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foundation of right : " their practical infringement proves their present inadmissibility ; and this should be fully understood , that we will abstain from interference only so long as other powers do likewise—that if freedom threaten , where newly established , to be crushed by alien feet ; if other countries have their mission , England has hers too , and will fulfil it . Had this been fully understood , Hungary , Cracow , Italy , would not now be clanking their chains before Europe , nor England standing , enthroned upon her island home indeed , but isolated and insecure .
I do not here advocate the doctrine of intervention in the domestic affairs of other nations . It is not so much the doctrine of intervention aa the doctrine of the " forbiddance of intervention " which it behoves us to insist upon . But if , notwithstanding our efforts , foreign armies should be marched into unoffending but reforming States let it be fully comprehended that this shall be at once a causus belli ; for it must be remembered that what nations claim with regard to Hungary , to Cracow , to Montenegro , might be claimed tomorrow with regard to ourselves , did
circumstances of enfeeblement and convenience only suggest the success of such a proceeding . Shall we , indeed , refuse to grant communities the sympathy and assistance we should unhesitatingly accord to private individuals ? Shall we , in a word , allow the pirates and bandits of society to gain the upper hand ?—freedom and enlightenment to fall before the glaived hand of brute force ? This bizarre idea of non-intervention presupposes us to regard the whole world , its inhabitants and proceedings , with imperturbable callousness and indifference . A brave people
strike for freedom , and their success proves their fitness to possess it , and yet in the next moment these unhappy wretches ^ the cup dashed from their lips by foreign foes , sink down , their noblest hopes destroyed , and invoking curses upon the heads of their brutal oppressors ; and we standing by glance into their mournful and despairing countenances and point to the bye-laws of nations on which we have inscribed non-intervention Every people , too . gained to barbarism is a people
lost to freedom and to the general progress of humanity . It is a people lost also to Britain ' s commerce , and whose band may at some future day direct the sword that piercos to her heart . We have already lost much influence , from this cause , we are daily losing more ; and history warns us that the decay of every great people lias commenced with its distant possessions and dependencies , through the weakness and want of principle ! that have installed their shameful reign within the capital .
Thus , then , I have traced the "Balance of Power , " " Intervention , " and " Non-intervention , " to the present day . You have Been that Russia destroyed , that the inward decay of nations must ever destroy , the first , that the people condemned the second , and that governments and people in ( heir hesitations , the governments more especially , through the people ' s hesitations and the doubt a of a trading policy , have covered the third with obloquy . All these questions without exception have produced poisonous Iruils for Great . Britain ; for the first was impossible ,
and the second as exercised became impossible too . The English people bad grown too free ; to permit intervention for the maintenance of despotic governments ; hut here , vrhen properly understood , this same doctrine might have ; assured additional power to England , by increasing the intelligence and extending the freedom of oilier nations , and that loo only by proclaiming " intervention in case of intervention ; " here the people and the govern men I , Huieidally stopped short . The people could not admit complicated ideas , the Government could not act without tho people , and tho machinery of administration came to a dead lock . Erom tlii . s unfortunate moment our
policy Jihh been one of continued < lcfeul , ; the policy of tho absolute sovereigns one of formidable and uninterrupted victory . Jf this remarkable growth of irresponsible rule over increased tracts of territory bo not owing to this cause when ; do you s <; ek for its foundation ' r fSpuin , Cracow , Hungary , eloquently answer the quotation ; the despotism under which Europe groans also silently replies to it . The people despaired viien they saw the noil of Hungary and Hesso-Cnssel trodden by foreign troops . II ad England moved , France would have moved too , not to inlorveno but to prevent intervention , and we should linvo seen Hungary , Italy , Spain , perhnps
the whole continent , liberated ; for the road entered upon will always be pursued to the end . Unfortunately , despotism actively opened the path and drove the people upon it , and England stood by , the spectator of the destruction which attended her future political weight and influence in Europe . England lias unhappily paused and hesitated too long . I have shown the direction in which the balance ought to have turnedin that of freedom and civilization . I have shown
that in which it has turned—in that of slavery and barbarism . But a little more delay and the battle will be irrecoverably lost , and England s influence , commerce , and consequently power , irreparably injured throughout the whole north and east of Europe and the confines and centres of Asia . The struggle between the civilization of the west and the barbarism of the north has been long progressing . The former has suffered defeat through " ignorance of the contest . The latter must now in its turn be overthrown by the
enlightened action of the former . " The consciousness of immunity provokes the exercise of power ; " our losses and bur failures would have been avoided had emperors and rulers seen before them great countries prepared to maintain the law of nations , and to put a termination to the fatal examples that have been here adduced foj our conviction . Those Cracow and Hungarian races—monuments of
everlasting disgrace to England , and of warning to the world—might at this moment be enjoying all the blessings of civilization , had Great Britain and France but done their duty . Russia would have beevc a long remove from Constantinople , and Poland ere this have constituted herself the wall of Europe on its northern frontier . Italy : but it is sickening to pursue a subject so pregnant with disappointment ; the lesson has been read : it remains for others to consider its truth
and to test its efficacy . Alpha . P . S . My next letters will be devoted to a consideration of the effects of Turkish reforms and Russian intrigues ; to the present policy of llussia , and her position in respect to the Christian population of Turkey ; to the policy of the Western Powers ; and to the measures necessary to ensure the possibility either of an enlightened and progressive Turkish rule , or of the erection of a new Slavonic nationality .
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"A STRANGER" IN PARLIAMENT . Is it satirically that Lord Derby has named his horse for next year's "blue ribbon of the turf , " the Dervish ? Or is it the intention that Lord Stanley shall ride him —Captain JJateson to whip ? Mr . Walpolo knows how Lord Derby is given to joking ; and there may be a party meaning' in tho Midden backing- of the Dervish . He is a horse who turned up on the day on which the House of Commons divided about Church Kates ; and it is impossible to avoid thinking of him , and of his owner ' s humour in connexion with the extraordinary
steeple chase , for which all parties in the House entered on Thursday night . The confusion was a climax in illustration of those kaleiderscopic party combinations , which have rendered " ( Jovernment by purty" nn impracticability ever since Sir Robert Peel ' s death : but the grouping are of more than accidental importance some of them are of permanent flignifieinice ; ami the moral of the whole affair is of enduring interest ., seeing that it ; so forcibly suggests , in continuation of other ample proofs allbnled during the . session , Lord John Russell ' s startling incapacity for Iuh post as * ' lender . '' In the first place it is very
noticeable , that . Mr . Disraeli has already accomplished the purpose , attributed to him in this place last week , of breaking away , with the best of his party , from the antique class of Tories—iu effect , therefore , breaking ii ]> the Tory party , and dividing it on a question on which , one year ago , all Churchmen , not to wry Conservatives , would have been furiously nnunimouH . In iiict the hero of the delude , though lie contented him-Kolf with having printed his speech , was Lord Stanley ; to his pamphlet , of course a suggestion of Mr .
Diarueli ' s , —iH to be assigned the "whole of Unit inlbiont'O which resulted in taking such men as James Macgrogor , and Mr . dleo . Hamilton into a lobby , opposite that which Sir J { . Inglis and . Mi " . Newdegute entered , on a vital church question , Jt was a very proud ] K ) sitiou for a young mam to occupy—that of governing a discussion , nml regulating a momentous diviHion ; and , it is to be hoped . Lord Derby's staunc . h-< int fViends will appreciate the infolleetof Lord Derby's son , although there may he doubts whether Lord Stanley ' h pamphlet hns not loft Lord Derby without a party .
With Lord Stanley and Mr . Disraeli voted Mr . Walpole , Sir John Pakington , Lord John Manners , Lord Naas , Mr . Cayley , Sir Edward Lytton , and Sir Robert Peel—intimating that , after twenty years' opposition , Lord Derby , too , would have gone with his son in a surrender , of Church rates ; and these names , taken in contrast with the Tories who went with the Radicals in the first division against Dr . Phillimore ' s motion , supply gratifying evidences , that there is a progressive movement among the Conservatives , wider and bolder than would have been anticipated even from Mr . Disraeli ' s boundless influence among the younger men .
Of course , however , Lord Stanley did not go farther than a vote for the motion ; the Tories closed their ranks heartily against the more explicit amendment of Sir William Clay . But the Whigs were separated both on the first and second division . Solicitor-General Bethell and Secretary-to-the Admiralty Osborne voted plump against their chiefs , and against the motion ; and against their Government and for the amendment there voted , in addition to the above , Sir William Molesworth—pity he had not the whole of Mr . Osborne ' s courage—Mr . Baines , Mr . Fitzroy , Mr . Lowe , Mr . Keogh , and Mr . Strutt . Open
questions are necessary in Coalition Governments , no doubt ; but when half-a-dozen Ministers vote against another half-dozen Ministers , would it not be more decent not to vote at all , as the Radical Attorney-General Cockburn evidently thought ? In the first division , most of the steady Ministerialists voted against Lord John ; as , for instance , Mr . Brotherton , who is a " practical" man , though a Liberal , and never vexes the Whigs except in the most serious emergency , such as this , when disaffection was so general that a humble individual had a chance of escaping malignant notice ; and , with Whig Ministers ,
for Sir William Clay , there voted against Lord John such mild Liberals or Coalitionists as Lord Robert Grosvenoi * , Sir George Grey ( a man down for the first vacancy in the Government ) , Mr . Glyn , Mr . Layard , Mr . Heywood , Mr . V . Smith , Sir J . Duke , and the Ellices . And these facts test Lord John ' s qualifications to lead a House of the present House ' s conflicting materials . The matter was a difficult one to get over , but Lord John got over it in the very worst manner , confusing his colleagues and his party to the greatest possible extent , and chiefly damaging the Government ' s prestige by showing that he was not as advanced , or
as prepared to deal with the question as the par excellence Church party themselves . He was in the same lobby with Lord Stanley for Dr . Phillimore ' s motion ; but with this difference , that Lord Stanley was ready to adopt the Doctor ' s bill , and that Lord John was only voting proformd , in order the more effectually to prevent any legislation whatever on the subject . Lord John ' s vote was ludicrously in contrast with his speech , and , as Mr . Bright forcibly pointed out , with all his former conduct ; and tho only explanation to be given of that vote , and the disorganization afterwards visible among Ministers , is , that he changed a pre-arranged
plan at the last moment , shrunk before the cheers of the Churchmen , and was abashed at the silence of his own benches , and calculated on avoiding' a possible trap by tumbling into what proved a disastrous minority , — in which Lord John looked silly , as is his wont lately . To do tho Radicals justice , they were very well together , —in the " ruck , " as usual ; and exhibited their well-known statesmanlike qualities in losing the chance of making use of Whigs and Tories to get Dr . Phillimore's bill brought in . They knew they could not carry the amendment , so they voted against tho motion—repudiated the thin edge of the
wedge , for onco—and left the question over for another year;—they are so devoted to principle , that they can't ufVord to be rational . For what has happened they therefore divide the blame with the " Lender" of tho House , who , nevertheless , should hav e voted and led with them against the motion when he had ascertained their intentions ; but the Radicals may enjoy this triumph {> eculinr to themselves , that they hnve allowed ono of" their pet questions to be tried on bad issues Sir William Clay's amendment being most
awkward m construction ; and many of them , an Mr Hume , voting for it with n protest against its provisions ;—all this being tho consequence of tho absence of proper party organization . However , m other parties appear to bo imitatin g them , they aro not likely to set about the presentation of a paternal dew-] W ) tism to Mr . Hume , or of nn autocracy over them to Mr . Hright . Freedom from party restraints is evidently enjoyable ; or—to give ono among many in-Htnnecs— we should not sco Mr . Walter , a borough member and not a Tory , voting against both Dr .
Phillimore h motion , and Sir W . Chiy ' n amendment . Tho debate was far less interesting than tho division . Tho electric ; telegraph to the Clulw and Covoufc Gardon O pera Houso is fatal to good debates be .
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* ¦ 520 T HE LEADER . [ Saturday ,
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 28, 1853, page 520, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1988/page/16/
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