Mr. CUNKLING.Mr. Speaker, I concur with those who have expressed a wish that we had time to consider this bill with greater de liberation; yetI am in favor of nal action within the time that remains. My colleague, [Mr. RAYMONH] who says everything well, remarked that our neutrality laws have long commanded the respect of other nations. He might have gone further and told us that our acts of neutrality. as well as our laws of neu trality, have long commanded, not only the respect, but the approbation of foreign nations. Sir, there was a time when we might be the objects of this respect, the recipients of this approbation, if not with satisfaction, at least with indifference. That was the time when we were in the midst of undisturbed prosperity. It was when we were every now and then engaged, because bound in honor and in law to do so, in discharing our obligations of neu trality as inscribe upon our statute book, giving to them a broad and generous interpretation. This was when with unflinching hand we chastised all interferencein the struggles of other nations, now in the interest of England, now of France, and then of Spain against the Spanish American lleplllpll08 But, Mr. Speaker, there came another time. There came a dark and portentious hour an hour when we were no longer prosperous, but when we were in time of trouble in the throes of distressing revolution. Then we were, as we had a right to suppose, to receive a just return for the hard faith we had so sacredly kept. Did we receive a just return ‘! Did we receive any return which a proud and powerful people can brook? Did we receive any return which leaves us self respect, not to speak of satisfaction, when we remember that we have enacted international comity into laws, that we have bound ourselves more and more by enactments in the interest of foreign Powerl, thatL we have disciplined and hampered our people as other nations have not hampered or disciplined theirs, and that at last we have been despitefully'used and at off with excuses when' our calamities seeine to have left us without power to exact. our rights? lf we once derived pleasure from our pains taking foreign policy on the subject of neutrality, or if we once viewed it with indifference, that time is gone, and the feeling of the nation is changed. American citizens, of all nation alities, feel that if we have been parties to a goldenrule we have received no exemplifieation of its spirit from our haughty neighbors, and now fair play and equal rights is to be the rule. Look at the last 4 years. Begin with the Trent alfnir. Remember our harmless mer chantmen burned at midnight in mid ocean. Consider the Canadian raid upon Vermont and its issue. Recall the building of rams and the fitting out of pirates; and then the laggard and shambling efforts to arrest them. Do not for get the recent incursion upon Canada nor the rigorous fidelity with which the Government punished that incursion. Bear in mind the approbation with which that rigor was received in England, the gracious praise of the “Thun derer” of Fleet street; and from which shall we derive consolation“? I remember all these things, and in the light of all I am unwillingto vote to postpone this bill, and [am in favor of such a change in our neutrality laws as will give to other nations neither more nor less than we ourselves receiVc. The particular bill before us was so recently reported that I have been unable to examine it except as I followed the reading from the desk. If it. had not been reported from a committee in whose learning and ability I have so much confidence, I might feel more solicitude than I do as to its prbvisions in detail, and a greater reluctance to vote with so little deliberation. I am willing to accept the assurance of its author, the Gentfrom Massachusetts, [Mr. BAXKs] that it so readjusts the standard of neutral obligation as to make it conform to that which the leading Governments of Europe have established. I receive it as a measure of equality between America and the other nations of the earth.