Debate in the British Parliament on American Affairs.
After the Queen's address had been moved in the House of Lords, the Earl of Derby, after speaking on home and foreign topics generally, said: It is impossible that every one must not earnestly desire any step to be taken that may lead to a possibility of reconciliation, or to a termination of the war. At the same time, I am not one in the least disposed to move from the position of neutrality professed, and, I hope, maintained, by Her Majesty's Government; but I confess I look with great anxiety, and no little apprehension, to some symptoms which appear to me to show that that neutrality has not been received by the party to whom, unquestionably, it has been most favorable with that good will and gratitude to which I think it was fairly entitled. [Hear, hear.] I do not now refer to expressions published in Federal newspapers, or made use of by individuals, or to language in dispatches of an official character addressed to authorities in America with respect to this country, which, under ordinary circumstances, could hardly be regarded as otherwise than provocation of hostility; but to two measures which have received the sanction of the Senate of the United States--one for giving notice of the termination of the Treaty of Reciprocity with Canada, and the other for giving the still more important notice for the termination of that treaty, by which the force on the lakes is restrained and limited. Of these two measures it is impossible not to say that they are adopted in a spirit of hostility to this country.-- [Hear, hear.] One of them throws out open questions of the most delicate and difficult character.The American people have derived, as they do not deny, great commercial advantages from the Reciprocity treaty, and its termination is advocated only on the avowed ground that Canada derives still greater advantages. One effect of the termination of that treaty would be, if I am not mistaken, that the whole of the complicated question of the fisheries, from the settlement of which the United States have derived incalculable advantage, would at once be thrown open. [Hear, hear.] I am old enough to remember what serious complications and difficulties questions connected with the fisheries occasioned, and how near to the point of war they led this country and the United States; and now all these questions are gratuitously, and, apparently, without the slightest reason, thrown open, at the risk and danger of war — than which nothing could be more deplorable — between this country and the United States. [Hear, hear.]
It is not a little significant, too, that at the same time when the abrogation of this commercial treaty lays open all these points of danger and difficulty, there is another step taken to abrogate another treaty. For a long period, the lakes have served as the means of peaceful and profitable commerce between the two countries lying alongside each other; but I can recollect a period in the late American war when there was a race of ship-building on the two sides of the lakes, and when the party obtaining the supremacy in that matter gained the control of the lakes. [Hear, hear.] That state of things was put an end to by the treaty; but now America is the party who, without the slightest provocation or ground, breaks through the treaty and declares an intention of increasing its force on the lakes, thus rendering it necessary on the part of this country to take corresponding measures. [Hear, hear.] I do not ask the Government what steps they have taken, but I do say this: that they will be deeply responsible if they are not awake to the peril in which the country is placed by these two acts of the American Government, followed up by an intention to employ a preponderating force on the lakes. That force can only be for aggression; for to speak of an attack by Canada upon the United States is to speak of a physical impossibility.--Canada has a long frontier, peculiarly open to aggression, being accessible by water as by land; and unless you have a preponderating power on the lakes — but, above all, if you allow the neighboring Power to have a preponderating force there — you place Canada at the disposal of the United States. [Hear, hear.]--Under these circumstances, I see, with additional satisfaction, the announcement of a contemplated important step. I mean the proposed federation of the British American provinces. [Hear, hear.] I hope I may regard that federation as a measure tending to constitute a Power strong enough, with the aid of this country.--which I trust may never be withdrawn from those provinces,--to acquire an importance which separately they could not obtain. [Hear, hear.]--If I saw in this federation a desire to separate from this country I should think it a matter of much more doubtful policy and advantage; but I perceive, with satisfaction, that no such wish is entertained.
Lord Granville, on behalf of the Government, said:
‘ With regard to our relations with the United States, I think it is desirable that, now or at some future time, your Lordships should hear some statement from my noble friend (Earl Russell).--Meanwhile, it should be remembered that if, in the instances alluded to by the noble Earl, the people of the United States have shown some irritation, there is no doubt they have had some cause for irritation arising out of the Confederate raids across the frontier. Ample time, however, remains for friendly negotiation between the two Governments.
’ Lord Russell said, in reference to Lord Daley's allusion to American affairs:
The next question is a very difficult one, which is the subject of constant and almost daily disputes and controversies, and it is one which I would be indisposed to enlarge upon were it not that the noble Earl had hardly done justice to the parties in this contest. He had not sufficiently allowed for the irritation which prevails in the United States. Now, what I think is the injustice of the Government of the United States with regard to this country is that they seem to expect not only that we should do all that the law of nations demand, and that the municipal laws of this country allow us to do, but that we should altogether prevent all aid from being given to their enemies, the Confederate States. Now, Her Majesty's Government have used, from time to time, every means in their power to prevent any one from using this country as a basis of operations against the United States of America, with which we are in peaceful relation; but, at the same time, it has been impossible to prevent acts which cause — and I think naturally cause — great irritation in America. We have had ships fitted out here which have been afterward sent to a great distance, and have there received their arms and ammunition, and have been used for the purpose of war against the United States.
We had in our hands correspondence showing that Confederate agents were constantly employed in purchasing ships in this country, which were afterward sent to France, and thence to other stations, to be fitted out and employed as cruisers against the commerce of the United States. And I do say, in fairness, that when the authorities of the United States see a number of ships coming, some way or other, from English ports and English rivers, and afterward used as ships of war to injure their commerce, which has very grievously suffered from that cause, it is natural that they should feel that they have considerable matter of irritation. But they ought, at the same time, to ask themselves whether the British Government has done all that the law of nations authorizes, and that the municipal law of this country permits, to prevent this country from being made the basis of warlike operations, so as to involve us in war with that Government. With regard to Canada, the noble Earl seems to imagine that the United States, from mere hostility to us, had denounced that useful convention with regard to the lakes. But the case was that the Confederate Government, apparently seeking, if possible, to involve this country in war, and finding their own resources insufficient to carry on a successful war, sent persons into the lakes (which are no part of their own territory, but which belong either to the United States or Great Britain), to take possession by force of certain vessels, and to set free certain persons who were prisoners of war of the United States.
I say again that it was not wonderful that the Government of the United States, considering that the lakes were in the possession of a Sovereign friendly to them, should be indignant when they found that operations of war were carried on in those lakes. They adopted a mode which I think again was not unnatural. They say that if they remain in those lakes with unarmed ships the Confederates would come into those lakes and take possession of those ships. It is a very painful thing, and a matter dangerous to the peace of the two countries, that the United States should be obliged to suspend that convention which was so useful to the interests of both. I cannot expect that the United States should ever permit that war should be made against them on the lakes, and that they should be without the means of defence. For my own part, I think that, though it may be natural on the part of the Confederate States, their attempt to make Canadian soil a basis for operations — some, no doubt, of a belligerent character, but others more resembling the robberies and murders that take place in social life — are doing that which is most unjust. And I trust that Her Majesty's Government will be enabled as they proposed to the Canadian Parliament, to preserve the neutrality of this country.
At the same time, in the irritation that has been aroused, there has been a disposition with respect to two questions to make most unfounded accusations against the Government of England. --They have complained that we have allowed a belligerent character to the belligerent States. Well, looking at the character of the contest, at the extent of the territory which they occupy, and at the great operations of war which they have carried on, what could we do but allow them the character of belligerents [Cheers.] I know of no instance in which there has been so mighty an enterprise of war carried on, and in which a belligerent character has not been allowed. There is another question with regard to which there has been a great deal of popular agitation, and every now and then there has been a sort of threat that the day will come when the United States Government will make demands upon Her Majesty's Government. Your Lordships heard last year, and the year before, that demands would be made for the capture and destruction of merchant ships by the Alabama and other vessels having some of their original build in England, which were afterwards conveyed to distant parts, and there received armaments which enabled them to cruise against the commerce of the United States.
I must say, my Lords, looking at of the precedents, looking at the international law, looking at the declarations that were made by the United States Government themselves in the case of the Spanish and Portuguese war, when there were ships of war directly fitted out from the United States port for the South American continent, where they preyed on the commerce of Spain and Portugal, that such a claim upon the Government of this country would be utterly unjust. Well, I say that while we make every allowance for irritation that may arise in the United States in the course of the war which has come upon them unexpectedly, and has caused to both sides a great loss, we think unnecessarily, and are most strict and scrupulous in performing all the duties of neutrality, we must not allow any unfounded claims to be pressed as founded in justice. There is one thing I cannot help saying before I sit down, on a subject affecting the welfare of mankind.--When I see in this American contest an attempt to put an end to that horrible and abominable crime of keeping men in slavery, and putting an end forever to involuntary servitude in the Constitution of the United States, I do rejoice that it great blot is about to be removed from the character of a civilized nation. I do rejoice that mankind may hope that the crime of slavery may be blotted out forever and freedom be the rule of the world.
