TOPICS OF THE DAY.
ENGLAND AND BELGIUM.
THERE is a little cloud in the European sky just now, as yet no bigger than a man's hand, but none the less deserving observation. Our statesmen are all living in a sort of paradisaical dream of peace, cutting down naval expenses, reducing regiments, reforming churches, releasing Fenians, as if war could never break out again, and all the while it is in the power of one man to plunge us into a tremendous conflict, and that one is more than half inclined to do it. We do not pretend to the smallest modicum of private information upon the relations between Francs and Belgium, we can hardly explain satisfactorily the strength of our own apprehension upon the subject, but still we cannot overcome an impression that danger, serious danger, is gathering there. The disagreeable discussion about the right of Belgium to keep her railways in her own hands has evidently passed into the shape of informal negotiations, which are believed on all hands to be gradually embittering the relations between the two countries. The Government of Belgium would, it was hoped, while retaining its right of prohibiting such railway sales, waive its objections to the particular sale of the Luxemburg Railway to the Great Eastern of France. It has clearly not done so, or we should have had a flood of articles in the semi-official papers complimenting Belgium on her " moderation " and "good sense," and intimating that after all, and in spite of Prussia, France was somebody in the world, and when her amour propre was wounded Europe trembled. There has been nothing of all that. On the contrary, the inspired papers now demand a revolution in .Belgium! It is impossible, they say, that there should be accord between the two countries while Belgium is governed by an electorate of only one-tenth its population. There must be universal suffrage, and M. Frere-Orban, who has shown such "suspiciousness" of France, must be dismissed as a satisfaction to French sincerity and pride. A convention must be made to control railway intercommunication, and the Government of Belgium, above all, must not buy up the Luxemburg railways. And then the regular old menacing complaint, which so worried Lord Clarendon at the Conference of Paris, is once more brought forward, with an irritating and irritated persistency of insistence. Belgium is a nest of revolutionists. It protects Rochefort and La Lanterns. Its own press is "incendiary." Regicides gather there, and enemies of society like the students who met at Liege, and wanted in the name of all the virtues to abolish Heaven. Prussia, so far from objecting, ought to aid in the good work of putting down such a state, and teaching it to be an orderly, that is, a dependent, little power. This is the language of the Press, and simultaneously with it the French Minister in Brussels and the Belgian Minister in Paris are summoned home "to consult," and their return is, on one pretext or another, delayed. All this would not matter so much, were there not a war party in France, headed by one of the Emperor's most powerful supporters,—Marshal Niel, Minister at War, who has perfected the Army organization ; and were not the situation of France in regard to the guaranteeing Powers so very exceptional. Five Powers in 1831 guaranteed by formal treaty the perpetual independence and neutrality of the Belgian State, and in 1838 Holland acceded to the agreement. Of these, France appears now disposed to assert that Belgium in prohibiting railway fusions, in protecting hostile pamphleteers, and in supporting a Ministry suspicious to France but friendly to Prussia, is violating that moral as well as material neutrality which is her condition of independence. She is becoming, as the Pays, for instance, is so fond of repeating, an outwork of Germany, instead of a bulwark against Germany. France therefore feels herself absolved from the guarantee, and who is to uphold it ? Prussia? That is precisely what the war party desire, a quarrel with Prussia for an adequate stake, the French provinces of Belgium and the Rhine. Russia ? Napoleon expects her to act with Prussia, and has made all his efforts at new combinations contingent on that expectation. Austria ? It is difficult to believe that the defeated Saxon who now governs Austria would lose such a chance of paying off old scores, and re-establishing the position of the Hapsburgs in Germany—a position they have given up with much the same resignation as a squire gives up his position in the county. Holland Holland is not strong enough, and if it were, it is by no means clear that Holland is friendly to Belgium, or that she would decline a share of the spoil. Her King offered to sell Luxemburg, and her people feel severely the cramping influence of their narrow territory, with its heavy taxation. There remains England, and it is to the position of England that we wish to call attention. U she is firm in her alliance with Belgium, all is safe, for it is scarcely conceivable that Napoleon, cautious as he is, if not far-sighted, would engage in a combat a outrance with Germany and England combined. The odds would be too heavy, the chances of a general combination of Europe against him too numerous, the stake, in truth, too big for a man not utterly desperate to play. If, therefore, the Emperor of the French is moving in this direction,—a movement which we do not pretend to affirm, but which many circumstances conspire to make possible,—it must be because he has reason to believe, or thinks he has reason to believe, that Great Britain would not comply with a Belgian demand for aid, that the whole work would be left to North Germany and the Continental Powers. He either deems England indifferent., or considers that our policy for the time is fixed,—to abstain from war unless directly menaced or attacked.
Is this our policy, or not? If it is not, then we are acting very foolishly in suffering Napoleon to believe it is. It is a repetition of the old blunder with respect to the Czar Nicholas. We then talked peace so loudly, that he at last believed the haughtiest nation in Europe would return thanks for blows, that we had forgotten how to fight, and under that belief pressed on till retreat had become impossible either for him or for us. Trusting in English indifference, the Emperor of the French might easily take steps from which it would be impossible to recede without humiliation, but which he would never have taken had he but understood the latent feeling of Great Britain. It is by no means impossible that our present mood of utter indifference to Continental events may lead him once more into an error which he has committed several times,—in the beginning of the Mexican Expedition, in the Polish affair, and twice or thrice in the American war,—the mistake of confusing the " opinion " of a class with real popular feeling. No mistake could be so disastrous, and if there is any reality in this Belgian squabble, we are making it. We are precipitating a war by an apparent resolution never to engage in it. Of course, if the resolution is real, we are acting sensibly, though very selfishly ; but we distrust that assumption. Nobody ever can tell what the British people will think about a challenge to battle till the challenge is given, for nobody till then can compel them to understand the question at stake. Sometimes they will not fight even then, as was the case with regard both to the affair of the Charles et George and the annexation of Savoy, and sometimes they will take a Minister's head for hesitating to fight. In this case, were we Manchester men, we should distrust them greatly. The more they look into the Belgian claim to assistance, the less they will like to disregard it. The words of the guarantee are clear and explicit, and bind us not to Europe, but to Belgium, and have been so interpreted for thirty-eight years by statesmen of all parties, even by Lord Stanley, who once declared that the one real guarantee England had ever given was given on behalf of Belgium. We say nothing of the danger in which our own interests might be placed by such an extension of French territory, for did the contingency occur, we should hear enough, and to spare, of that very doubtful point, but confine ourselves to the one argument which will come home to the popular mind. In deserting Belgium, if she implores our assistance, we shall be breaking a clear and recognized pledge, acted on for thirty-eight years, because it is highly inconvenient to go to war, or, as it will be more popularly put, because we are afraid of France. Any one who reckons confidently, under those circumstances, on the humility or the patiencceof the British people does not understand them, and it is towards those circumstances that we drift.
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