EARL RUSSELL ON MEXICO. T HE reply of Earl Russell to
the address of the Mexican bondholders is far from a satisfactory one. It is just possible that it conceals under a reserve most unusual with the noble Lord a plan wider than its apparent scope, but taken as it stands, it may beat be defined as a promise to seek with inadequate means, from a non-existing authority, an insufficient measure of redress. The bondholders had de- scribed, for the fiftieth time, the anarchy of Mexico, the outrages committed on foreigners, the consistent repudiation of all just debts, and had asked for an intervention, which should, in the interest of the Mexicans and their creditors, re-establish some form of social order. Earl Russell replies that this country has a right by treaty "to require secu- rity for the persons and property of British subjects ;" that the so-called Government of Mexico has "no con- trolling authority," and that "a very large force would be insufficient to restore public tranquillity ;" and therefore he means, without a large force, to compel this Government without authority to do the very thing which, even if fully supported, it has not the power to effect. It can be no part of his Lordship's intention that the expedition should fail, and yet if it be not, what is the meaning of his letter. The objects to be sought, he admits, are "se- curity for the persons and property- of British subjects," and the "fulfilment of recorded obligations," but how either end is to be obtained without the intervention he refuses it is impossible to conceive. Let us suppose that an expedition has reached the coast, that the inhabitants make no opposition, that somebody "without controlling au- thority" assigns to British commissioners a share in the cus- toms neventie of Mexico, and promises, in the absence of the "tranquillity" he cannot secure, respect for British subjects what, under all these favourable circumstances, will have been gained ? Simply nothing at all. The first, and indeed the only, object which justifies the expedition—the security of British lives—will be as much endangered as ever. The loss of the ports will not compel hares to veto laws im- posing forced loans on Englishmen, while, by diminishing his revenue, it will greatly increase his temptation to make those demands more onerous. Marquez will torture, Juarez will plunder, and powerful brigands will burn foreigners with the same ferocity and the same exemption from punish- ment. If, under plea of compensation, we absorb all the customs revenue, the evil will only be intensified, the Govern- ment being still more sharply stung by its poverty into crime, and the people still further irritated against the ap- parent source of fresh misforttuies. Nor, if the programme is carried out, is it at all certain that the second object of the expedition will be secured. The customs revenue may be stopped altogether. Marquez is doing his best to render trade impossible, and, for aught the shipping can do, may bring the traffic to a close by barring the roads. Juarez, on the other hand, true to his policy of stealing the fleece instead of killing the sheep, may levy interior duties, or continue his, forced loans on merchants till trade is a losing speculation. Will the British Government put up with that quiet defeat of the objects for which it has sent out an ex- pedition? or does it perchance put trust in the piece of paper which the savage, who calls himself President, will be so happy to sign ? As a matter of fact, if the expedition fails- thro ugh Mexican treachery—the programme must be ex- tended, if only so far as to secure the fulfilment of the new con- vention. Great nations cannot send fleets across the world to be laughed at by savages ; and if we put up with a promise, the Emperor of the French will not, and we shall in the end be compelled, after enormous outlay, to sanction an intervention which might, and ought to have been, effected much more cheaply at first. A country like England, once compelled to resort to force, must employ it effectually, for objects and on a scale which shall justify by the results they produce the temporary evils the exertion of force must always entail. To send a fleet to collect the customs of three beggarly ports, and then not get them, will be a failure not more ridiculous than well deserved.
This, however, is but a part of the question. It is quite certain that no expedition not accompanied by an army can, in the present condition of Mexico, secure respect for persons and property in the interior. Even the repayment of the debt is doubtful.; but if it were as secure as it is questionable, it would not be sufficient of itself to justify any such exertion of force. It is the old and just policy of this country never to collect debts by force of arms, and we can see nothing in the circumstances of Mexico which should compel us for that end only to coerce her while we exonerate Spain. To ask one repudiating country to assist us in compelling another repudiating country to pay up, is an absurdity no diplomatic formula can excuse. To set a thief to catch a thief may be a wise, as it is certainly an immoral, proverb, but it is not a principle to which a civilized Government can, with any degree of safety, condescend. The unanimous press of England has not applauded the expedition because a British fleet may possibly prove a successful bumbailiff, dis- train for damages without resistance, and hand over captured furniture without charging commission. They approved it because they hoped that a great country occupied by a race who have been civilized, and who are therefore capable of being civilized again, was about to be released from the do- minion of brigands, and set free to recommence a course of orderly freedom and prosperity. Mexico for twenty years has been an opprobrium to the world, an exceptional scandal, justifying at any interval in that long* period the interven- tion it is usually the duty of England to denounce. We need not say that as a rule we hold the "restoration of order" a mischievous and illusory plea for the employment of foreign arms. It is not our duty to interfere in America. It is not our duty to interfere in the Neapolitan provinces. If. Mexico were agitated by civil war, or divided by polt- tiral parties, if there were a fair chance that any Govern- ment, however opposed to our notions, Could emerge from the confusion, it would not be our duty to inter- fere even in Mexico. But there is no civil war, no contest of political parties, no possibility, so far as human eye can perceive, of any termination to the existing anarchy,. The barbarous element in Mexicali society, savages like Juarez, and men without the excuse of a red shin like Marquez, have got to the top, and as we should have a right to preserve Turkey from being overwhelmed by a Turcoman horde, so we have a right to release Mexico from being overwhelmed by brigands. It is always right to do right, and anybody who believes that to restore a civilization which has been overact, like that of Mexico, is an unrighteous act, is a doctrinaire who prefers theories in themselves to the benefit of humanity which is their end. Lord Russell argues that nobody asks for us, as if men in the grasp of brigands usually asked their friends there and then to take those brigands before the tribunal; but we believe the assertion is incorrect. A very strong party, including the great majority of property- holders, have, we believe, repeatedly, though privately, asked for a Spanish protectorate, and would accept the protectorate of Satan if they could be rid thereby of the worse pro- tectorate of Marquez. But, argues the Foreign Secretary, well aware of the weak- ness of his international theory, we cannot restore order in Mexico; a " very large force would be insufficient to re-esta- blish tranquillity." Would it? Then on what conceivable pre- tence does the British Government send a small one to obtain the "security of persons and property," to which a restored tranquillity is indispensable P What should make Mexico more difficult to tranquillize than Upper India, where 12,000 Europeans re-established political order before the arrival of reinforcements ? We do not say that order can be established without Mexican assistance, but there is no want of that. Neither Juarez nor Marquez has the slightest difficulty in raising troops, the trouble is to keep them in discipline, and M. Doblado has effected even that. We believe firmly that any competent Mexican—and there is, apparently, we such man now governing Guanaxuato—or Spaniard, or French- man, with 10,000 Europeans as a nucleus, and the control of the revenue, would in six months gather, organize, and employ a native army large enough to re-establish profound order, and strong enough on our departure to maintain the supremacy of any reasonably decent Government. It is no proof because the exist- ing army, unpaid, with brigands for officers, and murderers for generals, accustomed to mutiny, and ordered to plunder, is inefficient, that no means of restoring social order exist in Mexico. Doubtless if the President were a Spaniard, and the army were permanently gathered round a Spanish brigade, relieved every four years, the task would be much easier, as it is easier to govern a ship with marines on board than a ship without them. But it is possible, if the Mexicans insist on that alternative, to dispense with foreign aid. Anarchy, even when as complete as that of Mexico, is never per- manent, because the men who produce it are just the men who can be paid and flogged into effective soldiers. All that is required is the momentary interference, which, by releasing the revenue from brigands, shall give some leader the means of restoring the social machinery. We have grievously misread the recent history of Mexico if M. Doblado, with his Mexican army and body-guard of the skilled ruffians who call themselves "Knights of the Golden Circle," is not about to try this very experiment, and esta- blish, by one and the same blow, order and slavery in the land. The resources of the country are amply sufficient to pay for a small army, and we could, we firmly believe, without serious expense and without diminishing our home force, in less than two years re-establish in Mexico an order suffi- cient to allow the country to develop itself, to restore civili- zation, and to protect the Gulf States finally from becoming the base of a great slave empire. Instead of that, we are, it appears, to employ equal forces, at greater outlay, solely to collect a debt which cannot now be repaid to the ruined families who lent the money. We have said that Earl Russell's letter may possibly con- ceal a much wider design. The British Government does not answer for that of Spain, and may not intend to interfere with Spanish proceedings. In that ease the task to be per- formed may yet be accomplished. If the property-holders are willing to accept Spain, or the Protectorate of Spain, and O'Donnell will give a guarantee against slavery, there can be no possible objection to that solution. Spain, with a thousand faults, can govern, and her people are not in any true sense of the word foreigners in Mexico. She can pro- bably hold her own against the North, and can certainly hold it against the South, and may succeed in establishing at least as complete an order as the Portuguese have established in Brazil. Only, in that case, we fail to perceive why England should send out an expedition to secure results which could be secured equally well by our ambassador in Madrid.
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