The civil war in Brazil still drags, the lion and
the shark not being able to bite each other. The provinces, encouraged by the Fleet, are rebelling one after another ; and Admiral de Mello would be master of the situation, but that President Peixoto, with his army, is posted just beyond reach of a broadside, and that the officers commanding the foreign squadrons in the harbour of Rio have, with the exception of the German, forbidden the bombardment of the capital. Their argument is that such bombardment is useless, and will destroy much English, American, French, and other property, and looks, at first sight, an argument in favour of civilisation ; but is really an argument against the use of ships in war. If an army may shell a besieged town, as the Germans shelled Paris, but a fleet may not, the power of invasion passes to the military States exclusively. We do not see, either, how such interference is consistent with neutrality, or can be distinguished from intervention in favour of the powers that be, which benefit by it so seriously. It is pro- bable that American opinion, which is hostile to Admiral de Mello as a Monarchist, has much to do with the inter- ference; but the precedent would paralyse the United States as against the Spanish-American Powers. What could the Government of Washington do if seriously injured or affronted, except threaten to bombard Rio, or Callao, or Buenos Ayres, or Monte Video ? They would do it, we all know, without the smallest respect for precedents ; and the new law comes to this,—that small States are expected to be philanthropic, but large States are not.
