THE IRONCLADS IN THE MERSEY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XXI, Issue 1188, 26 January 1864, Page 2

THE IRONCLADS IN THE MERSEY.

The observations offered by the Attorney-General at Richmond on the subject of the ironclads in the Mersey will be read with the deepest attention. We cannot discover, nor should we perhaps expect, any confident exposition of the law,, in these remarks, but, as elucidating the general policy of the Government in this important proceeding, they will be weighed and scrutinized with peculiar interest. It is impossible to deny that much perplexity is felt throughout the country on the question at issue. We all wish for a strict and impartial administration of the law, be it what it may, but we do not wish to see the law strained in favour or in prejudice of either Federals or Confederates. We feel, beyond a doubt, that if the dispatch of such vessels as the Alabama from a neutral port is really consistent with the law of nations it concerns us very closely to get that law changed, but it also concerns us no less to see that justice is done to everybody by the law as it stands. Upon the whole, the words of the AttorneyGeneral are calculated to set the public mind at ease. We explained the other day that the case of these famous vessels would involve two distinct questions, one of the law and the other of evidence. Now, it is clear from Sir Roundell Palmer's speech that the great difficulties encountered by Government in dealing with this matter have arisen on the question of evidence, and not on the question of law. Ministers have not been doubting whether these steamers, if destined for the same service as the Alabama, could be lawfully dispatched, but whether this suspected destination could be conclusively proved against them. In this case we say that the opinion of the country will be with the Government. If our shipbuilders are not standing upon their rights as established by the law, but relying upon their ability to evade the law by artifice, they will obtain no sympathy. It would have been an unfortunate and perilous proceeding if the vessels now lying in the Mersey had been detained i by any strained or unreasonable interpretation of the law, but if the spirit and intent of the law are clear, few will be found to deny that there is suspicion enough in the case before us to justify the resolution of Government in reserving it for trial.

Sir Roundell Palmer, then, tells us in the plainest language that the Government of a neutral nation cannot, consistently with its neutrality, "suffer warlike expeditions and ships of war to he prepared and fitted out in its harbours." This is manifest reason. "We all know," he continued, "as a matter of fact, that the Confederate States have endeavored to some extent to make this country the basis of their maritime operations." That, also, is true. The Alabama was so far prepared and fitted out for service in British waters that she was able to act against an enemy without repairing to any port of her own country for equipment and commission. All that she did not actually get in a British harbor she got outside by stratagem and evasion, and she did, in fact, represent a " warlike expedition" dispatched from territories which were not the proper territories of the belligerent. The AttorneyGeneral goes on to tell us, not indeed that he is confident of the practical efficacy of our laws against such proceedings, but that he has no doubt whatever of their intent and spirit. "We have got a law," says he, " which may or may not be easy to construe, but which certainly was intended to prevent these things. Unless, therefore, the law has been imperfectly framed, it would be found applicable to the transactions now suspected to be pen'ding, but whether these suspicions can be developed into proofs is another question. Here Sir Eoundell can only remind us of " the great difficulty of bringing the law to bear by complete and conclusive evidence in cases of this kind, " where every artifice is used for the purpose of disguise and evasion but at the same time he bespeaks our support for the efforts of Government in endeavoring to put the law into force. If this is the whole state of the case, that support will not be wanting. If the law is clear against such expeditions as that of the Alabama, and all that is obscure is the real destination of these Mersey ironclads for the same service, the public will not be slow to admit that the suspicions were strong enough to warrant their detention' until trial had taken place.

We should be a great deal more puzzled in the matter except for the precedent of the Alabama. The ease is certainly not to be prejudged, but it would be affectation to deny that these vessels in the Mersey are reasonably suspected of a similar destination and character. Not to speak of the absence of satisfactory evidence to the contrary, which, if it existed, we might think would be most easily producible, we find the organs of the Southern belligerents actually threatening us with the resentment o£ the Confederates for stopping them. Those who ought to know best make no disguise of their information now that it can do apparently no harm. It does not follow, even if this presumed destination be indeed the real one, that the builders of the steamers are immediately concerned in it, but it does follow, from the example of the Alabama, that the transaction would be ultimately such as we are called upon to prevent. We know, or may reasonably infer from that example, that even if the delivery of the vessels from the hands of the builders to those of the purchasers could be lawfully managed, the illegality of the business would then immediately commence. When the Alabama appeared at sea as a belligerent cruiser she must of necessity have been fitted out for war either by neutrals or by belligerents from neutral territory. It is quite certain that she never received her legitimate equipment or commission in the ports of the Confederate Government. She was the produce of trickery and evasion. We cannot say how, where, or by what instalments her equipment was furnished, but we can say that she did not leave our ports in the character or fashion of an honest vessel. As the Attorney-General put it, it was an " escape," and such escapes are exactly the things which we ought to prevent.

Government has now, at any rate, prevented a like escape in the case of these two celebrated iron-clads, but it has done so, as Sir Houmlell's speech shows, only after grave doubts and difficulties. There is not a doubt, we are glad to find, about the spirit and design of our own laws. That is a great point in the matter, for even failure will not be discreditable if the attempt to bring the law to bear has been founded on its obvious intent, and justified by irresistible suspicion. There is, however, a doubt about the result, partly from the words in which the la«" is expressed, but principally from the difficulty of obtaining conclusive evidence in a case admitting of infinite evasions. But the Attorney-General reckons upon reasonable consideration from the public. lie thinks that if the case should fail people will see that Government has done its best to enforce what is really believed to be the law. He tells us, further, that the Americans have done as much for others as they are now expecting us to do for them, and that they never, indeed, showed the unwillingness to act when urged to such interference, Whenever they were informed that a belligerent power was contriving the equipment of a ship of war in their ports, they were desirous of preventing it, but they found, Sir Roundcll adds, the difficulties in the way of such a proceeding. We can only say, in conclusion, that if this is the state of the law, it is unsatisfactory in the extreme. If it is really held both in America and England that the equipment of ships of war in neutral waters for the service of belligerents is unlawful, and if both countries, nevertheless, find the utmost difficulty in bringing the law to bear, the sooner the machinery is improved the better. There is a right and a wrong in such matters. What is right should be done openly and without disguise, but no loophole should be left for the covert accomplishment of what is admitted to be wrong.—Times, Oct. 1".