11 AUGUST 1849, Page 11

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

OUR FOREIGN IMPOLICY.

PREVARICATION is the mortal sin of our statesmanship, SS it is of the " public opinion " of the day. It is that which renders our foreign policy at once irresolute and hazardous—leaves it without the bones of reality or the vital force of truth. The glance at foreign policy in our last number but one has been construed into an attack upon the present Foreign Secretary, and a counsel of warlike intervention. It was neither; it was simply a recommendation to seek distinct conclusions and use plain terms. But we can easily understand why that is inter- preted to be an attack on the Foreign Secretary. Lord Palmer- ston is in his overt acts the ablest politician of the " Liberal" Ministry ; he says things gratifying to Liberal sympathies ; his language keeps up the tradition of Liberal energy. He seems to speak out, because his language is animated and emphatic and his opinions are not timid. While hearty Liberals mourn over the Bedford hauteur of Lord John Russell, the morbid crotcheta of Lord Grey, and the intellectual insufficiency of the excellent and truly popular Carlisle, they recognize with delight the hearti- ness, the spirit, the verve of the Temple. His language has the "good old Reform" ring in it. It sounds like keeping up the credit of Liberalism at home and the spirit of " old England" abroad. If the admirers of the free-spoken and debonair Viscount remember that it is not long since he broke up the attempt to form a Liberal Ministry, because the most " advanced" of the Whigs, Earl Grey, declined to sit in the same Cabinet with him as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, it is only to reflect how mistaken they all were in that same advanced Whig : also, what remarkable effect the altered fashions and brisk stimulus of the political market may have in developing a thoroughgoing Whig- Radical out of a sound Tory—the spendthrift Castlereagh Secre- tary at War into the economic Foreign Secretary of the Russell Cabinet. And this newly-appreciated Liberal, whose bottled elo- quence never cheats the palate in flavour or condition, but is ever up," generous, and racy—this man of spirit, has all along kept England at peace! It is true that the distracted state of Europe, which makes it seem more difficult to avoid war, makes it really more easy ; for other countries are too much busied with their own civil commotions to trouble themselves about us, if we please to stand quietly aloof. Even Russia has not thought it advisable to interpose, except on the formal application of an ally, to assist in restoring order under a government with which Russian statesmanship sympathizes. Some of the admiration lavished on Lord Palmerston's peace-keeping feat is in fact the reaction of the anxiety which he himself had caused. It is the posture-master dancing a hornpipe between the eggs, who elicits an admiration for not breaking them precisely in proportion to the vivacity of his fantastic toe. In like manner, Lord Palmerston is a safe man although he looks so smart. While others are dead he is all alive. He is an active, able official, who knows what he is doing. He would" go further" but for his colleagues. If he had lived a very long time ago, he would have made the name of England respected by his vigorous policy. He is a constructive Chatham, a Cromwell in posse, a Richelieu with an if. He would act if action were needed or feasible ; as it is, he talks to order. All this is true ; we concede anything of Lord Palmerston that may be conceded in the potential and subjunctive moods: yet no man is more depraved by the besetting sin of the day—prevarication.

We do not impute it to him alone; quite the reverse. It may be due to a time of transition ; for its causes plainly belong to such a time. With the advance of knowledge and discussion, men have overpassed old conclusions and dogmas, while new con- elusions or dogmas are not fully matured and established; so that they hesitate to give up the old or trust fully to the new. It is so in all matters of opinion—in science, in religion, in poli- tics—in geology, in Hebrew chronology, in international policy. But, not to be manifestly self-contradicted, not to be overtly con- victed of antiquated prejudice or innovating heresy, men shrink from positive conclusions, tamper with incompatibilities, and wrap up their meaning in prevarications. In the elastic lan- guage of geology, a day shall mean countless ages; and in the transmutable language of diplomacy, the spirit of old England shall be convertible into the newest spirit of England, the price- current of the Manchester school.

This sin we have called mortal, because it bears within it the seeds of decay. Its evasive convenience is a fatal delusion. It tempts the practical politician to trust in counterfeits that must fail him at the pinch. It enables him to get up a great pageant with little cost or danger ; but his imposing array fails him in

the hour of danger, like any wicker giant. He weakens his own faculty of handling real instruments; he undermines the belief in his possession of real resources. It is so in all branches of politics, not only in the branch called "foreign." We have a pregnant example in Prussia, victim of this same practical pre- varication. Her King prevaricated between old Absolutism and new Liberalism—neither abandoning the one nor abstaining. from the other; and he tried to pass off an Absolute government in the guise of a Liberal constitution. It had the force of neither—it was a "fiasco." But in the operation, he forfeited the real power ^hich he had: his subjects doubted his purpose, his word, his Imss-aion of influence or material strength ; the public opinion by which e,-"V government acts through the few on the many was nullified; l'•-lerick William's government had died while he was trying to get up a seeming government, and there was anarchy in presence. For the fourth time in thirty months the vacillat- ing Monarch is trying his hand at a new constitution, with small hope, because he has done nothing in all that interval to make for himself a real influence and power; and in times of action shams will as little serve as Don Quixote's pasteboard vizard. If there is a spark of hope it is that an appeal seems to have been made, bona fide, to the Landwehr, which is a real power in Prussia.

Nor are we without practical knowledge of what a pageant policy has done in our own foreign department. The upholders of Lord Palmerston's verbal exploits forget that we have had much experience in the style of diplomacy which others instituted and he carried to perfection. Even in his masterly hands it is sterile. The Examiner would have us "confide in the tried skill and sagacity of a veteran diplomatist, when united with Liberal principles"—in the moral effect of his "warning reproof" and blank protests. But what has his warning reproof done for maintaining the influence of England? He lectured the Govern- ment of Spain on the illiberal tendencies of its demeanour: Mr. Henry Bulwer was kicked out, Narvaez remains, and we have not yet restored even the semblance of a footing in Spain. Lord Castlereagh began the endless series of protests about Poland; and where is Poland now ? England has protested on occasion, France periodically : Lord Palmerston wrote and the French Chambers reserved—Austria, Prussia, and Russia acted. We are invited to join with Lord Palmerston's able apologist and in- dulgent presser from without in urging the immediate recogni- tion of the de facto Hungarian Government : what did the recog- nition of a de facto Government do for the Sicilians, or for the maintenance of English honour in Sicily? Has it not betrayed the revolution, the lives of the Sicilian patriots, and the good name of England ? Let two facts answer. At the opening-speech of the last session, the Queen, as advised by Lord Palmerston, with an insulting abatement styled the King of the Two Sicilies "King of Naples" : in the last week of the session, Mr. Hawes unblush- ingly confessed that Sicilian refugees had been denied an asylum in Malta. To the Italians it is "England" who has done those things : that, then, is how Lord Palmerston has served Sicily and maintained the honour, the glory, and the influence of old Eng- land. We admit Lord Palmerston's ability, we believe in his really Liberal dispositions, we enjoy with any admirer his clever speeches ; but we say that he has done more than any other Min- ister to lower the flag of England: the result of his manceuver- ing, in all parts of the Continent, is that England is believed to have lost the spirit which made her word a deed ; so that now, if she desires to influence the counsels of Europe, it may cost her more than a mere declaration of policy. She is held to fear the going to war because of the expense—to fear outlay more than the loss of honour and the disgrace of her word. We are represented as having suggested "a definition of occa- sions for intervention ": we suggested nothing of the sort. We said, and say, that if the Minister of England were to declare the political principles upon which England herself has acted, which have possessed the sanction of the nation in its growth, and which must practically guide its onward advance, such a declaration would be useful for the guidance of foreign courts, as making out what must be the course of England. Let there be a declaration of opinion on each worthy case—we seek not to muzzle Lord Palmerston ; but let it be constantly and manifestly in accordance with the general principles which England's own history has ex- emplified and upheld. The question of warlike intervention is quite ulterior ; and it includes the triple question—whether such intervention would be just, whether it would be consistent with the needful regard to the interests of this country, and whether it could be made effective. But in any case, let the language be explicit—recording facts, and proclaiming no more than the country would be prepared to make good. Let us apply that better rule to the present instance of Hun- gary. We are gravely told that for war "there must be a cams belli,"—as if that were not made in a second, or a cams pools either! In such articles the supply always equals the demand. But going to war, we say, is altogether a separate and ulterior question. We are invited to join in this policy—to recognize the de facto Government of Hungary ; and to conclude a commercial treaty. Well, we " recognized " Sicily, and Sicilian refugees are driven to seek an asylum in Corsica: from analogy, if Hungary were recognized, we might expect next year a statement that Count Teleki and M. Pulszky had been refused an asylum in the British dominions. As to the "commercial treaty," of what use will that be, when newspaper despatches cannot get across the Austrian lines ? Perhaps our free trade with Hungary is to be carried on through the friendly seaports of Bohemia? Verily we might recognize and treat till Doomsday, without the slightest effect on the issue.

We are told, indeed, that Lord Palmerston's speech, and the tone of the English meetings and journals, have come "like a thunderclap" on the councils of Vienna. Possibly; because a speech in Parliament, combined with the show of newspaper articles and meetings, may be supposed in Vienna to indicate some more positive purpose than a despatch from Lord Palmer- ston merely following up his despatches on Lombardy. There is this difference between declarations of opinion in domestic discus: dons, and diplomatic declarations by an executive minister,cat the former do not involve the responsibility for official despatches ought to do : therefore th.eZ '"04Y a Y/Luer licence, and from their apparent spontaneity seem 'to indieate-a genuine purpone, though they do not so formally record a -pledge of action.. But even here prevarication will ultimately be seen through. Lord Dudley Stuart may collect people at taverns in the suburbs to cheer the flattering boast that "Notting Hill is coming forward," or that Newington Butts will hasten to succour "the oppressed"; but it means nothing: Notting Hill would not march to St. John's Wood, much less to the Theiss; nor would Newington Butts grant Hungary a donative out of its poor-rates. It is easy to get up these " demonstrations" ; but it is only the middle class indulging in the general sin of prevarication. Ask these meetings to join in any real sacrifice on behalf of Hungary, and explicit language would extort an explicit answer.

Now we believe, that whatever the facts are, explicit language strictly accordant with those facts is the most forcible that you can use. In the present case it would be so. Suppose the Eng. lish Minister were to speak in these terms—England has main- tained her independence, and sympathizes with nations that do the like ; she has chosen her own form of government, and recog- nizes the right of others to do so ; she has rested her own welfare on Constitutional Monarchy, and especially sympathizes with nations that make the same choice she has promoted Constitu- tional Monarchy in France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Belgium, with varying success and varying means, but with a success ap- portioned to her actual intervention ; she sympathizes with the Hungarians, applauds the vindication of old rights will never re- cognize the forcible extinction of those rights and will promote those rights on opportunity : but at present, difficulties at home compel her to be a passive though an anxious spectator of Hun- gary's struggles Such language, we say, would be more potent than any adumbrations of vague intent or long-discredited threats ; it would have in it all the force of the facts and the truth ; it would exercise the "moral influence" of all the threat that England can truly hold out ; but, thus frankly and calmly given, that threat would not be without its force in backing the suggestion to the Absolutist Governments of Europe, that due diligence in making their policy conform to the judgment of England would be the surest way to secure her friendship and avoid her hostility.

Such, we maintain, would be a foreign policy open to the Eng- lish statesman, accordant with the present sympathies and sense of possibility in this country, consistent with the best traditions of our history, and suitable to the state of Europe ; it would possess the dignity of modesty and truth ; it would borrow for the future the guarantees of the past. In short, it would reverse the dis- honest, ineffective, and derogatory policy into which our. Foreign department has been betrayed by the fashionable sin of prevari- cation.