Where does British money go? The Tory of 1878 sang,—
"We don't want to fight;
But, by jingo, if we do,
We've got the ships, we've got the men,
We've got the money, too."
It is interesting to see how that money, which is withheld from Britain's oldest colony, has been spent.
We will begin with Mr. Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress." On page 479 he quotes Lord Campbell as saying in Parliament on March 23, 1863, "Swelling with omnipotence, Mr. Lincoln and his colleagues dictate insurrection to the slaves of Alabama." (That fatal word, "Alabama"! Will it ever cease to trouble the British conscience?) And he spoke of the administration as "ready to let loose 4,000,000 negroes on their compulsory owners, and to renew from sea to sea the horrors and crimes of San Domingo." Mr. Blaine says, further, that Lord Campbell argued earnestly in favor of the British government joining the government of France in acknowledging Southern independence. He boasted that within the last few days a Southern loan of £3,000,000 sterling had been offered in London, and of that £9,000,000, or three times the amount, had been subscribed.
Here, then, we have a means of accounting for $15,000,000. Another $15,000,000 is accounted for by the money which America forced England to pay for the "Alabama" depredations. On that point Mr. Laird, the builder of the "Alabama," deserves to be immortalized. According to Mr. Blaine, on March 27, 1863, Mr. Laird was loudly cheered in the House of Commons when he declared that "the institutions of the United States are of no value whatever, and have reduced the name of liberty to an utter absurdity."
Another large lump of Jingo money has gone into the Russian loan; and, of this loan, $4,000,000 is coming to Bethlehem in Pennsylvania. O shade of John Roebuck, look back to the earth you have left, and see what your words have done for the armor plate manufacturers of your Sheffield constituency. While still among us in the flesh, you said on April 23, 1863, on some trouble: "It may lead to war; and I, speaking for the English people, am prepared for war. I know that language will strike the heart of the peace party in this country, but it will also strike the heart of the insolent people who govern America."
And on June 30, 1863, you said: "The South will never come into the Union; and, what is more, I hope it never may. I will tell you why I say so. America while she was united ran a race of prosperity unparalleled in the world. Eighty years made the republic such a power that, if she had continued as she was a few years longer, she would have been the great bully of the world.
"As far as my influence goes, I am determined to do all I can to prevent the reconstruction of the Union.... I say, then, that the Southern States have indicated their right to recognition. They hold out to us advantages such as the world has never seen before. I hold that it will be of the greatest importance that the reconstruction of the Union should not take place."
The United States have given England the war you hoped for,—not a war against soldiers and sailors, who, unlike those who followed Colonel Pepperell and Washington and Isaac Hull and Grant and De Grasse to victory, require the protection of a contagious diseases act, but a war of protective tariffs.
The State which gave its name to the pirate ship "Alabama" now votes for tariffs to exclude the iron, steel, and coal of England. Sheffield is in sackcloth and ashes because Pennsylvania has taken away from her the Russian order for armor plates, and countless millions of British dollars are invested in American factories, giving high wages to tariff-protected American workmen instead of sweaters' wages to the beer-sodden lunatics who sing to your honor the Tory strain,—