Cuba, on grounds infinitely less plausible. Mr. Sumner seems to us, we confess, to be confounding legal considerations of the first importance with totally distinct moral considerations in a manner almost childish, when he makes a preliminary apology by England the first condition of a convention, the sole object of which is to settle whether or not there is the vestige of a ground for asserting that any breach of law has been committed. If he supposes that a nation which heartily believes itself guiltless of a breach of law, even though on one point it may see that there is a fair opening for doubt and discussion, is likely to declare itself guilty simply to conciliate an opponent, he is more sanguine and credulous, or more disposed to believe in English cowardice, than we should have thought possible. As regards Mr. Sumner's argument to that we were guilty of a breach of prove international right, that we did violate the laws of neutrality in our policy towards the South, we need not say much. Some things he said which are fair arguments to lay befor an arbitrator; others he said which seemed to us coloured by prejudices and prepossessions so extraordinary, that we read them twice before we could credit him with having made any statement so monstrous, (such, for instance, as the assertion that the fitting-out of the Alabama was as much the fitting-out of a hostile expedition "as if she had sailed forth from Her Majesty's dockyard"); but the great feature of his speech is that in treating the legal questions he does not even condescend to grapple with any one of the more powerful considerations which tell against him. He ignores the point that the acknowledgment of the fact of belligerency at sea was essential to give the United States the power of blockade in the sense in which they wanted and used it, namely, to stop vessels on the high seas bound to any blockaded port. He ignores the fact that the friends of the North felt this so strongly that some of them urged the recognition of belligerency and proclamation of neutrality on the British Government, in the interests of the North alone. He ignores altogether the question whether the breach of any municipal law like our Foreign Enlistment Act can be rightly made matter of international complaint by a foreign government. He is inconsistent, too, with himself; for while he makes it (not unjustly, as we think) a great charge against us that we were so negligent in executing our own municipal law, in the Alabama case, a great part of his accusations rest on the assumption that we should have proceeded, in violation of that municipal law, to stop vessels accused of being intended for Southern privateers, on wholly inadequate and inadmissible evidence which no judge or jury would have listened to for a moment. In short, Mr. Sumner's legal argument is a very poor ex parte statement of the United States' case, without even a pretence of a judicial discussion. But be that as it may, it is too obvious that ex parte legal arguments, if they were the best in the world, are not reasons why judgment should go for the pleader without ever hearing the case on the other side. Mr. Sumner has nothing to say which has not been heard a hundred times before, though he suppresses a great deal which has also been heard a hundred times before, and which seems to us of much greater weight. But what he does say, instead of being put forward as proof that there is something to discuss, only it would serve, is unfortunately put forward as proof that there is nothing to discuss, which it not only does not prove, but disproves. - for which On the whole, Mr. Sumner's speech impresses us very deeply with the necessity there is for greater candour on both sides of the Atlantic. Those who feel keenly as we do the moral strength of Mr. Sumner's case against England, ought to favour every opportunity for informally expressing that keen sense of regret and mortification which we heartily believe that the great majority of the people of Great Britain and Ireland entertain with regard to the conduct of the ruling class and the Government during the first four years of the Civil War. Those, on the other hand, in America who feel with corresponding keenness the utter unreasonableness of such assumptions as Mr. Sumner's, that England committed in this case a conspicuous breach of international law like the boarding of the Chesapeake, or the raid of 1837 into the territory of the United States, should do their best to restrain such unreasonable and self-contradictory demands as Mr. Sumner's, which seem contrary to all the most obvious principles of law. Of course, if we are decided to have been guilty of a breach of international law, let us by all means apologize; but to assume the very point in the discussion, on the ground that we have certainly been guilty of ill-feeling, is as monstrous as it would be for us to ground our own defence on the plea that America has sympathized openly with the Fenian conspirators. Informal national sins must be expiated, if at all, by informal national expressions of regret. We do not ask the Government of the United States to apologize for the sins of its peo- driven from the continent; one has been bought out; another is struggling desper ately against deposition; a fourth is trying to avert the same fate by concessions and changes in its functions. ple in relation to the Fenian matter. America cannot ask the Government of England to apologize for the sins of its people in relation to the Civil War. If, as we heartily believe, the only even disputable point as regards legal liability, is the negligence of the Government in permitting the escape of the Alabama, how is it possible to ask us to express formal contrition till it is decided whether even then we were not acting strictly within our legal competence? Mr. Sumner's real grievance and the real grievance of the Northern people is, that the English Parliament displayed a hearty sympathy with a cause naturally hateful to it, Just at this instant of change and point of both arrival and departure, we come to the usual decennial enumeration of the country. Its figures, covering the whole term of our troubles, will enable us to know what our losses and gains have been. This solid footing of absolute knowledge will direct our steps on many internal questions, and upon those mightier ones that are heralded in regular steam transit from Canton to San Francisco, and from San Francisco to Phil the Slavery cause, out of some poor jeal-adelphia, and from Philadelphia to Liver ousy of the growing power of the North. pool; in the agitations that seem likely to Well, that is not a breach of international rend Cuba from Spain; in the slow settlelaw. By all means let us do what we can to ment of Mexico, and the gradual gravitation wipe out a blot on English national charac- of the Canadas to a nationality that promises ter which many of us always marvelled at to be continental. For seventy years we and sorrowed over. But, on the other have made an average popular increase of hand, let the more moderate and sensible 34 per cent. each decade. This ratio would statesmen of the United States restrain their give us 42,000,000 population in 1870. sensitive politicians from the undignified And though the war interfered with the inweakness of confounding an act of marvel- crease, it is hardly probable that we shall lously bad taste and bad feeling, though fall below 41,000,000, against 38,000,000 one which unfortunately is too often imitated returned by the last French census, and less by America itself without any formal re- than 30,000,000 in Great Britain. If this proach from us, with an international is so, the rate will establish 54,000,000 in crime. 1880, more than 71,000,000 in 1890, and about 95,000,000 for the twentieth century. From The Philadelphia North American, May 6. FROM its birth this country has lived more in the future than in any present. The great increment of every sort that has marked its career and signalized it beyond other histories has been employed chiefly as an index to other increments, surpassing all previous. To-day this tendency to forecast is more displayed than ever; anticipation runs riot. The causes leading to it in a measure ex'cuse the tendency. We are at last on the grave of slavery, that so long acted as an eccentric agent upon every interest, and therefore on every computation. We have passed the crucial test of a great rebellion, and demonstrated both the homogeneity and permanence of our empire. We have stood up under a debt that was hardly ever paralleled, and it is being lessened. We have crossed the whole continent with railways. The government has been maintained, and the great struggle has only approved it more completely, and shown its efficacy in all departments to equal what we knew of it in some. One foreign government has been And this though our borders should not be enlarged. But our whole history is one of increase. Sq. miles. 815,615 930,928 59,263 237,505 We gained with Louisiana, in 1803 280,425 649,762 We had, when our independence was Making in all. 3,578,393 This is the positive territorial growth since 1786-from 815,615 to 3,578,393 square miles, gained from England, from France, from Spain, from Mexico, from Russia, from all contiguous countries. There is nothing in all this to prove that the greater powergreater in population, in development of all sorts, in communication, in wealth and in prestige- will not attract to itself as strongÎy as the less, and that at the close of the century our population will be less than 100,000,000. In 1810 a calculation of future growth for the future decades of the century was made that has been verified . within three hundred thousand on every oc- move south. It is in order for the pendulum casion, and within less than one hundred to swing toward the equator, and only to thousand in a majority of instances. That touch the pole again on the rebound. estimate placed our census at 31,753,824 in | There are 218,339 square miles populated 1860; it was 31,445,089; at 41,328,432 in waiting that momentum. A Mr. Webster, 1870, 56,450,241 in 1880, 77,266,989 in who is urging immigration to Canada, says 1890, and 100 355,985 in 1900. This esti- that the annual increment to the United mate was further followed to 133,000,000 States is $100,000,000 from immigration in 1930, 177,000,000 in 1940, 236,000,000 alone, and urges the fact as a reason why in 1970, and 283,000,000 in 2000. The the Dominion should struggle for that help. correctness of so much of the calculation as The subject is one that affects our immedihas been tried lends probability to the rest. ate policy and prosperity, but it is not one But the author of this estimate did not al- to be decided with a few words at any time. low for annexations. He calculated only Its result was marked in the memoirs of from ordinary sources of growth. The Talleyrand, now soon to be published, in pending census will be greater by one ex- which he said: traordinary accretion. What will the next be-that in which our tale is estimated at 56,450,241 ? That for which preparation has already been commenced is liable to same strange modifications. Cuba is gaining power over Spain, and if Cuba gains freedom her annexation is certain. The Dominion of Canada is not indissolubly tied to Great Britain; if loosened, she gravitates naturally and necessarily to the great federation. Two years ago, the Dominion had 3,700,000 inhabitants. The increase she has had, if maintained, would give her 14,800,000 residents at the close of the current century 59,200,000 a century hence. Canada has doubled her population every eighteen years since 1800; this country every twenty-three. It may be doubtful whether our proximate growth will first take in this territory, or whether it will again From Good Words. HIC. WHY do you sadly go alone, O fair friend? Are your pigeons flown, ILLE. Nay, no such thing has come to me. "On the side of America Europe must always have her eyes open, and not furnish any pretext for recrimination or reprisal. America is increasing every day. She will become a colossal power, and a moment must arrive when, placed in more easy communication with Europe by means of new discoveries, she will wish to say her word in our affairs, and have a hand in them. Political prudence, therefore, imposes on governments of the old continent the care of scrupulously watching that no pretext shall be offered for such an intervention. The day when America shall plant her foot in Europe, peace and security will be banished for a long time." These considerations lead to grander speculations that can be comprehended. All of them are, however, friendly to us, and the opening of the great railroad and the national enumeration are but integers in a product it dazes the mind to consider. 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