SHIPBUILDERS' POLITICS.
NO man who serves this country well can fairly complain that we are slow to recognize his merits. Rewards and honours are showered ungrudgingly on statesmen and generals, bishops and judges; yet, perhaps, none of them have the same right to be proud of their pensions and titles as " a successful man of business" (we believe that is the approved euphemism), of the spontaneous admiration with which he is regarded by his countrymen. Readiness to postpone one's own interests to one's country is a quality which it is admitted to be very proper that this country should produce to the necessary extent, and which must be well paid for, in order to ensure an adequate supply. It is, nevertheless, a sort of thing that people rather admire than sympathize with. But that kind of intellect which always sees quite clearly its own interest is one with which the ordinary Englishman is in complete har- mony, and the admiration he feels is quite unmixed. There is no gratitude in it, for while the successful merchant has been, doubtless, a good citizen, and has loved his country, he has made his own interests his first object. This is the man for whom nine out of ten Englishmen have a wondrous fellow- feeling. He has done just what they are trying to do, better than they have done it, and they regard him as engi- neers regard Stephenson, and as soldiers regard Wellington. To such an extent is this carried, that we make allowances even for the narrowness of our traders, who commonly see their own interests so very clearly that they can see nothing else, and are blind to everybody's rights but their own. Half our wars have been mercantile wars, and whatever might be the judgment of a lawyer, we doubt whether the moralist would often be able to justify our countrymen. They seem to regard laws which in any way control trade as the acts of a hostile power—things which cannot be defied, but which it is an honourable exploit to baffle or evade,- " Quos opimus Fallere et effugere eat triumphus."
Now, we have sufficient sympathy with the mercantile spirit not to be very extreme to mark what is done amiss, provided only that it is done abroad. We do not want to be inquiring too narrowly into all that Englishmen have done in China and Japan. We concede that smuggling is not smuggling in an Englishman except at home, and are willing to wink as hard as we can when the heads of barbarians are thumped because they do not find us pleasant people to deal with. But really the line should be drawn here. When it comes to eluding our own laws, and then openly glorifying in the victory amid cheers and laughter, we venture to submit that the mercantile spirit is being carried a little too far.
A great deal has been heard from time to time about the Alabama, and at last Mr. Laird, of Birkenhead, has come for- ward to justify the share he took in her equipment. He tells us he is " not ashamed to acknowledge that some of his family have had to do with her." There can be no doubt that the equipment of that vessel was an. evasion of our law. The Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819 was intended to prevent the fitting out of vessels in our ports. Of that there can be no doubt, and the object of the American Act of 1818 was similar. It was soon perceived by some of the smart traders of the States that the Act did not prohibit in terms the building of a ship, so they set about eluding it in this way. They built a ship ; they put her armament in her as cargo, and sailed to a belligerent port, where the crew was discharged. Then the crew was re-enlisted, the guns were hoisted out of the hold, the captain's commission was read, and she commenced the career of a ship-of-war. This idea was decidedly clever, but we regret to say that the Supreme Court of the United States took away her prizes and restored them to the original owners, on the ground that it was a mere evasion of the Act—a proceeding in no part of which was there "anything resembling a commercial adventure." It was therefore obvious that Mr. Laird or " his family," or those with, whom they " had to do," must go a step further, and accordingly they acted the old Baltimore trick over again, with this difference, that they sent the Alabama not to a belligerent but a neutral port, and sent her armament, not m her hold, but in a different bottom altogether. As, how- ever, the Alabama does not let her prizes come into an English , port, but persistently burns them after the fashion of pirates, there is not much chance that the success of this dodge—for it is nothing better—will be tested by the judgment of a court of law. But even if lawyers should think that this contrivance could not be brought within the letter of the law, there can be no doubt that it was an evasion of its spirit. Mr. Laird, or his family, or those with whom they " had to do," did deliberately set themselves to evade the laws of this country, and they are " not ashamed " of it. But Mr. Laird has, in his own opinion, good reason for his self-complacency. The Attorney-General and Lord Palmer- ston have admitted that when the Alabama sailed they had no evidence that her armament was to accompany her in another vessel. All the evidence against her was that of a sailor, named Passmore, who said he was enlisted by her cap- tain to serve against the Confederates, and, says Mr. Laird, Passmore perjured himself. Well, let it be so. There was no evidence that a breach, or oven an evasion, of the law was contemplated ; but does Mr. Laird imagine that that is a jus- tification of his conduct ? Suppose a man were to commit a fraud under such circumstances that no sufficient evidence against him could be procured, and that it was difficult to show that he had broken the letter of the criminal law, and he were in consequence acquitted, would any one, in case addi- tional evidence were discovered after the trial, hesitate to call the man a cheat because he was safe from punishment ? If we could not undertake to say that there was an intention to evade the Foreign Enlistment Act before the Alabama sailed, we know it now. But Mr. Laird seems to think that if a man sets himself to evade a mere positive law, and, moreover, does it so cleverly that the Government cannot even get evi- dence to try the question, whether he has, or has not, suc- ceeded in evading without breaking it, ho has done a very spirited and noble action, and that all his countrymen ought to sympathize with his proceedings. If this is all the respeot Mr. Laird has for law, with what consistency does he enforce it on the ignorant and needy ? And this gentleman is a legis- lator, and is "not ashamed." Alas! when a man has begun to draw these very fine legal distinctions, the absence of shame is no longer a proof of innocence. What was simplicity in Adam before he had partaken of the fruit of the tree of the know- ledge of good and evil, afterwards would have been sheer immodesty. The conduct of Mr. Laird's " family," or of those with whom "they have to do," is precisely the same in the ease of these rams which are now building in the Mersey. If the equipment of those vessels with iron plates for defensive, and iron beaks for offensive, warfare is, as they say, no breaoh of the Foreign Enlistment Act, why do they so carefully hide the evidence that they are intended for a belligerent ? We say, hide the evidence; for in the face of tl.e indignation manifested by the Confederate organs on both sides of the Atlantic, we presume no honest man will venture to say that he believes they have any other destination. If the builders are so certain that the equipment is lawful, why arc they so anxious to have a second string to their bow ? When a man refuses to receive goods over ten pounds in value on the ground that they are not equal to sample, but at the same time takes his stand on the technical defence that there is no written contract, all men know that nine times out of ten the substantial defence is a mere subterfuge, by which he hides from himself the immorality of his conduct. If the Messrs. Laird were really unwilling to evade the law, they would openly avow the destination of the rams. But they prudently keep the difficulty of obtaining evidence in reserve because they know they are breaking the spirit of the Act, and fear that all their caution may not have availed to elude its letter. Mr. Laird, however, is not atom among our legislators. He has another ship-building colleague who shares his feel- ings. Mr. W. S. Lindsay denies, indeed, that he or his firm have entered into any dealings with the agents of Mr. Davis ; but he scarcely conceals his sympathy with those who do. He even complains because we ship " munitions of war to a fabu- lous extent" to the North, while we refuse to supply ships to the South. It does not seem to enter into his mind that the one act is unquestionably legal, and is admitted on all hands throughout Europe to give a belligerent no ground of com- plaint, while the other is possibly, not to say probably, illegal, and would most certainly be regarded by ourselves as a lawful eases Belli, whether we chose to avail ourselves of it or not. Besides, do the Confederates get no munitions of war from us? Do not they say that they run the blockade to such an extent that it is a mere paper blockade, and what, pray, do all these vessels carry but munitions of war? Of course, the North reaps the advantage of its naval superiority. So did we in the kussian war. But if the States had lot an Alabama and her crew meet a Russian Captain at the Azores, and another American vessel bring him guns and powder, how should we have received the explanation that they did it to preserve their neutrality ; they supplied us with munitions of war, so they must supply the Russians with something—ships, for instance, which could be made available for warfare with- out running the blockade. The sorrowful fact is, that these arc a set of mere flimsy pretexts. Messrs. Laird and Lindsay have strong partizan feelings and a certain body of sympa- thizers. They are not numerous enough to obtain power, and declare war, or, if they prefer the phrase, procure intervention against the North. They are not numerous enough to repeal the Foreign Enlistment Act, and so produce war. But they hope to effect this result by evading it. They know that some few would rejoice ; they know that many more, who cannot con- scientiously support them, would not be displeased at a war which they could persuade themselves was forced on them ; and they reckon, moreover, on the unfailing pugnacity of their countrymen. We do not believe that they will succeed; but of this they may rest assured, that a war into which half the population is dragged against its will, and a still larger part reluctantly, would become unpopular as soon as the burdens which it would entail began to press, and that public indig- nation would fall on those who, not by open dealing, but by tricks and contrivances, had involved England in a policy which, as a nation, she repudiated and condemned.
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