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    understood it ; It would even have been well to flatter to the utmost any tendencies that he might show to , promote the : prosperity , and still more , the fuiuue emancipation of his country . But we have invited to a personal triumph , and covered with personal adulation , the author of the coup d'etat . Louis Napoleon sought consecration for his deed

    elsewhere in vain , even from the Pope . He has found it at the hands of the English court and aristocracy , in a country which boasts itself the guardian of freedom . Legitimacy in the person of despots has been more true to its own honour than liberty . Legitimacy has repelled the usurper ; liberty has crowned the liberticide .

    All the world imputes this to our cowardice . Louis Napoleon himself will impute it to our cowardice . We change the name of the Waterloo Gallery . He pays the legacy of his uncle to the man who attempted to assassinate Wellington , and forbids a eulogy of Wellington to circulate in France . Eight hundred years ago England felt a conqueror ; now she feels a patron .

    We can scarcely veil this cowardice under the mask of gratitude . Lo ; is Napoleon proclaimed that the Empire was peace , and then sent out Lavalette to bring on a war . The conduct of that war was claimed in the name of a dreadful obligation by a moribund desperado , who wished to die a hero , and who hurried us to the Crimea in spite of " timid counsels . " We blame our own Ministers , and justly , for nepotism ; but what is nepotism to the motive which led Louis Napoleon to entrust our

    armies to St . Abnaud ? , We have mortally offended all parties in France but that of the coup d'etat , and staked the French alliance on the continuance of a detested power and a precarious life . It is difficult to induce French Liberals to make just "allowance even for—the mass of the people , who had no thoughts but those of hospitality , and of the French army fighting side by side with our own ; who saw the tricolor , and looked no further ; and to whom the passive acquiescence of France , staggering to all , is perfectly overwhelming .

    We have done what is worse than endangering anyforeign alliance . We have endangered the source of our own liberties by publicly degrading law and duty . We have taught some , who are ready to learn the lesson , that there is no crime but failure , and that there is nothing more interesting than a liberticide , unless , perhaps , it be a liberticide ' s wife . The Tory party , on the morrow of the coup d'etat , rapturously proclaimed , even in the

    British Parliament , the triumph of Louis Napoleon over -liberty and law . They at once accepted him as their patron , and began to threaten with the consequences of his anger any who denounced his crime . They have assiduously proclaimed that the late ovation was a tribute , not only to the French alliance , but to the personal career of the usurper . Let us compare the adroit flattery of " liberty without danger" with the allusions and insinuations of the Moniteur , Let us remember that in this country , too , wo are not without bayonets and Jesuits , much less without conspirators , and that ten years ago France seemed eternally and securely free .

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    THE CRISIS OF DIPLOMACY . There is at least one merit in the policy of Austria . It is based on serious calculations . This may not be evident to thoso who estixnat ' e all things by a British standard ; but the statesmen of Vienna have' their own interest in view , as we have ours ; and though theirs may bo the narrower , it may , for that vulgar reason , be the more definite . Nothing is easier than

    to argue in platitude * in behalf of another : nation ; hut for Austrian diplomatists there is an Austrian method of reckoning between Turkey and Russia , and this political parallax nullifies the conclusions of eager patriots , who , whether selfish or generous , are liable to the same errors . In ' both cases they forget that there are men at Vienna who are more than puppets round the throne , and that were the Emperor convinced , he would have to persuade his

    ads . Half the arguments of the warlike party in England are unintelligible in Vienna . What is it to Francis-Joseph , for example , that a loyal union with the Western Powers might deepen the foundations of his empire , if it might also imperil the domestic quietude in which his throne reposes ? What is it to his Cabinet that war would be glorious , if peace is safe ? They seek to be wise for themselves , not for their posterity , and there can be no doubt that neutrality , if it were possible , would do more to avert the deluge than any policy which would rouse the forces of the State .

    Its possibility is a question of fact , which must work out its own solution . Austrian statesmen , therefore , naturally and fairly take advantage of every chance in their favour , and adopt every suggestion of diplomatic casuistry , as a ground for further delay . Before the Vienna Conferences sat they were armed with an obvious retort to all reproaches—war could not be commenced until negotiation had failed . Negotiation did fail , from the English and French point of view , but not so surely from the Austrian . For it must be remembered that

    the Plenipotentiaries at Vienna did not join issue between Great Britain , France , Austria , and Turkey on one side , and Russia on the other . They had to harmonise the Allies as well as the belligerents , and were probably successful in neither . Turkey itself is indisposed to be quite so docile as the two Western" Cabinets would desire , while Austria always has remained in a state of partial isolation . Nor could it be otherwise . Her policy might be different from that of Russia without being identical with that of the Western Powers . If

    she entered on the war , therefore , it would be for herself , not for the British or Ottoman Cabinets . ; . and thosePowersi hadto prove , by their representatives , that an active league with them would be more profitable for Austria than an armed neutrality along the flank of Prussia . The Vienna Government , never forgetting

    that in peace is its salvation , may have supported the two points in which Prince Gortschakoff acquiesced , and then held that enough had been conceded . Upon no other ground is her hesitation to be explained . Her aim was selfish and personal ; she gained her objects on the Danube , and had no anxiety concerning fleets or forts on the Black Sea .

    If the argument ended here it would be futile to expect the co-operation of Austria . She is not bound to fight for equity , and any further reasonings must be addressed to her interests alone . Consequently , if within the next month she takes the field , her statesmen will act under necessities not yet apparent to them . First , there will be the pressure of external influences , which will be resisted

    until they become irresistible . Next , the Austrian army , maintained in idleness on a war footing , threatens to devour the imperial revenue . The elements of disaffection lie ready to be quickened by an opportunity , and thus Austria may resort to the desperate remedy of war , with its concomitants of loans and guarantees , in preference to the alternative of financial collapse and intestine anarchy . Practically , moreover , the first' and second of the Four Points remain to be contested in the field , no less than the third , since the war can have but one of two results . It

    must force Russia to relinquish that which the Western Allies demand , or it ; must disable . those Allies- from insisting on the terms , they proposed at Vienna . It is , clear to Austrian statesmen that war would , bring incalculable forces into the field , and commit the destinies of Germany to a portentous issue . Neither of the German Powers . is certain , of the other , or of France , or of Great Britain . Neither can foretel how fax Russia will

    resist , or Turkey forbear , or Fraoce and Great . Britain act in concert . Here are consideraK tions which excuse delay on the part of a government which provides only for the present hour . Complications and uncertainties add ; daily to the hazards of the future ; the Western Alliance itself depends on a single will > determined in secret , enforced by decrees . A hostile army may appear on the Rhine , revolt may rush like flame through Lombardy . These are the elements of the calculation , and Austrian statesmen prove at least that they are ? careful of their own brief future , when they cling to peace , and shrink from the horrors and perils of war .

    Are English statesmen as thoughtful ? Is the English public as deliberate ? We may now be approaching a general convulsion which will divide Europe against itself for years to come . If so , a tremendous waste of blood and treasure , the rupture of innumerable relations , the exhaustion of productive power , the paralysing of industry , the demoralisation of civilised states , are sure to follow , and there are

    questions which must be put with irresistible force . Do we , however , pause to interrogate our Government ? Is Great Britain as careful for herself as -Austria ? Is she contending ; fgr selfish , or for generous purposes—or for neither ? Is there a plan or a principle in , her action ? Or have we " drifted" into this * fearful war with no other prospect than that of getting out of it , at some future day , how we Ran ? ' ¦ ¦ ' .

    These are questions which we do not leave to the Manchester party . They are worth examining , however , that we may know whether fifteen thousand Englishmen have rotted in the Crimea for the sake of a diplomatic quibble , or whether we are fighting in the hope that a good cause will turn up worth fighting "for . " ~ " ' ' "' — ' - - - ;

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    COPYRIGHT IN NEWS . The advocates of a Copyright of intelligence seem to suspect that it is an impossibility r which is fortunate , as it ia also an absurdity and an injustice . The only rational objects of copyright are those to which we apply the term of authorship , that is to say , ideas and language . These are the products of the author ' s own brain ;

    and he has as good a right to a property in them as another man has to a property in the work of his hands . But a fact , or aji event , belongs like light and air to all mankind . Directly it transpires , no matter by what means , it becomes a part of the general knowledge of the world ; and you have as good a right to republish it ns you have to repeat it --the latter right being one , we presume ,

    which nobody denies . Are wo , writing within twenty-four hours after an important p iece of intelligence has boon published , to ignore that about which all the world is talking ? J *™ < J . ° jot ignore it wo rcnublish it , and fall within the prohibition . Wo cannot oven allude to it or repent it for the purpose of confuting it , without rendering ourselves liable to the penalty of indirect republication . Wo presume , that as proof of an independent source of information , the action must fuil . And how ia it to bo determined what are independent sources of information , ? If

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    Agram 38 , 1855 . ] > THE IjBABEE . W&

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 28, 1855, page 399, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2088/page/15/