The Daily Dispatch: March 7, 1861., [Electronic resource]

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England and France on the Southern Ques
tion.

The leading journals of England and France are beginning to indicate unmistakably that their respective countries have not the most remote idea of dispensing with Southern cotton. The London Herald of the 5th of February, anticipating the official news which we have just received from Washington, says:

‘ "The United States so long as they cohered, felt strong enough to stand aloof from the public law of Europe; but the secession movement, besides opening up a door for the treaty of Paris being revised, and made, without exception, the law of nations, is likely to raise questions of international right, in which we shall have the deepest interest. The United States Government was originally founded upon certain delegated powers by a community of sovereign States, who have still exercised their independent sovereignty, and it is held by the seconding States that the delegated powers may now be withdrawn. If we must assent to this right we may claim admission to the Southern ports to carry merchandize on the American principle of free ships making free goods. while, if we deny the right, we shall, no doubt, exclude ourselves from the Southern trade."

’ Now, the treaty of Paris provides that a blockade, to be valid, must be maintained by a sufficient force, and it puts an end to privateering in Europe. The London Herald says: ‘ "To recognize the treaty of Paris would be to make the Northern States of the American Union powerless on the ocean.’"It is also said that Lord Lyons, the English Minister, has communicated to our Government the determination of England not to acknowledge a paper blockades, and the Lincoln Government has no means to enforce any other.

The same policy is promulgated on the part of the Emperor of the French, whose organ (Le Paye) esponses the quarrel of the South as ‘"the victim of Northern pretensions,"’ and denounces the North as ‘"the aggressor,"’ and as ‘"exhibiting so much rashness and audacity"’ because it relies upon the abolition feeling of Europe. But imperial France warns her against the delusion, and points to the present attitude of England as ‘"beginning to measure the whole extent of the disaster which menaces her manufactures, and no longer disguising the fact, in spite of her abolition rendencies, that her commercial interests depend in a great measure on the prosperity of the South, while Europe has a deep interest in seeing preserved, at least temporarily, her institutions, now attacked with so much vehemence."’

It is thus very evident that neither France nor England will permit a blockade of the Cotton States, and that it is highly probable they already have an understanding on the question, as they had in the case of the interruption of their trade in China.