13 NOVEMBER 1852, Page 12

FOREIGN POLICY OF THE LIBERAL PARTY.

A FORTNIGHT since, we drew attention to various indications in the declarations of leading politicians, in special measures of acknowledged importance, and in physical and social phmnomena not of man's contrivance and beyond his control, of a possible and probable union of the Liberal party in England on the question of Representative Reform. Mr. Macaulay has since, at Edin- burgh, lent the sanction of his authority and the lustre of his elo- quence to this anticipation ; and, limited as he has shown himself in many points to the principles and the system of 1832, he yet foresees the necessity of extending electoral functions to a larger number of the population, and is prepared to embark his experi- ence and reputation in a practical measure for effecting this object. But agreement upon one measure, however important, will not make a political party ; still less will it make a party to assume the government of the empire with the confidence and good-will of the people. Our affairs are so complex, our relations with other countries so extended and so necessary, that no party is fit to aspire to office, even if its domestic programme be complete, un- leas it addi to this fixed principles of policy with respect to foreign

countries, and is identified in the minds of the people with the power and prestige of England abroad, as well as with her peace and prosperity at home. It is not our intention to lay down definitively the particular po- licy which it is for the interest and honour of England to pursue, in any possible contingency, towards the various countries to which she is related more or less intimately ; any more than we ventured to anticipate the programme of representative reform upon which the Liberal party might see good to unite its efforts. All we say is, that indications are patent of an approaching crisis when a fixed foreign policy must form an essential item of the programme of any politi- cal party that aspires to more than the occasional functions of a sec- tion of Opposition. Besides its practical benefit, Free-trade has brought ideas in its train ; it owes its success quite as much to scientific demonstration and a sense of right, as it did to the prac- tical evils which its counter-system inflicted on the consumers of this country. Among those ideas, the most striking is the con- viction that the various productive powers of various localities and various races of men are means providentially furnished to counteract the selfish 'and isolating tendencies of particular com- munities, to do away with local and sectional prejudices, and to link the whole human race in one bond of mutual benefit and im- provement. It would have been an inevitable result of Free- trade by itself, that the nation which adopted it should become

more cosmopolitan in its sympathies, should gradually learn to look upon the welfare of all mankind as identical with its own—

upon humanity as one great organic whole none of whose mem-

bers could softer or be in bondage without the evil spreading over the whole body and making i .W felt to the most distant extremi- ties. The solidarite of peoples was the moral complement of free commercial intercourse. But the revolutions of 1848 came to give a sudden impetus to the development of this feeling in England. From the Danube to the Baltic, from the Gulf of Venice to the British Channel, Europe rose to assert a right to self-govern. ment, which could not fail to inlist and did actually inlist the warmest sympathies of the great majority of Englishmen. And since that period the interest taken in foreign polities, and the eagerness to fix the influence which England had the right and was under the duty to exert upon them, has been quite a new element in our popular discussions. Es- pecially since Hand Italy fell again crushed and bleeding beneath the hoofulor ArlYntria has there been a strong feeling among us that our country was somehow or other made to cut a pitiful figure, and to play a selfish and contemptible part, if not worse, amid the movements of the European civilization. Many among us felt that our noble position had not been given us merely to as- sert our indifference to what passed out of our own island, and that our proper place was in the vanguard of freedom, and not, among the hucksters and camp-followers striving to turn a dirty penny from the struggles and sufferings of our brethren. Many of us felt that sooner or later the struggle would come home to ourselves, and that our only choice really was whether we chose to meet the assaults of despotism away from home or on our own coasts. Offi- cial men and capitalists hung about the national will like the fabled Old Man of the Sea about Sinbad. Had it not been for them, " the inviolate island of the brave and free " had not stood an idle spec- tator of that tragical human drama whose first act has closed so mournfUlly. That is over now ; but the feeling of interest in foreign politics, and the Conviction that England's duty is not to stand by and gaze in stupid astonishment and stupider panic, has not gone by, but remains as a fact of which future party. organizations must take cognizance. And what has happened since has not tended to lessen this feeling and this conviction. France has fallen under the uncontrolled caprice of one man, whose ambition and fanati- cism make him naturally an object of uneasy suspicion to his neighbours, especially to those neighbours whose triumph over the impersonation of his one idea still notoriously rankles in his mind. The temper of the Irish and English Ultramontane Catholics lays them open to foreign intrigues more than they have been since the days of Elizabeth ; and sentiments of extreme hostility to Eng- land, her government and her religion, are the surest passport to their favour. States in whose independence England has the strongest interest are threatened with absorption or control. The Continent is menaced with the overwhelming supremacy and dic- tation of the Great Powers, England excluded. A vast military force, to which the armies of the Roman empire in its paleeiPst days were but a guard of honour, sways Continental Europe with no decency of disguise. Let but a spark fall, and a train is laid that will burst up in a conflagration such as Europe has never yet seen ; and this accident depends perhaps more entirely than it ever yet has done on the tempers and schemes of less than half-a- dozen men. All the means which an advanced civilization has accumulated For the comfort and happiness of mankind would be- come in a moment instruments of terrific power wielded for dia- bolical purposes. Turning from Europe, the horizon is clouded East and West. Vast ambitions and gigantic schemes of con- quest are looming there too. Cuba, Constantinople, Egypt, Japan, are at present, or may immediately become, points on which all the forces of the civilized world will be in angry and internecine collision. Already this summer we have ourselves been in immi- nent danger of a serious quarrel with America—if, indeed, as the Queen's Speech makes us doubt, the danger be yet over. And to add to the uneasiness with which this troubled aspect abroad must affect every rational person, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in the hands of a man whose sympathies and talents 'are equally mistrusted by the great mass of his countrymen.

This is a combination of circumstances which seems to us to de- mand that any party aspiring to govern this country should be prepared with a Foreign Policy that may at once carry with it the convictions and sympathies of the people, and reassure them that England's captains are equal to the storm they may have to en- counter. One thing is quite certain—that a party which did put forth a programme of foreign policy answering this description might reckon upon enthusiastic support. Whether the 'party calling itself Liberal will do so, seems uncertain. The only indi- cations of vitality they have hitherto given have reference wholly to domestic questions, which just now are by no means so impor- tant as those relating to our action abroad. Indeed, the very Free- trade, upon which Liberal politicians not unnaturally concentrated their interest during the late elections, is itself inextricably in- volved with questions of foreign policy.

Perhaps, what the Liberal party will do in this matter depends on what one of its sections will do. Is Manchester prepared to rise into statesmanship ? or will it still complain with Mr. Bright, that statesmanship is denied it, and in every act and speech go on confirming the opinion the wise man proclaimed of old, " How shall they whose talk is of oxen know wisdom ? " When Lord Derby goes down on his knees and confesses to Father Cobden that he has done those things which he ought not to have done, and has left undone these which he ought to have done,- will Father Cobden also don the white sheet and the penitential taper, and acknowledge that he too has erred ? Is it not an error quite as fatal as any Lord Derby has committed, and not qnite as ex- cusable, to have insisted for years on leaving this island at the mercy of any unscrupulous adventurer or any revengeful des- pot, because defence occasions money-outlay ? An • honest delu- sion, doubtless, was originally at the bottom of this perverse opin- ion, arising out of mere ignorance or not unnatural onesidedness ; but to have maintained, it in the face of overwhelming facts with shameless consistency—this gives it a darker shade, and deserves a harsher name. Is Mr. Cobden-prepared to swallow the dose he so heartily recommends to Lord Derby, and to qualify for office by disgorging all his recorded disqualifications ? If not, and he can still carry his friends along with him, and still go on obstructing and carping at, instead of lending his eminent practical and finan- cial talent to help on the great and essential work of rendering this island inviolate, and of restoring to England her proper ,inila- ence in the world's councils, the sooner the Liberal party formally resign all pretension to office, the better for themselves and the country. For they may depend upon it, that with the experience of the last five years, the country will not bestow its confidence on any public nien who are only anxious to accumulate wealth at the expense of all that makes wealth for a land desirable, or who, in their fanatical devotion to the dogma of Free-trade include French soldiers among articles to be admitted free of duty: