts . It
tried to _ge _^ t up a plan , but could not find one ; _,-and at last , em the third stage of its existence , it eliel compile a sort of compromise between the old plans of draining and the new . It wanted a _lonn for the purpose , but it could neit give security . It asked Ceivernment for the needful powers , but could only get a promise—still unfulfilled . _^ J '' has been successively torn by internal dissensions , — -j ------ "j » _.... ~» „ .
dismembered by ( _Government , and re-eompow _" ' thrice ; but always kept in a stale of uncertainty and feebleness . Jnconmetent te ) fulfil its mission , mistrusted by tho public , and hy nioiioy-lewlers —mistrusted , lil < e an ill-conditioned child , by its own parents—defied b y parishes , reviled by _reactionaries , reproaehotf by progressionists , it lH now analyzed b y itself , and stands confessed as thc moat delusive and impotent of _organs 0 ' 1 humbugs—the paltriest twig of tho widelybranching _organised hypocrisy .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 7, 1852, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_07081852/page/14/
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