7 JUNE 1856, Page 14

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

RFIATIONS WITH TILE UNITED STATES.

/a history diLl not teach, beyond contradiction, that nations are as subject as individuals to the prejudices that mislead and the = mons that blind the judgment, silence the conscience, and the pleadings of enlightened self-interest, any slight mis- emderstanding between two great states, in which political power was vested in the body of the people, might be safely trusted to time and cool reflection, and. all fear of an appeal to arms banished. 'Unfortunately, experience tells just the contrary tale. No go- vernments have been more ready to make war on slight pretences then those which a democracy has controlled; nowhere have reason and good feeling been more habitually subordinated to selfish ambition and reckless passion than in democracies. And if President Pierce and his colleagues succeed in embroiling their country with Great Britain, they will only add one more example to a numerous list of such, from which the Absolutist draws his favourite argument that the peace of the world and the interests of mankind are only safe when political power is vested in a few hands, and the hereditary-principle comes in to entail a perpetuity

of responsibility for the conduct of a government. . • It is in vain to put forward optimist views on this subject, or to deny that the maintenance of peace- between Great Britain and the United States is in extreme hazard. We do not, indeed, at- tach vast importance to the harsh indignity put upon Mr. Cramp- ton, except as an indication of the temper and purpose of the American Government. No mere insolence and arrogance of men raised to a position for which they are palpably unfit, and unac- quainted with the courtesies of public life or resolved to violate them, can tempt the English Government to a declaration of war. We can endure the suspension of diplomatic intercourse with the

'United States with as much equanimity as we endured the same calamity in the case of Spain. We shall regret a circumstance that proclaims a hostile feeling on the part of the two Governments; but having done our best to prevent it, we can do no more, and cer- tainly shall not resent it by bombarding New York or Washington. _Nor are we entitled to protest against—however much we may dis- approve of—the President's recognition of the buccaneer Walker ; though of course such a proceeding leaves us at perfect liberty, morally and legally, to take the other side in the Nicaraguan civil war, if civil war it can be called in which a band of foreign adventurers is opposed to a great majority of a nation. Not that any English Minister in his senses would think of doing so, but that President Pierce has removed all ground of complaint that the United States would otherwise have had against such a step. Still, two such steps as the dismissal of a British Minister for an alleged offence for which every rational reparation has been offered, and the acknowledgment of a buccaneer Government of American adventurers in Central America, in direct violation of -the spirit if not the letter of the Bulwer-Clayton treaty, at the same time that a literal adherence to that treaty with an American gloss is demanded of the English Government, constitute a deter- mined attitude of offence, and indicate such a resolve to take law and interpretation into their own hands on the part of the American giovernment, as must damp the spirit of conciliation on our part, and make it necessary for our Government to stand firmly on its rights, and refuse to yield to dictation, bullying, and menace, claims which it has in vain offered to submit to arbitration.

In short, the effect of the conduct of President Pierce and his -colleagues has been to prevent the British Government from re- meding an inch from its strict treaty and natural rights. Thanks 'to the efficiency of our navy and army at this moment, MU dig- nity does not require us to do more than stand perfectly still, and allow the American Government to vent its bad temper or pursue sits personal policy to any result short of infringing upon those rights. We are strong enough to pass insolence and rudeness

disobligingness by in silent contempt : and, beyond relying

• on our own strength to defend ourselves if attacked or injured, 'and to make the aggressor rue his folly, we have the good sense and good feeling of the American nation to counterpoise the ma- lignant policy of its now expiring Government. It will be time to identify the nation with its rulers when they have sanctioned 'the President's policy by a formal vote of the Legislature. Till then, we may hope that the policy is but an election ma- ncenvre on a vaster wale of reckless wickedness than usual. Meanwhile, it becomes our own Government to remember, that in spite of the wishes and efforts of all the wise and good on both sides the Atlantic, war may result from the madness of Pierce and his partisans—and to be prepared for it. They may be sure that the English nation will no more sanc- tion submission to humiliation than they will pardon a rash haste ln appealing to arms in such a quarreL If any means of stopping -the progress of the dispute remain untried, let them be at once .applied. All other means failing, the Government may rely upon ibeing supported by the country in maintaining the honour and interest of England against any foreign power. But they must make it clear that the honour and interest of England are eon- eernecL. It was this conviction that nerved the nation's arm, and made it count blood and treasure as nought in comparison, throughout the war that has just closed. The English people lave not as yet the same strong conviction on the matter in dis- pute with the Government of the United States ; and unless our leading statesmen feel that they have a case which, when fully and clearly stated, will rouse this conviction, they had better let

Central America alone, and leave the United States quietly to be- come the Disunited States, as they certainly will if the policy of buccaneering prevail at Washington.