WHAT WAR WITH AMERICA WOULD MEAN.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume I, Issue 30, 27 August 1869, Page 3

WHAT WAR WITH AMERICA WOULD MEAN.

The ' Spectator ' concludes an able article on the prospects of war with America as follows: forced into this horrible war wo aid and could stop at nothing; would and could rally in Virginia the men of the 'lost cause ' behind a well appointed European army, supported by a population north and south, in Canada as well as in Virginia, which would know that in her victory alone could their security be found. The Blacks ? Are we an enslaving power, or is the Indian constitution intolerable to colored men? Even then, when this had been attempted, and the Union was assailed on two sides, from North and South, in each direction by four millions of men rallying round that hardest of kernels, a British army, we should have exerted but one-fifth of the strength we displayed in the revolutionary war, when, with Ireland included, we were but fifteen millions. "We are twenty now without Ireland. "We had then a million of men on foot, and drove through Spain a soldier who wielded, when the war began, resources a in men even greater than those at the disposal of General Grant. Our finances ? A debt double that of America—that is an addition of 300 millions to our debt—would leave us where the Union is now, for she pays double interest on her loans. In 1815, for every pound an Englishman received he paid seven shillings and sixpence to the State. He now pays 2s. - The difference alone would yield 120 millions a year—that is support the war without incurring debt.. But then our commerce ? There is no saying what resources thirty millions of Anglo-Saxons may find in their energy and patriotism; but we are Anglo-1 Saxons also, and at first all naval advantages would be on our side. The j Americans are deceived by Parliamentary talk. There is no fleet in existence j which could stand three months before our own. Our merchant navy outnumbers that of the world, in combination, and earth itself is but a coaling station for Great Britain. ,

From Heligoland to Hong Kong, everywhere we have harbors, docks, coals, cannon. Our sailors are the same in race, in training, in courage, as the men • who followed Farragut; our officers are the same as the men who blockaded the South ; our vessels the result of a competition to which America has been -but a party. Why should we be defeated any more than our cousins ? Is it not, at all events, possible, that after slaughter and ruin, such as might make devils wince, we should emerge- for the moment masters of the sea," with our commerce as secure as at present, and our maritime prestige higher than ever? Look at it how we will, war between America and England is mere destruction, mere loss, a civil war in which the only possible gainers are the enemies of both; but why in that contest of suicides should we not be at least the last to perish? Because the Union is so large? Compared with the territories of Queen Victoria it is a speck on the earth's surface. That sentence is nonsensical, we acknowledge, but it is true, and is as sensible as the argument it refutes. In war eo ueentration is ever? - thing, not dispersion, and we have the - population of the entire North eonc3ntrated in a territory less extens ve than Pennsylvania and" New York. Tae policy which crushed the .South cannot be applied to us, for when wo had lost the lives the South has lost, all we should feel would be that our existing emigration had been diverted to an unforeseen purpose. There is something shocking to ourselves in the mere use of such an argument, but the war against which we use it would be more shocking still—a war between equals, between brothers, ■ a civil war spread over, earth, a war in which every incident of slaughter would have the moral effect of massacre, a war in jwhich victory on either side would be sheer loss, a war without a, limit or conceivable end. We could gain nothing by the war, even if we triumphed, and America nothing, for Canada is not worth a doubled debt; while if we lose, wn lose only Canada, and America, if she loses, loses the unity she has spent so much of blood and treasure to preserve. There never was such an act of lunacy as such a war would be, yet it is such a war that speeches like that of Mr. Sumner would force on."