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SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.I

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SPIRIT OF THE PRESS. THB GlINnA AWABD. r The Court, says the Times, has decided against England, fcad obu determined to award the United States a lump sum as damages. We have reason also to believe- that the amount will not be less than two millions or more than three millions sterling. But, in fact, the precise amount of the fine we shall have to pay is not a matter of national ■consequence. It is not about the figures that the country is solicitous. The important point is that the decision of the Arbitrators sentences U8 to mske reparation for the wrong -which the United States have charged us with in. dicting upon them at 'a crisis of peculiar bitterness. "Morally, the difference between payment now, in obedience to the decree of the Court at Geneva, and under the .anodificatioBs of international law agreed upon for the ^guidance of that tribunal, and any payment, if consented to merely for the sake of a quiet life, at the .time when the demand Was first made, and while our view of international law remained still unmodified, is infinite. I At that time compliance would have been a false confession of wrong-doing, which all the world would have been > Untitled to consider dictated by a craven temper setting the gains of peace above national honour. Now we stand clear of any imputation of cowardice, and yet we are able to discharge our conscience of the wrong which, in the feelings of our American kinsmen, if not in reality, this country inflicted upon the Union during the civil war. The amount of the award is, as we have said, of little moment compared with the questions of honour and of moral principle involved, but it is sufficiently important to excite speculation among men of business. The Chancellor of the Exchequer need resort to no extra- ordinary expedients to meet this demand, which can be easily paid out of the assured surplus of the year's revenue. It i., moreover, even decidedly for our advan- tage that the damages for infringement of the New Rules should be assessed high enough to deter neutral Govern- ments from negligence or recklessness in regard to them. It must not be forgotten that we, more than any other nation, have an interest in repreasing the lawless prac- tices of cruisers like the Alabama, and that our commerce has most to fear, in the event of our participation in a European war, from the vessels which might be despatched to do the enemy's work from the neutral ports beyond the Atlantic. The decision of the Arbitrators will as well establish a precedent by which the Americans must feel themselves peculiarly bound, and shew the world that violations of International Law are costly as well as dangerous. The great work, observes the Telegraph, is substantially at an end, and England and America now stand in the position of those who know that a magnificent victory has been won, but who have not yet learned the cost. We emphatically repeat that the victory has been magnificent, although it is England that must pay the bill. In this triumph to the cause of peace and civilisation both nations alike can share. The people of America can scarcely re- joice more than we do at the issue. Technically, they have gained the suit, and we have lost; but it would be the most contemptible of errors to look at the conflict through the eyes of mere lawyers, or to describe the re- ault in the phrases of attorneys. We did nofego to Geneva mainly in the hope that we might win a legal verdict, for we had done much to exclude the possibi. lity of such an issue when we set the seal of the national consent on the rules that were to shape the judgment. We went into Court to attest our readiness to repair any wrong which it might appear we had unwittingly inflicted. We accepted arbi- tration in order that an end might be put to the sense of injustice which existed on the other side of the Atlantic, among men who are our brothers by blood, who speak the same language as ourselves, who are bound to us by the ties of common literature and a common recitation of religious faith. What the nature of the decision should be was felt to be a matter of comparative insignificance. The amount of the damages which we shall be called upon to pay will, no doubt, be far lower than the sums ^rbich have been not a.! in wild and irresponsible telegrams, though it may involve a considerable addition to the Budget of next year. However high the award may appear, it will be small when measured by the great realities of existence, and we must not permit ourselves to be outdone by the people of the United States in the heartiness with which the verdict will be greeted. The Daily News says there is no need to disguise the satisfaction which is felt at the successful conclusion of the Geneva Arbitration. We are as yet in ignorance of the precise terms of the award; but the very fact that & decision has been come to, and the amount of damages fixed, produces a sense of relief. It is a quarrel settled; a lawsuit finisbed; and therefore an anxiety removed. The English public have so completely prepared themselves for a more or less adverse verdict on the main issue; that for some time past the only question has been as to the amount we shall have to pay. The reception of the set- tlement in the United States cannot fail to be satisfactory; indeed, it may well be enthusiastic. The award Ï3, of course, an American victory. It justifies the feeling with which they have always regarded the escape of the Alabama. It establishes the principle they have applied to our conduct. We may, of course, regard the charges of wilful unfriendliness, put forward in their "case," as the arguments of the advocate. Our ready acquiescence in a decision which imposes on us a large money payment is the best disproof of all wilful unfriendliness. We have had plenty of opportunities of letting the matter drop, and we could very well have afforded to do so. The settle- ment was pressed simply from the "lesire to shew a friendly spirit towai"1 the American people, and to cultivate closer relations with tLom it nrjll bg, accented now for the same reasons and in the same spirit. e have as a .uu ."V satisfaction of having done all that can be done for inter- national kindliness and amity; and the sacrifice will be but a small one if it purchases a long and lasting peace between the two foremost nations of the world. THE BERLIN MEETING. The Standard declares that the meeting at Berlin brings out in startling colours the changes which have passed over the Continent within a hundred years. The rulers of the Continent are to be found in the Cabinets of those three Imperial Courts now assembled at Berlin; not one of them had a place amongst the Great Powers of old times, if we except the weakest of them, Austria, and that was in virtue of the German Empire which Austria has re- nounced, not in virtue of her Sclave subjects who now give her importance. The change is marvellous enough. These ceremonies seem intended to remind the world of its magnitude. They are clearly designed to usure us of the power of Prussia, but as to that we hardly required any reminder. Why this manifestation of it ? The general public note that all the fetes in honour of the Emperors partake of a military character; no proceedings of lleichstags, no columns of official journals, no diplo- matic assurances, solve the riddle as to the purpose of these rulers of vast regions, where soldiers are found in countless myriads, but where no active public opinion fore- shadows the course of public alfairs. We have reviews and parades without-end. It is well that these great rulers of the world should not be above the profession which is properly and peculiarly their own; still Europe may be pardoned if it looks somewhat wistfully at this high festival of the warrior chiefs, if It asks itself, what doc. it all portend? CATTLE PLAGUE I YORKSHIRE. The outbreak of catMe plague in the Yorkshire Wolds is a calamity tie effects of which, says the Post, are unfor- tunately not likely to be confined to the neighbourhood in which it has occurred. It has been abundantly proved that the pole-axe alone has any chance against the disease. All attempted remedies have failed utterly, and the virus of the plague seems to have such an exceptionally diffusive power that the treatment of one beast generally means the infection of twenty others. The outbreak of 1865 began at the end of June. In the last week of July there were seven hundred and thirty fresh cases, in the last week of the following February there were very nearly eighteen thousand. By this time the opponents of restric- tive measures in contagiop had become convinced of the necessity for some decisive change of policy, and an Act was passed in February, 1866, providing for compul- sory slaughter, and for compensation to the owners. In the very next week the freshj attacks were only eleven thousand, and the number steadily deasmod, week by week, until in four months the tale 88Dk to seven hun- dred, and by the end of the year the plague had almost disappeared from the country. We believe that, wj.th the experience gained then, with the statutory po* ers which are now possessed by the Privy Council, and with the well-organised system which has been established for the future enforcement of those powers, there is little fear of any future epizootic attaining similar proportions. But it will be necessary for the Government to act promptly and boldly, as they seem to have done in this instance, and not to be cowed by the blatant opposition of the advocates of free trade in infection and of unrestricted liberty of P014 tagion. _0/ ENGLISH AND FRENCH COMJIEKCE. The Echo declares that by the French Navigation Act and the whole policy of which it is a piece, the trade of this country will suffer. But there can be no doubt that the chief loss will fall upon France herself. The United States have persisted in maintaining a navigation law even more stringent than this of France. Yet in spite of it, or rather in consequence of it, her ocean shipping is de, creasing so alarmingly every year, that her Secretary of the Treasury considers its total disappear- ance a matter of calculation. Rich as France bas shewn herself, her resources are unequal to those of the United States, and her people, it may be said without disparagement, are neither so energetio nor so enterprising. Can there be a doubt, then, as to the result of a policy which has proved disastrous to the United States with all their superiority of advantages ? If per- sibted in, it can but lead to the extinction of the marine of France, the decay of her commerce, the decline of her seaports, and the impoverishment of her seafaring popula- tion. But that it will not be persisted in we think there are good grounds for hoping. We can only trust that the hope may be speedily realised. THE TRADE DISPUTES. Referring to the strikes-those now in existence and those threatened-the Globe says .—We thoroughly agree with Mr. Henley that the introdvction of a third party is not the most desirable way of settling difference between workmen and their employers, but before the recourse to arbitrat:-on-which has done much good as a stop- gap can be obviated, the relative position of capital and labour must be defined. We believe Afcat the task of definition, if only it could be epterwd upon in a ;cool temper, would not be found to present insurmountable difficulties. There are the market- prices of the goods product at one end of the scale, and the ourrent value of unskilled labour at the other, aa landmarks, and between them the legitimate demands of the labourer and the capitalist. It ought surely to be no great feat for intelligent and well-meaning men tQ workout the ecuiitabls result to the satisfaction of both fftrtils.

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