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would be in the right were it true that England is liberal abroad . But it-is' not true . The alliance that exists is between the Cabinets , and , that of England being subordinated to that of Prance , despotism on the Continent is in no way jeopardised . The 3 > asis of a real international compact does not exist . Such a basis can only be founded on similarity of institutions , on identity- of policy , on sympathy , on the reciprocity of public spirit , and these materials of an
alliance , which abounded when Sir Robert Pe : e : l spoke of Xord Palieehston ' s " cold and reluctant acquiescence , " now foriu no part of the public system in France . Instead of placing , our " cordial and unlimited confidence" in the heart and brain of Fiance , we are colleagues of an Accident , and that Accident thwarts our policy when it cannot direct it . Even the diplomacy of the two Governments has taken diverging courses since the conclusion of peace . In the
Black Sea , on the Danube , in Italy , the policy of Loins ! N " apoleon is not that of the British Cabinet . It is not , then , the tone of the British press that diminishes the good understanding" between the two Governments . That press , if true to its duty , will neither calumniate nor flatter the French Emperor . It will leave his personal character iinassailed , so far as public interests are not concerned ; it will even allow an oblivious charity to cover trie antecedents of the only men whom he can find to serve him as his ministers and
agents . But the domestic dangers of France , created by a spendthrift government , to satisfy a gang of gamblers , or to bribe the class that breeds sedition , can no longer be concealed . We pointed to them while they were yet in the future ; we have lived to find our contemporaries pointing at them now . And if the explanation published on this subject renders it difficult for the French
Government to carry on its system , of economical imposture , to conceal gaps in the public credit which can only lead to national bankruptcy , let the Moniteur be well convinced that to hide the evil-is-to intensify it . Again we say , we cling to the hope of a French alliance , based on natural conditions ; we are unwilling to sever even the limited official
partnership that has been established . We avow the responsibility that attaches to every printed word ; but if there be justice in history , it will never be said that the British press has broken faith with the French people by pointing out the infatuation and the recklessness of the Empire . We have taken a decided part , but it lias not been the part of faction or of levity .
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THE LIBERAL BASIS . Ijt earnest men are asking , as the JWoncoft ' formist says , when the calm of English pph- j tics will be over , it is time that they should prepare a policy . We have already scon too much energy thrown into the waste channels of agitation . The political leaders whom we have denominated Quiotists in their relation to foreign affairs are warranted in dep loring the loss of power resulting from isolated movoments , and from tho enthusiasm of men revolving round particular topics , and never
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dictation of the'North" to the South ; he has refused to set aside the regular working of the ordinary political machinery in Kansas , because that working had been untoward in working for Northern interests . He knows well enough that the same regular working of the American laws ' will ultimately tend to check encroachments , whether from the North or from the South . The breaking down of the Missouri compromise was effected by the South through the supineness
of the : North ; and the Worth , which should blame itself as much as the clever politician Stephen Douglas , will , if it will devote itself actively to the vigorous means of political legislation , be fully able to recover the lost ground . The one essential condition to a fair settlement of the great difficulty of the Union , by the free opinion of the Union , itself , is , that the Government at AVashington should be lifted above faction , and should control affairs neither in a Southern nor in a
Northern spirit , but in an American spirit . No man is likely to allay the asperities of either section of the republic , o ' r'to ' restore . a more steady equilibrium than James
Buchanan . . ¦ ¦ . :- . ¦ : . . " -... ¦ He has obtained the confidence of his countrymen by the share which he had in exposing the smail devices of our'Government , in such instances as the enlistment question . His views with regard to the future are distinct ; and , in the meanwhile , among the best acts of Mr . Pieece ' s administration is the settlement of a question which James Buchanan did much to illustrate—the ques tion of Central America . If our letters from , the
other side of the water are correct , that question has certainly not been settled in a purely Downing-street sense . We have already stated that our Government , after squatting on the island of Ruatan and claiming the possession of it against Honduras , had ceded that very island to the local claimants of the state of Honduras ; a wonderful concession after all the vaunts of "No
surrender ! " But that is not all ; our Ministers claimed an eternal right to protect that immortal state of MIosquito Indians ; a ' nation ' which has gradually dwindled to the vast census of 500 souls , more or less . Well , they have taken a partner in a joint protectorate , the partner being no other than the Government of the United States ; the very ' party' whom ' we' wished to keep out ! We claim some vague extent of territory for our
gipsy proteges ; we have now consented to define their boundaries . We denied the right of Nicaragua to the territory : we have now accepted a stipulation that the state of Nicaragua alone shall have the right to extinguish the right of the Mosquito Indians ! This convention with the United States places our relations with the republic on a simple and satisfactory footing ; but certainly it does not carry ont the boastful policy -which Downing-street professed .
" YANKEE DOODLE" IN DOWNING STREET . It is a cheering reflection for the people of this country , that the conduct of its Government has nad no influence on our relations with the United States . It is humiliating to reflect that wo preserve friendly relations chiefly because the Americans have gone straightforward in their course , the changeful course of our own Government being entirely overridden . We certainly have not
succeeded in procuring the election to he President of a gentleman eminent in joint-stock enterprises ; we have not succeeded in sendi ng to the White House the agent of the Anti-slavery society ; but the American P ? £ » setting aside the extreme factions on Doth Bides , will on Tuoaday next elect a man who will represent at homo tho entire republic , as he has worthily represented it abroad for so many years . We have before explained the grounda on which James Butrate . He has refused to acknowledge the
were " common ! ' The story is not only false but it is' incredible . It was full of inaccuracies ; it described travellers entering the train and alighting in such a manner that they would have started from the point of arrival aud Arrived at the point of departure . It described the train iiv a ; . rapid journey as stopping at the pleasure of duellists ; it * declares such slaughter to be common in Georgia , oblivious of the fact that , if-journeys were commonly so mortal , the population '
Georgia could not last out the exhausfcin « process . In vain , however , should we assure the writer that ^ as "we now knoAv , travellers went over the same line the day after the frightful occurrence and heard nothing of them . . " Of course , " he would say ; " why make a wonderment . about ;' events so usual ? " At first we supposed that the writer was some Moses Primrose whose fellow-passengers had twigged at once his simplicity and liis timidity , and had
cooperated in a solemn hoax ; but a new solution is given of the mystery . Jouk A . BROWS 3 IITU attests his sweeping charge against the Georgians with his proper name ; and the Times , we . believe , is quite correct in saving that he is a respectable person . He has by his own account arrived at the mature age of forty -nine ; he has also
supplied us with some other biographical particulars . His wife had children , "for she was a widow ; " and his own patriotism he attests by the conduct of his step-children . Good faith , mature age , frankness , and social respectability , characterized John Akhow-SMiTir , who is known , iu Liverpool . At a very early stage iu the inquiry the ; Times volunteered the assurance that it had had
evidence of John Ahrowsmitji ' s sanity : the Ti ? nes , therefore , had spontaneously issued its own commission de lunatico in the case . We doubt , however , whether our great contemporary had procured all the evidence on the subject . Had it , may be asked , learned that John Aimo . wsaiiTii was in this country
some fifteen years ago , and that he then , as we believe , had the same story to dispose of ? But he could not have got it into the Times \ he had then no distinguished acquaintance in Liverpool—no illustrious member of Parliament to be go-between for him with the great journal . No popular . Member who is ambitious to be an authority on American
aubjects with bia large American connexions , was willing to be a medium for giving such a story to the Times and the English public . The tale has had one eft ' ect at least : whether it was concocted in " sanity" or in the love of hoaxing , it bas shown tho lengths to which anti-American feeling can stultify the shrewdness oven of the Times . The story might have done mischief , if it had been circulated
two mouths ago . As it is , Yankees will receive it , while they are in the heyday of a successful election , and they will only laugh-But it will fail to do mischief , precisely because the representatives of this country , in Cabinet , Parliament , and the Press , have totally failed to impress their own character upon our relations with the United States . England and America triumph , because English statesmen have failed , ludicrously failed .
These concessions have been made before anew party appeared in the questions between England and America , before a new light was thrown upon the iniquities of the South . An " Eye-witness" lately related , through the Times newspaper , his horrible experiences during a singular railway journey from Mo-con to Augusta , in Georgia . He knew not the names of" the people , he said , for family names are not generally used in America ; so he named the parties A , 13 , C , and so forth . Ho related how the train
stopped m order that the passengers might accomplish duols with each other ; how one man was shot and his body put into tho luggage-van ; how a young lady was bullied by various men in tho presence of others ; and how a child was killed because it cried for its murdered grandfather . And such events
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1044 THE L . E Aj ^^ j ^________ . ____ [ go » 3 ^ , gATTjgpAT ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 1, 1856, page 1044, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2165/page/12/
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